I walked out of my apartment this morning and into the heat. It's well over ninety degrees and not yet nine 'o clock. Summer is here in New York City. Not by way of the solstice, but in every other way it is. It's hot - very hot. A few weeks ago there was a senseless killing in Chinatown. That always used to mark the beginning of the summer. There's a lot less violence here than there used to be, but the heat in NYC always brings tensions to the surface. Walking down Havemeyer to go to the bodega, I felt like I was walking through a set from Spike Lee's
Do The Right Thing. There was a stillness in the idiotic sunlight blasting through every crevice of shade. All of of it steeped in a foreboding and quiet boredom. I passed a Methedonian waiting on a stoop trying to look busy. A few women walked by, clothes too tight - tits sweating. No one is smiling. In the bodega I grabbed a brick of Bustelo. As hot it is, I knew that iced coffee wasn't gonna do the trick for me this morning. At the counter, a neighborhood drug dealer, whom I remember from when he was a kid (and there's nothing youthful in his demeanor anymore) looked up from his Ring-Ding breakfast to comment on my choice of coffee. "That's the good stuff," he croaked. I may have mumbled a response, but it's too hot to make small talk, and I needed this coffee as badly as he needed whatever he was waiting for. I've been battling intense headaches for weeks. Back upstairs and making my coffee my thoughts drifted back to the usual default...
"Love is only love, but it's the least we think the most of..."
Download:
"The Summer Sun" mp3
by Chris Stamey, 1977.
with Alex Chilton
Ork Single
out of print
"Where The Fun Is" mp3
by Chris Stamey, 1977.
with Alex Chilton
Ork Single
out of print
top photograph:
Crossing, Brooklyn, New York, 1997. ©
Ted Barron
