I decided the next day that I should take her to the vet.  Once before she’d gotten the same way, and I’d attributed it to all the geranium leaves she’d munched on as just when I was going to call the vet, she was back to her old self.  As you recall from my earlier post, my Roman took ill in a similar fashion. Seeming to waste away and have no energy, though he vomited when he ate. He was at death’s door, and yet the medication – antibiotics and steroids – produced a full recovery. Or so it seemed. So, I wasn’t in a total panic. Concerned, yes. Sad even. But not hopeless. I didn’t plan to cancel my flight/weekend trip to visit my folks until after my appointment.

All that changed when I took her the Verse Emergency Vet Hospital. I’d given her an appetite stimulant that had been prescribed for Roman (I know, not smart), and when it had no effect, I gave her a little more. Well, that had an effect. She began convulsively vomiting and then shitting in an obvious attempt to rid herself of it. So with her panting and drooling, and shrieking in terror, I put her in her carrier and called a car service. 20 minutes later we arrived around 2AM.  My feelings about what transpired next can be split between those experienced in the moment, and those after the fact.

They asked me to stay in the waiting room while they checked her vitals. I was the only one in that room. I could hear here crying, and after 10-12 minutes (which felt like an hour), I asked couldn’t I be with her to comfort her? An impatient receptionist huffed and puffed and said fine, putting me in an exam room. Soon Gigi was brought in, hysterical, and I learned she’d not yet been looked at as there were “25 other patients” (this information shared in the same unfriendly tone as if I were being unreasonable). It occurred to me that all the other owners/caretakers must’ve asked the same thing since no one else had been in the waiting room. I calmed Gigi down as best I could but she was in a full-blown panic attack. She’s always been this way and its one of the reasons I loathe having to take her anywhere. Once, when my apartment was being sprayed for bed bugs, I’d taken her and Roman up to a neighbor’s apartment (who was not home, and had no pets), and while I expected her not to take well to it, I did not expect her to fly out the window, run down the fire escape, and into my apartment. Twice. The second time, burrowing herself into the farthest corner in her attempt to hide from me.

My feelings after the “visit” to VERG Veterinary Emergency and Referral Group? Pirates of the soul, that’s what they are, those places. Parasitically amenable to the capitalist system.

Eventually blood work was done, and the outcome was dire. Very high white blood cell counts, low red blood cells, “severe anemia”, all signs of lymphoma and/or lukemia. The young resident vet insisted I get out of my chair where I was holding Gigi who was again burrowed into the corner of the room (the only thing that would calm her) to go over it. She needed to be admitted for a blood transfusion, to stay for observation for 1-3 nites, to get an ultrasound, and the list went on. Gigi was hysterical again, shrieking and trying to burrow into another corner, and I could hardly focus on what he was saying. He seemed to not even know she was there.  How much I asked? He wouldn’t even provide a ballpark figure. Instead, he leaves and sends in the vet tech, a sweet young woman, who gives me the bill:  $3,500-$5,500. Mind you, I’d already paid $442. which they, OF COURSE, insisted on processing immediately. I told her I couldn’t afford this and needed to process it all (meaning, do my own research, and discuss with my regular vet).  She left and came back with a reduced bill – as if it was printed alongside the first as a matter of protocol. $2,500-$3,400. I still can’t afford that, I replied. There was NO WAY IN HELL I was going to leave her alone there overnight. PERIOD. Of course no one told me the blood transfusion, which takes 4 hours, only works for a couple of months, if it works at all. And the resident vet didn’t want to hear about her prior bout of illness, etc. So, I insisted they give her the subcutaneous liquids, and the anti-nasaeous injection since I’d paid for it, and took her home. Before I did, the vet tech very quietly concurred I should talk to my vet about how to care for her at home, non-invasively, and to ask him for steroids. Something the vet there hadn’t even offered, and could’ve – should’ve, I learned later – given her via injection.

Healers answer a calling, doctors pursue a career. This is why our health care system is fucked.  Granted, the latter doesn’t preclude true caring, I know, but it treats medicine (no pun intended) like all other professions, which is wrong. My vet has not called me back after the dire results of Gigi’s blood work and I have no idea how he can explain not having 5-10 minutes to give to what is obviously a very serious near life-death situation for a patient of his (she has been there before). Is it because I cancelled my appointment after going to the emergency hospital? It was a sound and practical decision. The blood work was done, her vitals were taken, she’s been examined. Let’s deal with the “severe anemia” likely due to lukemia/lymphoma, and discuss the way to treat her that’s no invasive. I’ve already done the research and know steroids and antibiotics are likely the way to go. If she’ll tolerate them. So odd again that its exactly what Roman was treated with. Maybe its just their old age, and the fact that those symptoms are common signs of illness, and infection a common cause? I don’t know but steroids do seem to help a variety of conditions. I do my research obsessively – like I learned from reading a cat-health related thread that the blood infusions only last a few months, which the hospital vet (a very young man, btw, no doubt doing his residency) didn’t care to mention. And that’s part of the problem. This doesn’t enter into the discussion because financially-driven protocols and text book diagnoses determine treatment. Not the particulars and peculiars of an individual. Sure they ask for some history but they really don’t hear it, the tests say it all.

UPDATE: My vet never received the fax from the hospital, and so after follow-up there, he put her on steroids and potassium supplements. The last few days have been a roller coaster ride of hope and then fear, sadness and joy, as she hangs on, with moments of her old self (she briefly kneaded my stomach the other nite, for example, and cleans herself still) punctuating what feels otherwise like a withdrawal and utter sense of fatigue on her part. I have cried and tried to prepare for her passing but as I watch her sit on the folded towel I put on the window sill facing my backyard, taking in the breeze that rustles through the still green leaves of the giant magnolia tree, I still hold onto hope….

(Also, because I want to make some extra bank as one of my courses at SVA was cancelled this semester due to low enrollment. While I wasn’t thrilled, I must say its nice to get a break from lecturing six hours in a row, which has been my Thursdays for a long time now. Not a big deal, but being free at 3PM and in the city is rare for me and I’m enjoying it.)

Something so engaging and real about being on the sidewalk meeting and talking to all kinds of people, eye to eye…SO glad i did it:) And was so happy to have my neighbor-longtime friend hang with me all day, from beginning to end, helping me set up and take down! How fucking sweet is that?! AM SO GRATEFUL. Of course I kept trying to foist stuff on her, lol, in gratitude – and I had great stuff out there, from Gunne Sax to Leslie Fay to Ungaro, with lots of great 1960s-70s stuff, which she loves. But she only took a couple things. I also think she enjoyed it too, the human side of it reminding her of her retail/record store days in San Francisco in the early 1990s.

I was surprised how little people knew about what they were looking at. I thought with all the young blood in Greenpoint and the popularity of all things “vintage” there’d be more cultivated tastes out there. My biggest sale, who also has an Etsy shop, being an exception. Regardless, the fact that people just bought things because they liked them was also cool!

I do though wonder if I’ve just acquired more expertise than I realize (to justify my endless thrifting, no doubt), or if there’s no desire for expertise anymore as “vintage” simply means “second-hand” now. Ie, its just all “old”. I’ve always taken it quite seriously thanks to gay male friends who schooled me back in the day (some cliches are true), but that’s when very few did the vintage thing, and everyone had a niche.

Anyway, I’ll be uploading new stuff on romanlovesgigi (my Etsy shop again soon), and perhaps doing more street sales (next time with biz cards for my shop), so stay tuned!

(Btw, if you didn’t catch my show, From the Ruins…, it got great reviews, meaty thoughtful ones, in the New Yorker, artforum.com, Time Out New York, the Brooklyn Rail, PAPER, and observer.com so Google that shit! Pretty damn grateful for that still too!!! And I’m excited to be working on some other projects! this amazing Fall weather on the east coast, and look out for the giant red moon Sunday nite!!)

some super quick pics from the iphone…(I am laughing that I threw in curlers I never used and nail polish: classy, lol!)

It occurred to me that this image/still of Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver, 1976, did for the 20th century what Manet’s Olympia, 1863, did for the 19th: confront society with its ultimate sham-muse; the idealized whore. Or courtesan no-more. Manet did it by attacking art history’s tradition of the reclining nude, and showing what a sham all that allegorical pretense really was.
Édouard Manet’s Olympia, 1863

Paul Schrader’s construction of Iris, a 12-year junkie old prostitute too young to be jaded – so aptly called the Shirley Temple of the 1970s – does much the same, shorning her of her innocence (one must be an adult to consent, right?) in order to skewer sexual mores. Both managed to titillate and shock through resolutely abject visions, and yet both succeeded in their bids for fame  . Manet has become part of the canon, and Taxi Driver is undoubtably a classic as well. Both also came from repressed families. Here’s some excerpts from an interview with Schrader who talks about this, along with the film:

“I had no intention of being involved in the motion-picture business; I backed into it. It began when I was at Calvin College, a seminary in Michigan. I became interested in movies because they were not allowed. This was the era of The Seventh Seal and La Strada, and I saw that movies could fit into the religious structure of the school and provide a bridge between my religious training and the forbidden world. Movies were forbidden in our church by a synodical decree of 1928 which defined them as a “worldly amusement,” along with card-playing, dancing, smoking, drinking, and so on. I snuck off to see my first movie, The Absent-Minded Professor, which I’d been blackmailed into seeing by watching The Mickey Mouse Club.

When I was in New York, I was feeling particularly blue in a bar at around three A.M. I noticed a girl and ended up picking her up. I should have been forewarned when she was so easy to pick up; I’m very bad at it. The only reason I tried it that night is that I was so drunk. I was shocked by my success until we got back to my hotel and I realized that she was: (1) a hooker; (2) under age; and (3) a junkie. Well, at the end of the night I sent Marty a note saying: “Iris is in my room. We’re having breakfast at nine. Will you please join us?” So we came down, Marty came down, and a lot of the character of Iris was rewritten from this girl who had a concentration span of about twenty seconds. Her name was Garth.”

Manet’s Olympia (a common name for prostitutes at the time, btw) was modeled by Victorine Meurent, an artist who modeled for many of Paris’s demimonde. Meurent though, was much younger, and poorer than her aristocratic male “peers”. The story of Schrader with Garth/Iris is much the same in terms of the exploitive older male exercising his prerogative. Which is exactly what both call attention to, if unwittingly,as they do implicate themselves I think, consciously or otherwise. Though as the Guardian piece linked above makes clear, the abjection still resides in the woman:

“But while Meurent’s contribution was recognised by Manet’s friends, her willingness to pose naked made her a notorious figure to the general public, undermining her hopes of being taken seriously.”

Posing nude made her a prostitute for all intents and purposes then, anyway.  Interestingly, it didn’t seem to deter her from wanting to continue her pursuit of painting anymore than it did Foster with acting. The later even talks about how proud she is to have been part of Taxi Driver. 

In 1932 Paul Valéry wrote of Olympia, “She bears dreams of all the primitive barbarism and animal ritual hidden and preserved in the customs and practices of urban prostitution”, which applies just as well to Iris.

In the end, Manet and Schrader send-ups to the notion of the ideal “whore” underscore all this projected fantasy. That, and the fact that what is particularly abject exists because there is such demand. Something to mull over more, I think…

So $640. later, I leave with faith and antibiotics.  After a week of watching my beloved boy go from his mister happy, rambunctious self  – a cat who used to wolf his food down, and eat nearly anything – now barely manage a lick here and there, I need the hope. The anti-nausea shot and subcutaneous fluids seem to help, he eats a little, and drinks, and gets a little burst of his old energy. Sick with a summer cold, I go to sleep feeling a little less worried and sad only to wake and find all our effort vomited up in small glistening heaps strewn across the floor.  I start to wonder why he’s on antibiotics as the bacteria test supposedly came out clear according to the doctor’s follow-up call. And while I know that supposedly this type of antibiotic can reduce inflammation – the central issue here, as Roman’s general diagnosis is IBD, evidenced by chronic diarrhea – I still wonder if its benefit outweigh the negatives as antibiotics increase nausea and diarrhea. And the outcome of the fancy expensive test I did consent to was, as I went in there expecting, that steroids are the next step, according to that update as well.

I call the vet’s office, and as they did a few weeks back, when my Gigi got poisoned – or so it appeared – by eating some of my geranium plant, they immediately suggest going to an emergency vet. I don’t understand this new protocol, although given how little I use their services, maybe this has been standard practice for a while. But to what end? Avoiding malpractice concerns, or for those visits that will prove less lucrative/worthy of their time.  It set me off to hear it again. No, I declared. I want to talk to my vet who just treated my animal, discuss these questions, and get him in there again for another round of fluids and anti-nauseous shot. And pick up the cortisone/steroids. HE NEEDS TO EAT, and you should be doing the follow-up.  My nerves are frayed. We make an appointment for the next day. I spend another nite entreating him every 15-20 minutes to eat.  Returning to his little bed over and over again with a new, perhaps more enticing option of cat food to no avail.  Following him around when he does move, doing more of the same, creating a veritable buffet of bowls on the kitchen floor.

I take him in the next day, apologize to the receptionist for being a bitch, we have a laugh, and another vet, his wife, co-owner of the practice, skims Roman’s file says, misses a couple of things, calls him a she, and perfunctorily tells me I really ought to do the ultrasound – the insanely expensive test  to rule out the cancer. I say, you think so? Pretending to be sincere, yet also falling prey, as I tend to, to her guilt tactics. She has that “we’re just telling you what’s best for your pet’s health” tone that nearly all vets do, and it too is both false and yet sincere. She called him “bubula”, which was pretty sweet but I also heard her get nasty with an underling. Another $175.

The good news is, at the moment, he’s stabilized, and seeing that grin as he bounced on the bed to greet me, obviously feeling much closer to his old self than he had for a while, was a heart-bursting moment. But its band-aid therapy. And I’l take it, with deep gratitude, as long as he feels well. I will not watch him waste away though, so when this fails, I will have to face the music, and get that vet over to put him down at home.

Dealing with all of this has had me thinking a lot about how we deal with aging and illness in this culture as well as my ongoing distrust for doctors of any kind in the current system.  Also, after my dad suffered a major setback recently, a fall and concussion that involved over a week of Intensive Care, and the further impediment of his mobility. Which for a man of 83 who has had Multiple Sclerosis  for 40 years, is pretty serious. The difference between his living at home, as he’s done, under my mother’s care, or going into a home. These choices, or the lack thereof, just reveals the dysfunction relationship our culture has to life, death, community, and suffering.

As my 50th birthday creeps up on me, I keep thinking I need to think hard about how I’m going to experience being a caregiver, and eventually a patient. Weighing the agency I have in that against the fear of helplessness. I wrote about my vet experience in such tedious detail in part because I simply needed to share it, but also because we tend to avoid the details, not because they’re tedious but because therein lies so much of the isolation and pain.  Several times during the course of writing this post,  I’ve been interrupted by my Roman who is clearly feeling more energetic, and every time, I stop to engage him. My instinct is to do everything I possibly can to minimize his suffering and perk up his spirits. That’s the choice I’ve made for how I’m going to deal with his demise despite what the vets might say. But the doubt, the worry, the guilt and pressure are exhausting.  Shouldn’t “medical care” seek to accommodate and alleviate stress, rather than exacerbate it? All that said, my boy is back to his old self, a little more rickety, and my vet helped make that happen. Maybe compassion attracts compassion?

So that led to me this short documentary, where I discovered he’s not only still alive and kickin’, but just produced a new record with two avid young musician fans, white boys, AKA “the sticks” (attached within link via soundcloud). As in Ironing Board Sam & the Sticks. Yes, pretty fucking funny name. Also awkward. Let’s just hope he gets paid. We can all help by listening and coughing up, ourselves. I’m just as guilty as anyone else. How do you refuse free? Its hard. I felt guilty for watching the doc on vimeo. We can all do better, esp. those of us who empathize. Am I right?

Regardless, I’m smitten with Ironing Board Sam’s electrifying gritty sound. Makes me wanna bounce! I so wish I could’ve lived in the era when people went out to dance practiced styles. I’ve often fantasized about being a professional dancer, the love of, along with singing, coming from my dad. He taught me the box step when I was about 5. My little feet placed on top of his as we moved across a sea of oriental rug. How cute is that? My daddy was the swinging-ist. 

Clearly, true capitalists know better than to alienate or judge consumers, and keep morals out of the transaction. Its the ideologues who’ve got an agenda, and usually a righteous mission to justify it, one with an absolutist vision – insert bible thumpers here – that bring morality into the equation – insert corporate right-wingers, religious zealots, and all the other wealthy nutjobs whose strings are being played by a cold-calculating capitalist here. So believe me, I’m very cynical and kind of ick-ed out by how mainstream so many gay and straight folks I know have become, in large part as they chose to participate in that get married, buy a house/apartment, bear offspring, bourgeois nuclear family thing.

BUT there’s a spectrum of POVs, and its always taken those working from within and without the system to change it, I think. Ever heard of the Trojan Horse? Celebrating the supreme court’s ruling – a victory for civil rights!!!! – that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right, and on the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, is a beautiful thing!!! Its one damn weekend, and we can still continue to advocate for #blacklivesmatter, #abortionrights, etc. because in no way should what happened in Charleston, SC, be forgotten, nor should the protests, of which i’ve been part of, stop.

And maybe there’s an unexamined bias in some of these anti-pride critiques that stems from an Amerocentric (not a word, but should be) perspective that forecloses what Pride parades and rainbow flags mean to the rest of the world? Its easy to forget the utter bravery, the warrior-like resolve, required to carry that flag in places where homosexuality is still a crime.  Punishable by death. Places where people boldly and heroically risk their LIVES to be out and proud. As those at Stonewall once did. I was so touched, for example,  to see a friend, a longterm survivor of AIDS march today with veterans of the latter, though it was a pic of a Ugandan man striding down a dirt road, wrapped in a long rainbow cloth tied at his waist, that brought me to tears. Don’t forget Uganda just passed the most draconian anti-gay legislation, and despite the state sanctioned violence this man’s action could provoke, he marched anyway. So its important to remember rainbow flags aren’t just co-opted signs of capitalist-assimilation for everyone on the planet. For some, it represents solidarity with an identity so radical its met with murderous hatred. In Istanbul, parade goers were attacked by police with rubber bullets for fuck’s sake.

None of this is to suggest everyone who is gay, queer-identified, or allied with civil rights, should wave a rainbow flag around, but to say there’s no need to piss all over someone else’s celebration. Pride 2015, especially here in NYC, was momentous, and while I was not able to partake ( I’ve been hosting Turner-Prize nominated artists, Jane and Louise Wilson all weekend, in conjunction with a screening/talk they did for my show, From the Ruins…), I was there in spirit! Luckily, it seems the negative attitude didn’t register out in the streets.  But on Facebook I saw a LOT of it, and just felt the need to comment. As one friend counter-posted to all the ‘tude, and the implication that one can’t be Pro-Pride AND anti-assimilationist, “YES AND NO. We can feel both at once”, with the two following pics attached:

SO, I decided to watch Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, a film I’ve wanted to watch again.  I love Lynch’s work, and watching, I was reminded how much his aesthetic evokes David Cronenberg. And Viola! I’m not the only one!. Makes me wonder if there’s a female counterpart director – so insanely wrong that women directors are still so goddamn rare these days…But back to the film (for me, that is), which I highly recommend! Here’s a pic of the ever-fab Ann Miller channeling perfect 60s SoCal grooviness as Mrs. Coco Lenoix! I want to recreate that hair look somehow…

She will go on and on incoherently, and its the same spiel all these years, always peppered by comments about her husband being Jewish and the Catholic Poles all hating her, and stories of being robbed. She never appears to recognize me despite our many interactions, and tonite I told her three times, “yes, I know, I remember you telling me that”. But whenever I try to carry on a conversation by replying, she gets confused, or just uninterested.  Sometimes it makes the desire to walk away stronger, but I never do.

Tonite I made sure she drank a lot of water because it was so dangerously hot, and I got her to eat some rice. I also helped her hide her $, which she keeps separate from her pocketbook, promising I’d look for a pink blouse and a size pair 10 shoes tomorrow at her request (she often doesn’t like the selections I make, though,  having once turned her nose up at a pocketbook I got for her).  When I started to leave, she got very upset when I didn’t give her my number (because I didn’t have a pen), even asking a passer-by if he had one. I felt so bad, but I didn’t want to even try to dig out her pocketbook, find her throwaway phone and type in my digits because I knew she won’t remember to call (I gave it to her once before)…Lots of people walk past, some take pictures…I took a picture of her once, recently actually, but when she told me she didn’t like being photographed,  I deleted it immediately so there’s no pics to lillustrate or dramatize this post.  And I should’ve asked her first. The idea that people on the street don’t have the dignity or the right to consent is just so wrong.

More importantly, this old lady, batty as she is, should have other options than living in the street, or being institutionalized. Tonite she talked about Woodward, a mental hospital, and I couldn’t tell if she was referring to herself having stayed there or her husband. As mentioned, she’s very difficult to follow, though I try. She does know the difference – when I’m really listening and not, and clearly likes that I try to follow. No doubt she’s endured a lot of  patronizing, which upsets me almost as much as the young hipsters – who dominate the hood now – who treat her like the trash she often sits propped up near.

Its easy to convince yourself that because you can’t ultimately change a homeless person’s situation, and they’re everywhere, there’s no point in bothering, you won’t make a difference. Or to console yourself with donations made to orgs that help the homeless, which of course is great to do.  I sometimes am one of these people. But when I do stop and take the time, I’m reminded that you can help alleviate the desolation and isolation so many on the street suffer from – in silence – by acknowledging their humanity, and reaching out. I remain in awe of this woman’s ability to survive, and take solace in knowing there are some who take the time to show her the kindness she deserves.

Just click on this link to a live show from 2013, scroll through the images, and imagine your own jumpsuit line. The images gathered here, btw, are from one of usual my late nite hunts on Ebay/Etsy. If you’re tiny enough, the two actual garments shown here are, I think, still available online (Google search ’em). As always, ENJOY. Here’s a pic of the band, too.

And BTW, if you’re in NYC, check out the exhibition I curated, From the Ruins…info. here! I will write more about that another time, but its why I’ve been too busy, along with end of semester crap, and the show’s programming, which included a great performance by the inimitable M Lamar on the 21st, reviewed by PAPER (yay!), and an upcoming screening/talk with Jane & Louise Wilson on June 27th (all info. on the above link). HAPPY ALMOST SUMMER!

I remember getting out of bed really late one night, around the age of 11-12, with a flashlight at the ready, to tune in to a rare radio interview with Neil Young I was supposed to be sleeping through. Pressing my ear against the radio, swooning in some nocturnal communion with this man I’d begun to revere. The influence of an older brother.  My obsession continued through high school, and this is humiliating, so never bring it up in person, haha!, but I used to sign yearbooks with “Neil Young is #1!” LOL. And my nickname with my BFF, Maria, was “Cinneman Girl” (hers was Wild Child, after The Doors). Watching archival footage like this live BBC show from 1971 would’ve made me cream my panties back then; that long hair, willowy silhouette and awkward prettiness was so sexy.  I’m actually crushing all over again watching and listening to him!! And OF COURSE I memorized every word to every song:) so I can sing along. Check it out though as he’s uncharacteristically ebullient in this performance. Its sweet.

Anyway, I began to stray in the 1980s, always appreciating his desire to experiment and fail, the mark of a true artist, IMHO, and I bought Trans, 1982. but my sensibility shifted more post punk   By the early 2000s, I hardly ever played his music, it felt so wedded to that silly high school girl, a nostalgic thing.Then one day at The Carlyle, that famed hotel, after meeting with this tacky Sante Fe collector who wanted to hire me to “curate” something, there in the lobby was NEIL. Maybe 10 feet in front of me, leaving through the side door with his entourage. The obsessive fan possessed me again – fulfill your fantasy to meet him, was pushing myself – but I hesitated too long, too fearful that it would disturb him. Knowing he was such a private, taciturn guy. Eventually I followed them out onto the street where I caught a glimpse of him, sliding in his black suit into a dark sedan. I did ask one of his roadies, “Is that Neil?, what’s he in town for?” And he said, “yeah, its him, he’s here for an CSNY tour”.  A few years later I slept with this beautiful guy, 15 years younger, who I bonded with – much to my surprise! – over a love for Neil (and he had the whole pretty boy, long hair, tall and thin thing going on). I realized then that with the whole 1970s culture revival, which strangely hasn’t abated, a whole new fan base for Neil Young would grow. Now music critics say he took Dylan’s baton in the 1970s, already elevating his significance – revisionist history: I teach it, I live it, it heartens me.

Maybe its the strong political messages, and distrust of fame are finally resonating again with a new generation, instead of being relegated to mom rock (or should that be dad rock), a “genre” I first encountered on artist Juliana Huxtable’s FB post about Sleater Kinney. HILARIOUS. Anyway, a few days ago it was  announced wNeil Young, with a new band and Willie Nelsons sons (!!), was working on an “ANTI-MONSATO” album, and social media’s been abuzz ever since. A NME piece on it leads with a funny, flatfooted quote that’s so Neil: “No auto tune was used and no ears were harmed in the making”, but even Check out his recent album Storytone, which is like a prelude, at least in ts initial song, “Whose Gonna Stand Up” with lyrics like: “damn the dams save the rivers starve the takers feed the givers, stand up to oil, protect the plants,…whose going to stand up and the earth, whose gonna take on the big machine, this all starts with you and me”…there’s a solo version followed by a symphonic version, the latter an earnest plea with a Broadway tone that’s a wee goofy, and each song is given its orchestral version, btw, which is another classic foray of his into territory untread. the songs that follow are reminiscent of a sweeter, grandpa Neil. Its like he’s channeling Pete Seeger.

And FYI, I actually tried to photograph one of my year books, only to realize that my signature “Neil Young is #1!” would be found in someone else’s yearbook. What I did find though were some incredibly intimate and long “entries” by girlfriends (I went to an all girls’ Catholic high school) that were so touching. And serious! Full of darkness.  Rreminded me why particularly in my teens I was so attached to this man and his music. It was a real emotional attachment. I guess that’s what I wanted to convey to him in that split second siting in The Carlyle. It was always the moody and (alternately) rancorous sides of his work I liked best, I guess I instinctively responded to the emotion as well as the songwriting. In some ways, I always thought of him as father grunge.

December 1969, San Diego, California, USA — Neil Young plays his vintage Gretsch White Falcon during a sound check at Balboa Stadium just before a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young concert. — Image by © Henry Diltz/CORBIS