Bright Lights, Big Zekey

So.  I picked this book up at my Grandma's house a few days after she died.  I flew home from NYC where I was happily (albeit briefly) living the dream:  3 weeks big pay to live in a hotel and understudy a show in Times Square.  I spent most of my time getting lost and high in Central Park, revisiting old friends, seeing/avoiding relatives, and drinking bourbon in bed.

Everyday I would wander from Broadway and 77th down to 42nd, passing giant theatres advertising Shrek, Mamma Mia, Gypsy!  My theatre was jammed in between the overstuffed (and soon to close) Young Frankenstein and the glowering jowls of Frank Langella, starring in A Man For All Seasons.  I loved taking the walk to Times Square.  I passed Lincoln Center, Columbus Circle, various stars of 30 Rock, and tuxedoed men on the way to fancy dances.  Everyday I was breathing in the dream of Broadway--this mecca of theatre was now my workplace; Stage Door, not Will Call, thank you very much.  Dreamy neon dream.  Mmmmm.

Halloween morning I awoke in Brooklyn to the message of my Grandma's death.  My Grandma gave me theatre--I do what I do chiefly because of this marvelous woman, this tiny wonder, this matriarch of matriarchs.  And she's gone.

I buy some coffee.  I buy some booze.  I take a jog through Central Park.  I start drinking.  I put corpse paint and blue-lattice work on my face, put on my best seer-sucker suit, and take on the East Village.  I take a breath, get on a plane, and head upstate to bury my Grandma.  

Mourn, eat, clean, repeat.

I raided my Grandma's shelves for books during the days, then drank and vaporized into the evening.  I returned to NYC, in a mournful and stoned stupor, and hopped on the Subway, headed back to 42nd and my gleaming dreamy Broadway.  And with shaking hands and dilated pupils, I began Bright Lights, Big City.  A perfect book for my subterranean solitary shiva, a pocket sized tome that would be by my side from Gun Hill Road to the Cloisters to Coney Island to the Green Room under Times Square.

So, next time you're living a dreamy mournful life of privilege in NYC, fueled by booze and drugs and dancing and crying, you know what book to open up and bleed into.

Rock.