Kick in the Pants

I went on an odd little excursion last evening. The Lovely Carla and I went to a restuarant with another couple. We are all basically contemporaries, although we all had so little to talk about...it was kind of depressing.

Yes, well, we could talk about the food. The Cafe is one of those new agey kind of health food places. Everything is organic, clean, vegan, it doesn't exactly taste all that good, but it's all so good for you. The kids who work there (yes, for me anyone in their twenties now looks like a kid), had their requisite nose rings, dread-locks, hemp belts, etc. Everyone was so gentle, and kind and, well, I guess, spacey and grounded at the same time.

I ate like a man who hasn't seen a meal in a week, everything from the brocoli-mushroom soup (pureed!), to the apple-brocoli-wheatgrass drink, the chicken-portobello sandwhich (don't worry - no chickens were harmed in the process!), to the mint chocolate cake (even the dessert seemed so good for me - if you know what I mean?!). It wasn't all that edifying, but it did fill me up.

Anyway, I felt like I had fallen in a glorious, rainbow-hued hole, and I just couldn't get out. The lack of connection with other people, especially our dinner companions, threw me into a state of consternation. It's a state very unlike Kansas, Toto!

The only saving grace? They were playing a CD on the stereo system, first cut to last, that transported me to another reality. It was Television's first album, the stark rock masterpiece, Marquee Moon released in 1977. The dark and beguiling Tom Verlaine singing edgy and strange songs, and trading beautiful electric guitars lines with Richard Lloyd. It was a blast of New York, of post punk underground music, and it was exhilarating. I don't think anyone at the table even noticed.

Here I was connecting with voices from another time and place...I was transported into another dimension...the guitar lines came to me like long-forgotten friends, Verlaine's voice, brittle and harsh, was like a siren song of an alternate reality. Sometimes you never feel so lonely as when you are with other people...and so connected to others not there, except in memory, or through sound waves, on a little spinning silver disc...now isn't that just a kick in the pants?!