i’ve got the Black-Out Blues…
the caramel frapuccino is slowly wearing off and i’ve got the Black-Out Blues…that s what a friend of mine called them and i guess i have as bad a case as any new yorker (substitute with any of the other major cities from Cleveland to Toronto) who had big plans for last night! last night was supposed to be the big NYC release party for my new record “A Flower Grows In Stone” but forces were at work that were *much bigger* than my rock star aspirations! honestly i’m really just glad everyone is safe and the release party has been rescheduled by now(mon aug 25th- see the tour page for details) so it’s all going to work out. hey, sometimes shit happens and you just gotta get a shovel and start shoveling! (i spent years shoveling horse shit growing up in the country in NC so i’m pretty much an expert on this topic!)
anyways, for your entertainment, here’s pretty much how my night went down Bridget-Jones-Diary-style…
4:15pm…i’m blow drying my hair so it’s nice and straight, no frizzies, big-public-appearance-worthy, when my hair dryer slowly fizzled out. after some choice 4 letter words i’m thinking i shouldn’t have had the hair dryer plugged into the same circuit as the AC and where is our stinking circuit breaker? i hear the neighbors yelling downstairs so i go down there thinking “oh f*@#, i killed the power in the whole building!”, soon to find out it’s not just the building but the whole block and all of the city and it’s coming in over their battery powered radio that Cleveland, Detroit and Canada etc. are in the dark too. on the one hand i’m feeling pretty relieved cause i figure me and my hair dryer didn’t have anything to do with this and on the other hand i’m getting a sinking feeling that there’s going to be no release concert tonight. and even if there is, my hair’s gonna look pretty bad!
4:45pm…i have all my stuff packed to go to the concert but of course subways are all down and i hear that traffic is completely jammed, as they say in brooklyn “fuhged about it!” i try to get through to my band and the venue but my cell is only working intermittently and no one is answering on any lines i can actually get to ring. i figure everyone else knows that if the power doesn’t come on soon the show is off.
5:30pm…was supposed to get in a cab at 5pm but still no power and stil can’t get through to anyone. at this point i go into survival mode, realizing with horror that the shelves and refrigerator are completely empty since i mostly eat out (my neighborhood has amazing restaurants of any cuisine you could desire) or buy and cook groceries one meal at a time and also suddenly remembered hearing about the black-out of 1977 that lasted 3 days complete with looting and chaos (i know this is a run-on but stay with me here), so i had the completely unoriginal idea to hit the local deli and grab some canned goods and non-perishables. right before walking through the doors of the deli it hit me that the ATMs wouldn’t be working so i was going to have to make the limited cash i had last for the length of the black-out so i better not buy expensive health food stuff. (not to worry, brooklyn deli’s don’t carry the latest fad health foods that manhattan delis do, we keep it real in brooklyn!)
at this point for precious minutes people had already been foraging through any store that hadn’t closed it’s doors so all i could get my hands on were some cans of baked beans (for protein), wonder white bread (for carbs and that stick to the roof of your mouth feeling that i haven’t experienced in about 15 years), peanut butter (for fat- hey if this outage lasted 3 days i was gonna get desperate) and some little debbie brownies for 25 cents each (at 340 calories per bar, this was a serious deal should i need sugar and energy). next i hit my fave french pastry shop that has the best coffee in the world to get an iced decaf coffee cause i’m sweating me a river and even better the nice people there offered to give me a free french confection/dessert cause they’re all going to start melting soon anyways without refrigeration. SCORE! lots of calories and super yummy german chocolate mini-cake…i think this was the highlight of the night!
6:00pm…still can’t get through to the venue, band, anyone on my cell and i’m tromping home with my spoils. hearing it’s a complete jungle in the city, still no power and i probably couldn’t get an empty cab if i wanted one, i realize that i’m about to be late for my sound check that’s probably not happening anyways and even if the gig is happening no one’s going to come, not even me as it’s looking! and don’t forget the bad hair! (i found out later that night that the venue made the decision not to open it’s doors so boy am i glad i didn’t try to get to the city) i get home and there’s a message on my home voice mail from my drummer and bass player who are at the venue “because they’re professionals” which cracked me up and made me feel like a total loser at the same time for not being there myself…turns out they were already in the city that afternoon and had been able to get to the venue without too much of a problem.
8:00pm…i’m supposed to be going on any minute now but instead i’m stuck at home and am talking to my sis in madison, wisconsin and she’s giving me the latest updates from CNN.com since of course i don’t have my own battery powered radio.
9:00pm…i’m reading by flashlight a book about the fall of the berlin wall that i’ve been meaning to finish for weeks because my roommate refuses to play UNO with me because it’s a stupid game with no strategy and we didn’t have enough people to play RISK, a game for real men with lots of strategy. i’m trying to distract myself from feeling like a high school girl who somehow missed her prom but it’s not working. i put on my pajamas and give into it.
9:30pm…my roomie takes pity on me and declares we should go on a walk. in full pajamas and flip flops i provoke wild protests from him that i needed to get dressed even though it was pitch dark out there and no one was going to see my pj pants with hearts on them. i’m not budging so we hit the street with our flashlights and wander for awhile. there seem to be block parties going on everywhere complete with music blaring from parked SUVs and the romantic glow of the headlights to dance to. we happen upon a pizza joint that is open of all things (i guess they have gas ovens) and so we join the line out the door to get a slice and so conserve our survival rations even further. (no beans and white bread tonight)
12:30am…i finish my book by candlelight (the flash light died an hour ago and no replacement batteries) and call it a night. this was absolutely the most anticlimactic night of my life but all in all it could have been worse and “it would all work out in the end”.(insert any optimistic forecast here) i decide to treat myself to a caramel frapuccino for breakfast and then get myself in gear and reschedule the release concert…and that’s exactly what i did!
(thanks for reading, i had to get that off my chest. i feel the Black-Out Blues a fadin’!)