play and ideas: This is 54.

This is 54

Closer to 80 than 25, our worlds are always changing.

When Pete Seegar turned 50, he performed, Joni Mitchell's “Two Sides Now”:

“Rows and flows of angel hair

And ice cream castles in the air

And feather canyons everywhere

Looked at clouds that way

But now they only block the sun

They rain and they snow on everyone

So many things I would have done

But clouds got in my way

I've looked at clouds from both sides now

From up and down and still somehow

It's cloud illusions I recall

I really don't know clouds at all”

I guess none of us do.

I’ve seen wild birthdays, with friends from all over the city popping by, artists and activists, party people and academics, all my friends.

I’ve had pandemic birthdays, with small turnouts, enjoying a bite and a bonfire outside.

I’ve been in San Francisco and not known a soul to call and had all my friends over after watching Times Bandits.

I’ve been with Ron and Carline.

With Nan and LAK, with Violent Femme records we sang along to a the top of our breath.

I’ve seen music and met artists I admired from afar.

I’ve ridden back and forth between Manhanan and Brooklyn, between riots and street clashes during Occupy Wall streets, finally meeting everyone I know at the Blarney Stone, where it seemed like all of New York was there. And we were were the center of the universe.

I’ve gone on hikes with my kids and watched them grow up, reconxiling myself with my failures, the movements that did not find traction, the books that didn’t find audiences, the clashes with the kids, or my comrades, the set backs and steps forward.

Last year, the teenager and I rode bikes through Berlin to Nico’s grave, to pay homage, before going out for a bite and off to see StereoLab, off to see James in Brussels the next day.

This year, the teenager was home working on college essays, through draft after draft, which they read to each parent. Hearing these drafts on the lessons of growing up, its hard to feel like wow, they are are off. They really are their own person with their own submectivity.

But it doesn’t mean, they are not still not above a bike ride to Red Hook, for a soup at Fort Defiance, before parking at Valentino Pier, sitting watching the water, tides pouring, drafting poems, watching the lady out in the distance, sitting in the grass, riding along the water, through the afternoon.

Back home, the kid is off to internship, and we’re off all to see a play about Pussy Riot, stopping for a bite on the way there, a pint, a demo outside, the city changing along with us. Later, we hear about young woman in Russia sent to jail for seven years for putting up a sticker in a grocery store.

Mom and I talk about getting older, how our lives changed since that fall of 1969, when I entered her world. She’s seem both sides, with great things, King and Kennedy, Carter and Obama stepping up, ideas moving forward, and then someone battling them down.

Gene helps me prep the Gumbo for everyone, spinning records, meeting neighbors, friends dropping by, old friends and new, song after song.

We dance late into the night.

This is 54, music and friends.

And Sunday, I make it out early to Judson, taking in the sites of Chinatown, the gorgeous leaves and new stories from Judson to Tompkins SquarePark, CSquat and MoRuS here and now show, Elissa's advice and the changing seasons. You can find peace inside, even in the midst of conflict.

Bill greets me at Museum of Recliam Urban Space, referring to our years of battles to save the community gardens.

Bill Weinberg is leading a tour.

Up the street, my friend @ghirose60 shows me around his exhibition of photographs, midnite in the people's garden, capturing the beauty and mystery, the colors and possibilities of urban green space.

Finishing the tour, I ride up to 99th street, where @jaywwalker and JC are leading us down the whisky river, their seventh seal like meditation on intoxication, internal dialogue and mental illness.

Watching the play, I think of the Seventh Seal chess match with death, when “Antonius Block is confronted by Death (Bengt Ekerot). Block challenges Death to a game of chess to provide him time to seek answers to the questions that plague his mind as Death has plagued his country. Death accepts, knowing that Block cannot escape his fate, and the two begin their game..”

Caroline, the teenager and I meet for dinner and a celebration, chatting about it all.

Caroline and I follow the music down Butler to Public Records, where beats are pumping, cloudy silhouettes bodies shaking, just like they did every Sunday afternoon in Berlin. A fog maching, stark lites, sweaty people, maoving to house beats, some techo, and a remix of an old hit everyone lines, singing along to “say my name” by Destiny's Child.

We’ve been through two decades of birthdays and Sunday afternoons, a few nights dancing in Berlin and back in Brooklyn.

Finally, back home to sleep.

I think about Prageeta whose Mike departed, as we danced away, the night before.

She left a note on facebook:

“Mike Stussy died on Saturday, November 18 around 10:30pm. He was the love of my life, and it was unbearable to see him suffering so much this last month of his life. I have no words right now. We are grateful to our family and to our dear friends who supported him and visited him. It meant a great deal to him. He is deeply loved and his goodness illuminates.”

Some say the final evolution of the acorn is literally to break down, before a tree is born.

I’m not sure Jimmy was feeling that way as Rosalind Carter was shuffling off at the same time this weekend, after her 77th year with Jimmy.

I’ve still got a thing or two left, a question or two unsolved before my last chess match.

I think about my friends and our lives, the music, that keeps it rolling forward.

“Atmosphere” by joy division, playing:

"Walk in silence

Don't walk away, in silence

Don't walk away."

I’m not walking away.

This is 54, music and friends.

Thank you everyone.