Life In The Aerie

By Matthew Barron Storey

Behold, Human Beings living in an underground den...

Plato's Cave

Part 1 - The Woman

A woman I know, a friend, had a fall.

And she summoned me to her, asking that I care for her cats while she recovered.

I did as asked.

In time, I realized that this woman, 50 years in an apartment - one large room, one small room -
was different than the woman I had been casual friends with for several years.

She was wittier, kinder and was clearly, losing her mind.

She felt better from the fall, and told me I was no longer needed.

Two days later, she fell again. And I was summoned.

Bedridden and obstinate, she said 'I may need you more than I thought'.

Part 2: Journey to India

She is in the Hospital, she had a breakdown.

I found a place that specialized in Memory Care. She felt betrayed. I told her the cats would be fine, the bills would be paid, and I would bring her home as soon as possible.

She trusted me to do just that.

I told the kid when I met him, someday I will send you around the World, to put your training to work and to see the world as it is becoming.

The kid listened, and was brilliant, and devoted. Our bond grew.

When the woman went to the Hospital, the kid went to India.

I went to the Apartment, to feed and love and clean the cats. Twice a day.

The little one loved the kid, and she found me and asked me about him, and our life, and this, and that.

I became accustomed to these conversations, that ranged far and low and made me smile.

The kid came home, the little one went away. Then the little one returned. The kid returned to her.

The woman in the facility, improved. Our bond grew.

A dog I love, lives in a building and I see him twice a day, every day.

A young man helped me enter the building when I would arrive. Charismatic, verbal, comfortable in his skin. He reminded me of someone, but I could not place it.

Part 3: The Box

The woman was ready to come home. But her home was no longer safe, or practical, for her needs.

I bought a plant, and sat in the middle of the large room, and set the plant on fire.

Then I called Rasta O'Reilly and talked. The Box and The Vestibule were built in the large room, for the cats and the Woman.

The kid pledged his help, and me, and the little one came to live with us, and help.

The woman returned and she grabbed my hand.

'Thank you'. We both cried.

The kid and the little one parted. She left. We both cried.

The young man, at the building, was asked not to stand where he'd stood. He came to be with us. And help. The little one moved nearby, and returned in part.

Cats died, cats joined the colony, we all watched Tennis and News and life went on for the woman, and the kid, and the little one and the young man.

Part 4: The Cave

The woman thrived. The colony grew. Special ones would join us, and assist us, or visit us.

The kid studied Chinese, he knew he would be sent there soon. The young man became part of us, and we shared much, as a group, and individually. The little one and I spent time. Our bond grew. I shuffled between the Box, The Aerie and the little one.

I saw the small room at the woman's home was empty, since the little one moved away. I called Rasta O'Reilly, and built a Cave in the small room. Books, tunes, paintings, figurines, big screen, small fridge and a Nest above for me to sleep, and play and transform.

The young man and I would play in the Cave, and care for the woman, and the kid would come and go and care and study. The little one would come sleep on the weekends.

I started to spend more time in the Cave. There was another plant, and challenges to overcome.

I sat with this other plant, in my Cave, and thought of things.

What I was, could not be, and make all safe. What I could become would help me do so.

I saw that I was three things really. One who wanted this. One who wanted that. And one, a leader, who adored reason and peace and suffered from the vagaries, moods and excesses of the others. The one who wanted this, was easy on the others. The one who wanted that, who was the closest to the heart, was not workable, having been chastised and threatened with banishment.

The plant helped the one who wanted this to emerge, and the leader handled things. He took care of the woman, took care of the kid, took care of the young man, took care of the little one. The one who wanted this played with the young man, the little one and the kid. The one who wanted that, closest to the heart of the leader, died just a little bit every day.

And the leader realized it, and ordered more plant, more play with the young man and the little one.

The young man spent time with the one who wanted this, the one who wanted that, and the leader. All came to know him. Our bond grew.

Part 5: The Fall

The woman ran out of money. The kid went off to China. The young man moved in to the Cave.

The little one and I spent time. The young man and I spent time. The little one, the young man and I spent time. I understood how important the plant was to preventing the one who wanted that from upsetting things, as he had once done. The one who wanted this would be the one, and the leader would make it all work out.

The woman fell in the Box, and was sent to heal.

The little one got bored. The young man and the little one spent time. Their bond grew.

The leader, paying bills, juggling the kid, the woman, the young man, the aerie, this, that. Did not notice that things were not as before. Then he did. And the one who wanted that said 'Enough'.

'Its my turn'.

Part 6: Walter Pidgeon

Monsters from the Id! Monsters from the subconscious!

Forbidden Planet

The kid was home now, and working, and studying. He and the little one long estranged. The young man and the little one spent time. The woman healed.

Inside me, the leader knew the plant was no longer workable, that nothing could keep the one who wanted this around and nothing could keep the one who wanted that from being anywhere but around.

They fought inside my head, trying to make room for one another and I rampaged, ranted, rambled. My heart would break, my cock would stiffen, my mind would nearly split in three from the divergent viewpoints it contained.

I listened to the little one and the kid, the young man stopped talking to me as he had before. And I was mad, then sad, then in love, then depressed, cuckolded, rejected, humiliated, aroused. It was too much to contain, too much to decipher and too fuckin' complicated. The leader would lead, and the one who wanted that would rely on the counsel of the one who wanted this to secure that which he wanted. And we would be healthy and we would be fitter, and richer, and more genuine, and move devoted to the love of the woman, the kid, the young man and the little one.

And there are others.

Because, thats what leaders do. Put aside this and that, and move forward.

Just one me. Just one life. My Cave was built to give me refuge from the world, and the world came in the door.

And I'm glad it did.

Posted by Staff at 04:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

By Matthew Barron Storey

“Self-sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grow”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The important thing is this: to be able, at any moment, to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.”

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

"That's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it..."

KC and the Sunshine Band

I was writing with a friend yesterday, and we talked of War...I wrote:

'We celebrate those who put aside their OWN dreams and lives to make those great historical leaps. The Union man didn't want to go fight, the Southerner was raring to go. The Union man made a sacrifice and we all live the benefit. The same is true for the American teenager who went, in distress, to battle Nazi and imperial Japanese forces in foreign locales, knowing his own life might be snuffed long before any of it could be lived but COMMITTED to the proposition that it wasn't ABOUT his life, but the lives yet to come.'

That is the thing. It ain't about us. Not us as individuals. Not about us as a country, a race, a nation, a neighborhood, not even a family.

Its bigger.

A species?

Bigger.

A life is one of billions, over tens of thousands of years passed by and millions to come. A life is a foam panel on a space shuttle. Insignificant.

Critical.

They can make lots of panels. And humans.

But you are in that spot now. And its riding on you. You won't get out of it in great shape. The heat is intense, the conditions extreme. You are done-fer, but while you are here...think about the mission of that shuttle, the place that mission has in the arc of humanity, the epoch of the Earth...and let go...

Its riding on me. I got a spot, right up front cause I like it best when the shit flies and the heat is on.

No more worrying about the way it looks from out there, or how it jibes with how I thought it'd play.

This is showtime. Turns out it has been all along.

Who knew?

I came around on August 10, 1963, and started these annual B'day columns with 'Fo-di-Fo', in 2007.

Makes this my 47th and my 4th.

I never look back or read the old stuff, so I can't really speak to how I was feeling then...I know that its been a search inside for longandlong and that this year...

The search ended, Matt found Matt, Matt accepted Matt and...it no longer is about Matt.

Which should be a relief for you out there, reading these words.

This was a year in which, as the Army says 'I found the strength to get over myself'. This was a year about the other people in my world, their battles with aging, self-discovery, relationships, new children, divorce, death of a loved one, death of beloved animals, adoption of new animals, business travails, financial hardship...

All that work I put in, inside, to get to know myself again

I know me, inside and out (and you've been on those paths of discovery with me if you read here regular, and if you don't - you should, cause its the shit)

And turns out, I always knew me. But along the decades, I'd grown apologetic for myself...my unique energy aint for everyone, and that made me want to edit myself, smooth out the rough edges, not speak truth if that truth was scary for some...I thought if I could just find a way to make myself more mainstream, I'd build a world around me or be asked to join one.

I don't worry about that anymore. I am 47 years old. Healthy. Happy. I like myself. I have incredible people in my life. I have great and interesting business to do. I have everything I could ever want and want for absolutely nothing material. I ain't been asked to join any worlds, so I've built my own and its made me far happier than you've heard before in this space...

When I was 44, I was an ancient 25 year old. At 47, I am a kid of 47.

Aging is relative, of course. I have my Calla, who is 84 and depends upon my care, last year that was scary, I was new to it and the workload seemed endless. But then we got some help from Calla's Niece and her longtime friend and counsel, Serph, and I was able to find a facility which helped Calla ride the changes she is experiencing and train me for the task of her care...when we both got what we needed, we blew that joint back to her home, with her cats, in a specially constructed room I designed that we call The Box. I hired a team, my herald, Red Sox Steve (who's India columns are up and must read material) who stays with her during the day, Flo the Jamaican Angel, who stays with Calla in the night and Bethie D and Marisa, who grab the shifts when Steve and Flo are off. I visit Calla every morning from 8-10, we have Breakfast and then from 4-8, when we have dinner. I stay overnight on Saturdays. The Valley of the Box is a Cat Shelter as well, and we've got ferals, rescues and special needs animals of every age and shape. We just got another one this morning, a 1 year old boy. Since its August 10, I took Trudy's suggestion and named him...

Little Matt!

Caring for Calla 7 days a week, caring for the 8 cats New Hampshire Girl and I have and Scouty B, my dog, caring for Cowboy Mama, who has had her usual share of Mama Drama, 7 days a week, twice a day with Trudy and her brood, investment clients, readers, other pet owners...its a busy life. And a rewarding one, but it hasn't left a lot of time to write this year.

I haven't written a single Baseball column all season. The Yankees are back on the rampage, but my favorites have been discarded. The International cool of Hideki Matsui, Chien-Ming Wang and Melky Cabrera are gone, in their place a squad of guys who don't have the NYC vibe. Winning is still the goal, and the focus, but rooting isn't the same for Mark Teixiera, who likes to talk faith on the golf course with his PGA buddies as for Jason Giambi who wears a Gold Thong to get on a hot streak and can be found offseason doing lines off his girlfriends breasts lying on a Roulette wheel in Vegas.

Ye-Ahhh Boyyyyeeeee!

I like what I like, I am what I am.

And I don't apologize. I let you be you too, its only when you being you involves pushing stupid ideas or hurting on the weakest that we'll ever clash. I am a love thang, after all!

I have so many wonderful people in my life, old friends like Wendy from 15B, Dawn from the RightField Porch, Jack and Dink from the ballpark and 3rd Avenue, George from 15th Street and Physics class, Jon whose fierce gentle and agile mind makes me thankful for the restraint I've always needed to avoid pointing out his athletic and intellectual shortcomings! There is Nick in Buffalo, formerly of Queens, always of Metsies, Blueshirts and J-E-T-S - afflictions he shares with Jon. And Tanya, the breathtaking, brilliant one married to the dashing Western hero, Clint the Progressive - whose steely eyes and gentle soul comforts all, they are busy and far from me, but held tight in my esteem,..New friends like Bethie D, the pixie doll who lights me up and shares my passions and Marisa, the dark beauty with the gentle soul and the devastating curves. Progressive friends abound, but Paulette, Pam from Cape Cod, Mani the Future Mayor of Cranston, Rhode Island and newbie, Lisa...broke through and got to me more and more this year. Smart decent women on this list, hard working, clear thinking, loving...easy on the eyes and ears, with just enough kick in the tukhus to reel me back in...when I float away, which happens more than not.

I'm lucky.

My old loves are there with me, as well. We don't talk as much as we once did, they already paid their dues, and took on those scars and really, how long can one be expected to listen to this crap?

These are gorgeous women, fiercely bright, tough, kind. Genuine.

But they know I love them, and I always did. And their lawyers asked that I not use their names!

And the luck doesn't end there. I have Mary and Steve, my Vagabond Guru crew-who, the ones who know my mind (and have to review endless shots of my ass, which, happy to report, is still almost supernaturally fine!) and my roomie, the wondrous New Hampshire Girl, who long ago learned not even to look when I posed the booty - she just says 'yeah, yeah...looks great'.

Smart girl.

Steven went to India for all of us in February and will venture to China this fall. He's learning Mandarin, loving on Steve and Rose, Deana and Bethany, Mary and Mary...learning always and always my right-hand man, my herald and my baby brother. Not by birth, by choice. The best kind of all.

And that's what I got goin' on...love, work, play, learning, writing, partying, trying to fix a broken world with proven understanding and finding that a task of some size...

Its cool. I got time.

I'm just gettin' started.

Posted by Matthew at 08:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

By Mary Hannington

There's a Greta Garbo and an Alfred Hitchcock

and some black Jamaican stud


There's five Cinderellas and some leather drags


I almost fell into my mug


There's a Crawford, Davis and a tacky Cary Grant


And some Homeboys lookin' for trouble down here from the Bronx


But there ain't no Hairy and no Virgin Mary


you won't hear those voices again


And Johnny Rio and Rotten Rita


you'll never see those faces again

Halloween Parade – Lou Reed

The falafel stand that used to be on Broadway and 92nd is gone its now a small leather goods store. The man that danced me across Broadway every morning that summer in '82, as if he lived just to take me across the street? He was old then and must be gone now too.

I loved how we could stop the crowd with our antics and I wonder why he picked me to dance with. Was it because I was kind to him when he was down?

A dollar a dance… It was a bargain. It was a thrill.

Rick and Alison have long closed their Midtown bar and their relationship went with it. I won’t ever buy funky clothes at the Soho Zoo on Spring Street or watch the drug deals go down in the newly patrolled Washington Square Park.

I don’t wish to spend my days with cattle calls at Donna DeSeta’s looking for the perfect GM or Pink cosmetic's girl. Donna is a sister of Bernadette Peters for those in the know… Norman Leigh, the cinematographer and mentor a Brooklyn tough, who won my heart and captivated my mind. He is here... somewhere.

The faces in the neighborhood around the Belnord are now my New York.

There is Marty that feeds the pigeons his leftover breakfast roll and shares my habit for cigarettes, the Jamaican man in bright colors that never belie his joie de vivre, who hits me up for those cigarettes (less for me) on my nightly walks and smiles his beautiful smile. The little girl with glorious curls that heads out with her Mom as I make my way to the Hot and Crusty.

It's the park where I first met Matt and always ALWAYS the smell of the subway.

New York City has always fueled me. This last trip was no exception and it will be the same for those in the future. Though it might be next year... we'll see.

There is a rhythm to Manhattan always has been. The sway of the subway, sliding through the crowds and the swerving of the cabs… It’s a dance that I love.

And I can sit on a newspaper box in the middle of the city, clear my mind and silence the cabs and find peace in that rhythm, a back beat to the whole world. In New York I can just be a girl sitting on a box.

Sleepless nights in Manhattan are common, but not here. Here it's the sleep of the dead. For in Detroit I’m a provider, a caregiver, an artist, political activist and a neighbor… Can I ever be just a girl sitting on a box?

For days the quiet pierced with sharp noises jarred me. The phlump of my Alvin as he found a cooler spot on the floor, the scrape of Ms. 91’s walker and Slouchy yelling out to no one in his sleep.

For days all sleep and rhythm escaped me.

Who I once was is gone like the man that once danced me across Broadway.

Who I will become depends on being able to be that girl on the box again.

For a brief moment in the early morning hours I found her and I smiled. The rhythm in Manhattan is my rhythm after all. It doesn’t belong to anyone else, but me. It’s my dance that I dance.

Last night I finally slept. I dreamed an epic dream about Macanudo cigars, dogs and cats and a man that was a woman, a beautiful woman, who was worried she was too fat. A typical dream for me, in color and without symbols and labels, these things are just parts of my life and they may only make sense to me.

I have run in the desert with my eyes closed, I have danced alone on rooftops without moving, I know what it means to be Buddha, to awake from the dream of being a separate ego in a material world.

On mountain tops, in cities, floating alone in black water… where doesn’t matter.

The Halloween parade in New York will forever change, but it is still a Halloween parade.

And I love life and Halloween and I LOVE New York.

Photography by Mary Hannington © 2009

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By Mary Hannington

Welcome to the first addition of Sick. You will find these comics peppered throughout VagabondGuru.com, where along with the reader we continually seek to understand what exactly makes a Vagabond Guru tick and what it is like for him to live life sick but still active in his cage.

Posted by M. Hannington at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Matthew at 10:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

By M. Hannington

Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The Road Not Taken
- Robert Frost


There is something about creative people – the need to share – to whisper or shout your thoughts. So intensely do the words, the visuals, the notes, swirl about the brain anxious of escaping in a form that has some meaning.

One can study an artist’s work and come to know how that person sees the world, their relation to it and sometimes even find themselves in it.

You can feel the sag in Picasso’s Blue Period and the uplift of his later, brighter cubist paintings.

Joy and despair leap from poet’s pens and the notes of a symphony, and almost all writers whether fiction, non-fiction or even sports writers tell you something of themselves.

And sometimes those writers can take you on a better, a more interesting path.

And paint a picture of their life and passions with words alone, so vivid that they become a reality in the mind.

And when that reality is met it becomes super real.

Start spreadin' the news, I'm leavin' today
I want to be a part of it, New York, New York
These vagabond shoes are longing to stray
Right through the very heart of it, New York, New York

New York, New York
- Frank Sinatra


In the heart of Manhattan, Central Park in a limo no less and I'm late to boot...

I reach the Aerie at 5:35PM there is just enough time for a delicious little snuggle with Scout and then we’re off to the Bronx. I’ve been up for 15 hours now, but the excitement quickly shoves any residual tiredness away.

We wedge ourselves onto a train and the bottom of Guru’s hood becomes a pillow for the entire ride. The car is as packed as a rush hour train, but this isn’t the nine to five crowd; it’s a game crowd. There are no empty iPod stares and you can feel a buzz running from pressed shoulders to hips.

For us two first timers it is even more so.

The train ride may be familiar to Matt, but there are so many firsts going on here!

Regurgitated by the open doors of the train, then trapped by a finicky metro card reader and I lose him for a second and panic.

Then I think to myself “Fuck you CAN’T lose Guru, it’s near to impossible.”

And there he is, beaming.

We enter the stadium, one by one, two virgins. Pop. Pop. Now, filthy and despoiled we are in the grasp of the new girl in town. And she’s so beautiful and Matt is so clearly smitten and he can’t stop staring at every inch of her.

This ain’t a date it’s a threesome and anyone that knows Guru realizes that you have to share him.

For at the heart of the woman he so clearly loves is a team and not even Natalie Portman could pry him away from the Yankees (well, maybe for a quickie during a slow inning, but he’d STILL peak at the field).

And it’s not just the two of us, who are swept up with her glamorous charm.

City dwellers never look up. It’s the same way in Detroit. I’m an exception being a bit of an architecture nut and I notice this trait in every city I have been in. So imagine my delight at seeing thousands of city dwellers gazing at their surroundings in amazement.

She feels ancient, she feels new, Amazonian and impressive and you get the feeling it will take multiple trips for her to become completely au courant to the fans. It is like that first trip into Notre Dame in Paris or Westminster Abbey in London with all its famous memorials.

Hallowed, but yet she is glisteningly new.

Guru's joy is infectious and we thread swifty through the crowd like anxious teenagers at a concert, only stopping for the national anthem, but so bedazzled is he by the sight of the field he has to ask me where the flag is.

I flew into to New York seated in row thirteen and I would fly out of New York seated in this same row. I would watch the game from row 13. It was not tempting fate, my destiny never felt more firmly in my grasp.

When towards the end of the evening as a light mist hits the heights of the ballpark we occupy and the score is not what is wished, I whisper, “It is early yet.”

I didn’t come 432 miles to see the Yankees lose. I came 432 miles to share in one man’s passion for a game. I had brought along every ounce of good karma I own. I KNEW they’d win.

And they did.

Baseball!

To grok and be grokked.

Thanks Guru for letting me be a part of it.

It was swell.

To read the whole series click here.

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By M. Hannington

The thunderclap was so loud that I exclaimed, “Aah!” and shivers ran across my body.

An instinctual fear?

It’s three o’ clock in the morning and I’m already up.

We are hosting one of those spring storms that is full of electricity and when I open the front and back doors of the house for a delicious cross breeze I can feel the hairs standing on end. The thunder rumbles on and on never seeming to stop reverberating, flashing lights everywhere and the tip tap sound of the rain is both sharp and soft in the distance.

It drowns out the thrum of the cars on Jefferson Ave.

And two weeks and 482 miles seems like a long way away…

Though the memories are not far. They are here, mixing with the sound of the rain and floating on the cool moist breeze that has cleared my mind of the myriad tasks of the day and let it wander where it will.

I have a few MIRL (google it) experiences under my belt, but none of them have been quite like this last one.

In Manhattan with Guru... talking politics, life, ponies and of course baseball. Face to face for the first time and most of all enjoying the freedom to be that comes with understanding.

Quite often when it’s early I slip up to the corner gas station to grab a vitamin water and sooth a craving.

There I spend some time with the shy, handsome Hispanic cashier, who calls me sweetie or sweetheart and covers me when I’m short a dime and gets paid back the next time. I talk to the folks hanging at the bus stop, who I share cigarettes with or my change and tales of life.

This morning is much like my last sleepless night in Manhattan, in the rain, a coat covering my pajamas, hanging with the folks on the street.

The purpose of my trip to New York was threefold. I have been talking to Guru and Red Sox Steve for quite some time and we have important ventures to discuss.

Secondly, I need a break from Ms. 91, who can’t stop being a mother and the tensions of one of Slouch’s rewrites (now over) that set him on edge and that leave me with little support around this now busy household – I’m exhausted.

Third, I have been talking to Guru for over a year, almost daily, we are confidantes, we understand each other, we have accomplished a lot together, so shouldn’t we consummate the relationship with some sort of human ritual?

Be it pressing two bloody fingertips together, high-fiving or just squeezing the living crap out of each other.

There would be no kicking of asses, not this time Ms. Jane, but I did get in a few pinches.

All of it is familiar…

The brick wall of the Aerie, the images and Scout, who I’m sure has been told several times that I was coming and is there eager to greet me.

Dear sweet loveable Scout. Next time I bring my dog brush!

I have a few emails to dash off and Guru has my work area all mapped out for me.

We settle in like we have always worked together in the same room, but we haven’t. This is the time of morning that I’m putting last minute touches on VG.com and answering emails and Matt is doing his work and I know that, but usually we’re 482 miles apart.

Before I know it I’m surrounded and I slough off the rest of my work and commune. Mr. Biggles has hopped up next to me, Scout is at my feet and Jen Jen is letting me know it is playtime by sinking her claws into my knee and almost making me drop my laptop.

We hit the subway, take the slow walk that is Chester... When Red Sox Steve shows up, it’s a typical day in the Aerie and I feel like I have been sitting in that corner for years.

Guru and Red Sox Steve (Speedy to me) have an evil plan over the next few days to wear me down with four story walk-ups and maneuvering various dogs around neighborhood streets.

What these fellows don’t know is that laundry at my house involves multiple trips from the upstairs to the basement, not to mention I wheel around a 168 pound woman three times a week from the car to the upstairs class and then down into the basement locker room and then into the pool and back to the car again in a YMCA that takes up a city block.

Despite the constant teasing from the Y ladies in their various stages of undress, I manage a pretty effective workout at the locker room sinks while Ms. 91 changes into swim wear and again when she showers. Her class time I spend in the lounge, it is the only me-time I get all week, that and early mornings like this one.

And I do her laundry now too and I also walk a lot.

Speedy is young and like the young he doesn’t always approach life with a plan. Where Matt and I understand that minutes are precious.

I want to take the transverse road through Central Park, but Speedy cuts in early and we meander around dusty paths. I’m sweltering in my jacket and hoodie, but thankful that we have swapped backpacks and he is the one suffering under the load of my camera gear and tightly packed clothes.

The result of our journey and the nice long chat is that we come out at 90th rather than 87th where the hotel is, but it only adds three blocks and I’m not the one with the heavy backpack after all.

After spending three days with these two gentlemen (and they are) I already had a routine. Mornings at the Hot & Crusty, where a cheese croissant and a large coffee cost only $3.09, long walks and short cab rides that leave you feeling HOT and CRUSTY at the end of the day.

There was glee and there was sadness, things I’ve only heard or read before, but now will forever see. Memories that are no longer just voices, but faces too.

And Guru would say "Kewel!"

The first day was the longest one, almost 24 hours without sleep and an uncommon moment in time I’ll never forget. It was the day that Matt and I met the new girl in town.

Hang around and I may just tell you about it…

To read Part III click here.

On Sunday's Life in the Aerie I'll publish a series of my recent NYC photographs entitled "Compression", in this vein I hope to continue to explore new ways of looking at things both in my city and NYC, a city I cherish even more for those I know in it.

Posted by M. Hannington at 08:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

By M. Hannington

...she walks into the one he can't find.

It was the last thing I bought in New York, a Yankees hat. Purchased for sentimental reasons and not because I was suddenly a fan, that was to happen for one night only.

My Tigers and the Yankees have always had hard fought battles never seeming to be able to completely dominate the other, but the Tigers, who are now 919-1032-10 versus the Yanks historically, are on the losing end. That is, except at the CoPa where we’ve kept it close at 19-20.

I know all too well that you don’t disrespect the Yankees around Guru and today I was in Guru’s town, planning to see Guru’s team. I was more than willing to root for the home team, but what I didn’t realize, and maybe should have, was how easy that would turn out to be.

You see, I know everything about Guru. You might say I’m a Vagabond Guru expert!

Despite never meeting, I can easily draw the shape of his head.

Tell you about his childhood sweethearts.

Because I know his deepest secrets and he knows mine.

Sometimes I think I know him better than I know myself, but that doesn’t matter because through Matt I’ve gotten to know myself better too. I think he’d say the same.

I’m Yin to his Yang. I see pictures - he sees words, he’s big - I’m little, he’s explosive - I’m calm, and I’m digital - he’s definitely analog.

He talks – I listen, but when it matters he listens too.

We also have a great deal in common: Our southern past, our hopes for the future, we take care of our Moms, we take care of the animals in our separate worlds and they in turn take care of us.

We have been in many of the same places, but at different times.

He once asked if I “grokked” him so well that he had nothing else to tell me. The answer to that would be, yes and no.

When I hit the Manhattan pavement I’m already in sync with the city. I have never understood the laissez-faire motions of the West Coast types I have worked with and the ambling ways of southern folks.

I need to move, to go, to get it done…

It’s only 5 short blocks to the Aerie from where the cab had dropped me and I’m here in no time. This is Guru’s neighborhood and it’s familiar territory, though I may have never been here before, in my mind and through Matt’s words, I already had.

I called Guru and Red Sox Steve, three blocks ago to let them know I'm here.

I’m a vagabond until 2:00PM when I can check into the hotel and I’m carrying everything I need on my back. Failing to raise anyone by phone I slip into a little store that can barely accommodate me with my load. Instantly finding the Vitamin Water I down everyday, but it is so snug inside that I have to make a U-turn at the very back to be able to make my way round to the register.

There is a beautiful little park and I set up shop there.

I knew when I met him for the first time he’d squeeze the life out of me, he did. I knew I’d get a big smack right on the lips and if I didn’t he would of gotten one from me.

Great friends, be they man or woman always get my full frontal affection.

That Guru and I, such kindred spirits, who managed to find each other in the great sea of the internet, suddenly discover when only blocks away the task has become difficult?

This doesn’t surprise me at all.

He says “You’re here!” and “I didn’t know you were coming so early.”

Despite the fact that I had sent an itinerary, I’m on Guru’s schedule now and I know full well what that means.

Twenty minutes… Off comes the leather jacket, Detroit was 43º in the wee hours that I left it and Manhattan is nearing 60º. I stretch, have a look around, there is nary a head floating around the surrounding sidewalks that even remotely matches.

Twenty more minutes… It’s Guru on the phone.

“Where are you?”

“90th and 2nd Ave.”

“Oh, I’m at the park on 92nd.. See you in a minute!”

So that was how Vagabond Guru and I met. In a park, only blocks away from his world...

And it was like finding my favorite shoes, the ones that have been missing for a long, long time.

Delightful.

I would soon see his world and those that are in it and another park that is like none that I have ever seen before, but that story is best told on another day...

To read Part II click here.

Posted by M. Hannington at 02:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

By M. Hannington

This one needs no pictures...

It’s the internet slang a child molester sometimes uses to lure a victim to meet them.

It means, meet me in real life.

We’ve all had to the urge to see someone. We’ve called up friends and said, “Let’s get together, it’s been too long.”

BUT an internet friend is not a real friend right?

Is it possible to really know someone using only verbal communication?

Can you hear pain in an email? Can you hear joy?

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;



And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

When You Are Old – William Butler Yeats

Can it be as powerful as a poem? The words in an email?

Sometimes people don’t really hear.

Sometimes people don’t really see.

And sometimes when you slow down, soften the pace and look. You will see...

The worried mom’s face, the happy dogs playing, the man who’s been broken and the one who is still struggling to be…

He said “Do you have another cigarette sister?”

Sure.

“Thanks sis!”

And sometimes you can go to a place countless times and suddenly it will never be the same.

And sometimes the sadness in a face, just confirms it is there.

I had an adventure in Manhattan that made me see it for the first time, not just in my eyes, but in all those eyes I met for the first time.

You’ll hear more about it here soon.

To read Part I click here.

Posted by M. Hannington at 04:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Staff at 07:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Long-time readers of this space are accustomed to Guru’s take on Politics (The Ice Flow), Sports (The Magic Carpet) and Finance (The Blue Penguin Report), delivered from my home in the Manhattan sky – The Aerie, via VagabondGuru.com.


But after seven months of baseball, two years of candidates, one transformational Chinese Olympiad… Russian tanks rolling, Global markets plummeting… and the hundreds of columns they’ve inspired…


It was time for a change of pace.


After all, even a committed recluse like Guru must leave the comforts of the Aerie occasionally and mingle with other bipeds (much as I prefer them delivered in handy two-dimensional forms of streaming digital). In service of this plan, Guru was given a wonderful birthday present by the ‘Contessa d’Chester’ (Trudy), two 3rd row tickets to Lincoln Center and the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni’, starring ‘family friend’, Erwin Schrott, in his signature role.


New Hampshire Girl and I interrupted our frenzied workdays and met betwixt two of Manhattan’s mainstays of Modernist Architecture, the Mormon Complex and Lincoln Center, at the point where Columbus Avenue and Broadway cross. Looking East and West at these two temples (one secular, both aspire to divine) facing each other - it’s interesting to note that both appear more ‘dated’ than the classical versions they were designed to replace.


Anyone who has ever spent a moment gazing at the timeless magnificence of Carnegie Hall (the former home of NYC’s Cultural Center) OR the eerie beauty of the Salt Lake City Temple and then stood on West 65th Street knows what I mean. The same is true for the Islamic Cultural Center on East 96th Street, which manages to turn the globe spanning magnificence of the Mosque form into something that resembles an air-conditioning cover, writ large.


But architectural ruminations aside, we maneuvered through the multitude of construction projects at Lincoln Center that are attempting to reconcile the aforementioned truths with the reality of ‘we already built this thing’ and joined the throngs of Opera lovers streaming into the Met.


Poor New Hampshire Girl, a decade into life with Guru and half that back in my Native Manhattan and never taken out in finery to enjoy such spectacle! When she met Guru, he was swathed in Brooks Brothers suits and traveling the planet, but has settled into a sweatpants sort of local life.


‘Short on glamour’ captures it, I believe. But not to worry, my dear, after this success - we’ll do it again…


In 2013!


We settled into our seats, noted the first row, center position of the Contessa and her coterie, barely three feet separating them from the evening’s Conductor, Louis Langree, and the magnificent Met Orchestra.


The light’s dimmed, the translating ‘titles’ illuminated and the curtain rose…


The Story


‘Don Giovanni’ was originally a linear tale that takes the viewer from today’s first scene to its finale in a single act, by Giuseppe Gazzaniga with a libretto by Giovanni Bertati in Prague in 1787. As re-imagined by Mozart and his librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte, the story has been extended in service of the Genre’s overarching purpose of providing a complete evening of vocal music.


This extended story tells the tale of Don Giovanni, the mythical ‘Don Juan’ who womanizes much of Europe in service of his insatiable appetites, laying asunder the trust and interests of all he encounters in the process.


Giovanni is assisted in his predations by his servant, Leporello.


Giovanni is an animal made human by a sheath of breeding and position and Leporello, a gentleman made brutish through the absence of same. As the ultimate Alpha, Giovanni exists to conquer and dominate and is braced by the masculine companionship of his aide, he understands what Leporello does not – that, for want of circumstance, their roles might be reversed but he does not reflect upon it, or anything. He is an instinctual beast and Leporello, like the 1,800 women he has bedded, merely a construct to assist his desire.


Giovanni beds Donna Anna and, when her Father, the Commendatore objects and challenges him to a duel, Giovanni kills him and he and Leporello flee. Donna Anna discovers her stricken Dad and implores her lover, Don Ottavio, to secure her revenge upon his killer. This is the central arc of the tale.


Giovanni is on the run, but that’s his element as we learn through encounters with the seduced/betrayed/seduced/discarded Donna Elvira and the young couple, Zerlina and Massetto. Elvira has sworn revenge, as well and Massetto joins the din after being brutally beaten and cuckolded by Giovanni.


As the evening unwinds, Giovanni’s victims close in upon him and, in the end, receive a climactic assist from the Ghost of the Murdered Commendatore.


The Production and the Players


Guru is not proficient in critique of the genre and is not qualified to judge the vocal gifts of the performers, but the staging is something that, like all story telling, should be beholden to the principles stated by that noted Opera fan, John Stuart Mill, in his seminal work, ‘Utilitarianism’;


‘All action is for the sake of some end, and rules of action, it seems natural to suppose, must take their whole character and colour from the end to which they are subservient. When we engage in a pursuit, a clear and precise conception of what we are pursuing would seem to the first thing we need, instead of the last we are to look forward to.’


If only ALL directors and storytellers had a copy of Mill!


In the case of ‘Don Giovanni’, as an Opera, the story serves a dual purpose; it is to tell a tale, for sure, but to do so while creating a framework for the singing gifts of the players. It therefore cannot be considered from a pure dramatist’s perspective, which, sadly, is the only one I bring to this task.


As such, I found the disparity between the gifts of the principle performer, Erwin Schrott and the other players a distraction as he possesses the tri-part abilities of Chops (acting), Pipes (singing) and Moves (physical agility) that are met inconsistently by the others.


Leporello, is well acted and well sung by Ildar Abdrazakov, whose physicality, bass tone and limber feet fulfill the role’s premise and hold their own with the sterling Schrott.


Ottavio is intended to be a wimp of a man, pathetically in thrall to the disinterested Anna, and is sung and interpreted faithfully by Matthew Polenzani, a powerful tenor.


Massetto, is physical, intense, of good voice and movement as played by Joshua Bloom and so is his Zerlina, played by a wonderful understudy, whose name I have unforgivably lost. Both handle their roles and inhabit their characters perfectly.


Less so is Donna Elvira, played by Susan Graham, who brings forward the universal tumult of the scorned submissive evocatively, but is too large physically to move gracefully aside Schrott and Abdrazakov and whose voice, to my untrained ears, did not resonate as beautifully as it might have in others.


The weakest link is Donna Anna, played by Krassimira Stoyanova, her role is the pivot point for the tale and, in this production, the place where the wheel spins least smoothly. A blocky, inelegant mover, she allows no pretense towards emoting and shuffles to and fro painfully to her blocks. From those marks, she confidently inhabits her stance, in true Soprano verve, but the tone that then emits is hardly worthy of the swagger. I imagined, at times, that were I to possess a more refined ear, a wince might have resulted.


A shrug is what I did experience, quite a drop from what one feels when the others take the stage. Ottavio is of wonderful tone and gives his all, however wooden. But the production slows and drags during their many scenes together, not for the least because it is impossible to suspend belief enough to believe that ANYONE, even the mild Don, could become so besotted with this particular creature. Neither does it easily occur that she might be the sort of passionate fire who could inspire a horde of vengeance seekers to kill a Cavalier.


Belief in both premises is what DRIVES the tale and without that, the narrative is reduced to sketch performances. If the right combination is on stage, things simmer – the wrong, bottoms shuffle and yawns stifle.


Which brings us to Don Giovanni himself.


Erwin Schrott is an electric presence, an agile mover, natural comic and perfectly sculpted physical specimen. The women of the world possess natural radar that registers charismatic, athletic, cultured men like the blips of an Airbus Jumbo – they pay attention. Throw in the round, deep bass tones of his voice and it’s a rout. Like Giovanni, he is control and is not calling on anything like his full range to maintain it.


He commands the eye and the ear effortlessly and valiantly tries to infuse his fellows with the intensity and fluidity of his gift. In this he is only partially successful, because of the limits of the others, but the choreography too, does nobody any favors. From the opening sequence when Giovanni drags/ravages Anna down a flight of stairs, the limits he faces are made plain. Instead of being an electric, erotic descent between the strapping lead and a conflicted, aroused woman the exercise plays as if Schrott was wrestling with a misshapen, unwieldy sack. Guru makes this same chore every time he does the household laundry and hauls the bundle up and down the five flights.


Sexy doesn’t capture it. Since the female leads simply cannot move sinuously or sensuously enough to match their partners smolder, might a better staging be achieved by having the ladies contribute as they might in a real-life erotic mismatch. Lay passively and allowing the lead to perform unencumbered? If he wasn’t worried she was going to wriggle herself right off the side of the steps into a heap, he could perform some aesthetic pushup above her and perhaps even thrust his arm forward with a flourish, freed from the burden of using it as a life-saving device.


The same problem exists with the staging of violence.


Giovanni is primal. He ravages female flesh. He kills. He lies routinely.


The interplay with the women, the murder of the Commendatore and the bludgeoning of Massetto are the opportunities to show the full range of Schrott’s talent and inflict the reality of Giovanni indelibly in the audience.


Schrott burns with eroticism standing still. He smolders with athletic malice.


But the lovemaking and the fights have no crackle, they don’t reflect LIFE, they reflect conventional depictions. For such modest aspiration, the presence of Schrott is superfluous – they don’t need someone that good to play it so middling. Were Schrott simply a singer in costume, this would be understandable – given how much he can bring, it is wasted opportunity. He has already achieved ‘excellence’ in this part, and this career, undoubtedly he will continue to refine, improve, and evolve.


Problems remain.


For entertainers in the non-Opera world, performers who are unattractive and clumsy are known by a particular term…


Recording Artist!


And that is the problem for Schrott. His is a genre-busting talent. A quintessential Modern guy, a Uruguayan prodigy, half Jewish, with a beautiful South American daughter born in the 20th Century, a half Russian son born in the 21st Century who has already shuffled with his father and mother, the brilliant Russian Soprano, Anna Netrebko between the family strongholds in Vienna and Manhattan. He is comfortable in his skin, curious about the world and at the apex of his craft.


But that craft only allows him to demonstrate a fraction of the gifts he possesses. His delicious tone is intoxicating, but it is the only form of expression in which he is allowed to challenge himself in the Opera, performing repertory of late 18th Century constructs. Mozart’s brilliance is in the music. Schrott’s gift is communication and his experience affords him a deep palette of genuine forms from which to draw. One can easily imagine him as Garcin, the camouflaged Brazilian cast into Hell in Jean Paul Sartre’s ‘No Exit’, or inhabiting characterizations such as those conveyed by Actor Javier Bardem. When Bardem shows us the glimpse of his malice, in ‘No Country for Old Men’, there exist no limitations on his portrayal – the form encourages a genuine display and the effect is stunning.


Schrott has that force in him, but what he is holding back is already too large a chunk, these muscles unused will be ripe for atrophy – I would be thrilled to live long enough to see Erwin perform on his 40th Anniversary at the Met, as Placido Domingo, did just last month, but I hope it will be an acknowledgment of only PART of his career as a storyteller and artist. The template of what we are BECOMING is where the challenge lay for the interpreter, a talent like his beckons the words of writers and the imaginations of directors as artfully as Giovanni’s call to Elvira.


What Schrott understands, that Giovanni does not, however, is that it is far more representative of Romance to love on one spectacular woman with full effort than to court thousands with no more concern than that which can be achieved ‘Oh, Solo Me-o’. Schrott can coast from here and maintain excellence, to achieve ‘Greatness’; he will have to challenge himself as that one woman does.

Posted by Matthew at 10:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)