photographic evidence is very thin for this page.   i'll submit what i have.   perhaps more will turn up later.


first we have a series of images of one location, the Empire Diner.   i think it's gone now, but it was formerly at @ 28th street and 6th Av. on Manhattan's west side.


                         

                           


                        
  

my intention here is to show that there was a place, ONE place, where i was actually HAPPY during my brief sojourn in NYC in 1978.  i ended up spending a year there, in transition to my new life in southern New Hampshire.   i spent that year 'crashing' at  my parents  home in Queens, commuting to Manhattan every evening, where i tried to find a niche among the decayed remnants of Greenwich Village's 'folk' clubs.   it was a dismal undertaking. 

there were only two redeeming graces in this living nightmare.   first. i made the acquaintance of a young guitarist named Steve Miller, who became my dear friend and accompanied me on these nocturnal visits to hell.   after a while, Steve invited me to stay in town at his unheated slum dwlling on W. 24th St. so that i didn't have to take the subway back to Queens at 4 in the morning.

and that brings us to the second 'grace', the Empire Diner.  we otfen repaired there, at 2AM, after our' sets' at local clubs, for an early breakfest.   soon the staff came to expect us among the 'regulars'.

here's the twist.  apparently the Diner's owner was a music buff.   at one end of the counter he had installed a beautful Kawai upright piano. 

            

it looked a lot like these.  Steve and i were both somewhat shy at first about approaching this ebony shiboleth, but late one evening, i plucked up my courage and asked the counter man if i could touch it.    go ahead, he said. 

and that was the start of what became a delightful routine, a mini 'tradition', that would continue for the remainder of my stay in the 'Big Apple'.   each night, after breakfast and coffee, i would go to the piano while Steve took out his guitar, and together we would cycle through all the original songs in my repertoire for an 'audience' consisting of the couunter and wait staff and whatever late-night stragglers came in after the bars  closed at 4 AM.  it was a happy interlude in an otherwise barren time.

the 90's  -

in 1993. i returned from two years of my 'southern strategy' aka, residence in Nashville, Tenn.   it was a difficult time and a very uncomfortable adjustment.   once again, there was the agonizing stay at my parents' home in Queens while i tried to establish myself as a gainfully employed pianist in NYC.   the alley i got lost in was called 'Ballet'.   i learned to play the piano for ballet dancers.   i learned a lot of 'classical' piano music.  the people i played for were 'difficult', as a rule.   occasionally, it was fun.  but often, it wasn't.   it was a living.   i did it for 19 years until i 'retired' in 2009.

here are some pics to give you a rough idea.    that's a boy.  if my work had had involved only boys

. . . . well.  it didn't.  there were also children. 

which were more fun to watch.   and then, of course,  the main event.    

let's round out the picture.       


          


              


                   


                  


                now you seen the upside

there's another side.  i'll let you draw your own conclsions.         



          

in a way, the world of Ballet is like a machine designed to produce a very highly specialized human being.  there are many failures in the 'production' process.  i was profoundly relieved to no longer participate in this factory for automata.  it is very significant that the most important 19th century 'standards of ballet repertoire are concerned with ROBOTS as thematic.  Copelia, the Nutcracker, etc.

again, i'll let you draw your own conclsions.   

which is not to say that there aren't some 'successes' as well.  during my tenure i had a few opportunites to play for this fellow, who like all dancers, still regularly takes 'class'  :)))

                    
       
moving right along.  farewell to the enchanted land of ballet, and its sometimes tormented denizens.

there were several other phases for my life during the 1990s.   for one thing, i made my 'debut' as a NYC poet.  :)))

and possibly the main reason that this strange incarnation took hold of my imagination centered on the place pictured here.

                         

it's a bit hard to tell, in the gloom, what is shown in this photo.   it is the facade of a tenenent building on New York's lower East Side, where for about 5 years i attended readings on most Sunday afternoons, in a derelict room on the ground floor.   it was un-heated in winter, and sweltering in summer.  no matter.  the tiny group of poetry 'fanatics' who met there only cared about only one thing; to have their unpublished scriblings heard by other 'poets' as crazy as they were.

to help set the scene i've availed myself of Google's infinite archive of photos to give you get a better view.

from the outside.        

and -  the neighborhood          


                          

let's look inside . .            here's that 'magic' room.  they've cleaned

it up since we met there.  :)))    an event in progress      for some

reason,  the bathroom off the main gallery was a focus.   ??     here's a poet, 


                   in  contemplation.   there are a couple minor highlights  from the 90s,

for which i have slight photographic evidence.  the poster below commemorates my brief foray into cabaret entertanment.  i did only one

performance before deciding that i wasn't cut out for the rigors of self-promotion that going further would have required.


           this venue, like the Empire Diner, seems to have passed into history.

as the 90s drew to a close, i withdrew more and more into my private world, out of the public spotlight.   where did i hide?

in my little recording studio, tucked away in the basement of cousin Rita's house in Ridgefiel Park, NJ.   pictured here.


                              

and that's all.   i worked on my personal projects here,  between my daily stints as a dance accompanist.