Iron Man

The days seem to be passing by so quickly, and everything is a blur.

Sunday I convinced City Lights to carry my book, which was a huge deal for me. You see, when I first came to the Bay Area in the fall of 98, all I cared about was tapping into the rich literary scene. City Lights, of course, is the Mecca, having once been home to so many Beat happenings, and just browsing through the different sections you could feel the ghosts of Kerouac and Ginsberg and all those other crazy bohemian artists. Then when I went to grad school, a professor had his book release party there, and another instructor happened to be an old friend of Kerouac's, so with each day that passed I would tell myself, you're getting closer. Now with a legitimate book, and getting so much positive feedback, the only thing that was missing was walking into City Lights and seeing it on the shelf. Well, it happened Sunday, and for once I can honestly say, I feel proud.

Last night, Jennifer and I went to this poetry reading at the cafe around the corner. For three weeks we've been obsessing over this event after seeing the flyers for the show, mainly because we assumed it was going to be a bunch of hipsters reading really bad poetry, and we wanted to see each other's smile when the first pretentious moment came. (Yes, this is what we do during the week for fun.) The other motivation, though, was that one of the poets reading was named "Ozzy", without a last name, and we thought it would be great to see what this guy looked like, assuming it was some kind of stage persona. So, I called the cafe as soon as I got home from work, and was told the show didn't start till 9:00. When I then asked if I should wear my beret (don't worry, I don't own one) the guy hung up on me, disgusted. So anyway, we waited around all night for this thing, but when we finally got there, it was already over. (I guess it started at 7:30, and the guy I joked with had purposely lied to me, which I guess, in a way, I deserved, but still, now I want to fuck with him in some way, and the fact that I've actually pondered this scares me.) Anyway, even though we were bummed, we stuck around, eager to find one jewel in the crowd, and were amazed to discovery the poets weren't a bunch of literary snobs like we assumed, but rather a collection of elderly folks, the majority of whom had canes and these crazy wool caps to keep their heads warm. I mean, literally, there wasn't a person under 65 in the crowd. (I even managed to drop in three tasteless jokes about the 80's movie, Cocoon, before the night was through.) Anyway, Jennifer and I decided to stick around for a while, for comedy's sake, so we pretended to have just stumbled in from the cold - seeking shelter and something warm to drink - rather than appear visibly disappointed that we had missed the show, mainly because we didn't want anybody to think we came solely to laugh at their performances. I looked around, though, and couldn't tell which guy was Ozzy (for some reason I thought it would be obvious), so I had to ask the kid behind the counter, "Hey, bro, which one is Ozzy?" The kid laughed and said, "That one in the corner - the one who really looks like Ozzy." There was a pause for a second and then he continued. "He's actually quite good. I mean, he was impressive. I love his work." That's when I noticed Ozzy in the back, surrounded by a whole entourage (including a few elderly groupies), clearly the leader of the gang, not too mention the most vibrant. He really did look like Ozzy Ozbourne too, with long dark hair and cool rockstar shades, and the best part was, he even had his fingernails painted black. Of all the possibilities, and after three weeks of speculation (which included Jennifer waking up at 4:00 am yesterday with a vision of what he looked like, complete with an actual drawing that was close to the real thing, one that is now thumb-tacked on my wall for posterity), the one possibility that we had dismissed - that he actually would be the elderly doppelganger of one of heavy metal's most iconic figures - happened to be the case. So we grabbed some tea and sat in the corner and watched as they finished their wine and congratulated the hero of the night. Then after twenty minutes we came home, disappointed that we had missed the performance (just for absurdity's sake) but rather amused at our discovery, which means, of course, that another month can't pass soon enough, which is when the next reading will be.

Finally, I'm going to see Cold War Kids on Saturday night, which is going to be an amazing show. Here's one of their songs in case you're not familiar with them.