WORKS ON DIGITAL PAPER

Hot Bird

The first time I'd ever been in New York, the autumn of 1999, I stayed with Kevin above Nick's Luncheonette, on Dean Street. At the time, Kevin was the non-jazz component in an otherwise jazzy apartment in an otherwise jazzy stretch of neighborhood. Not that Kevin isn't jazzy, it's just that everyone else around there was a jazz musician trying to make it in the jazz scene in New York. Kevin was selling books, writing and enjoying the adventures that come so easily in the big city. Anyhow, one night we got lost trying to find our friends in the West Village and ended up at the Williamsburg Bridge at two in the morning. This was before the Williamsburg Bridge had that big, safe looking causeway, when it just had that long flight of wooden stairs up the side. Not really knowing our way around, we figured we'd just walk over the bridge and back to Dean Street. Upon summiting the crest at the foot of the bridge, we were confronted by a very motley and presumably very surly crew of decidedly nonhipster drunken types, drinks still in hand. As we slowly, very slowly backed away, turned around and made our way back into the relative safety of Chinatown, I realized New York was the next place for me.