just that little rush.

I used to love waking up on weekend mornings and listening to my mother muffle her phone conversations. She'd be shuffling around silently starting her day and kicking ass all before the sun rose. It was the same in the many hotels I found myself waking up in over the years; silent shuffles. She didn't want to wake her sleeping babe. But I used to lay there faking sleep, usually only 4 or 5 hours out of sequins and kohl, listening and wondering if she was telling secrets or not. Secrets are silent shuffles. Things that go on before the lights shine. In my experience there are 2 kinds of secrets: those that end up with 20 friends hiding behind sofas in a darkened apartments clutching balloons and wine glasses, and those that end up in broken hearts. Malice. Greed. Boredom.

A secret may be defined as that which is kept from the knowledge of any but the initiated or privileged. Haha. The precision of Webster makes me grin. It is decently known that my scene status operates highly around such secrets. I am often privileged to happenings before they hit the gossip waves or headlines. I guess that's because I write the headlines. Well...here's today's:

Secrets save the sellouts, sicken the scene.

Half of you are rolling your eyes because you think the Long Island music scene is dead and the other half is because you believe you are above it. I can assure you neither are true. In a darkened and cramped Broadway venue last night, a mob of revved up Patent Pending fans moshed my last lingering doubts away. Between confetti and crowd surfing, they shoved non-believers' faces into seeing the one thing that they control; their presence. We Are Here. Unfortunately, it was in this same setting that I learned of the next big bomb to hit my beloved scene. Yes, this information is recorded in the Book, but no it will not be posted here. Not yet. I have my sources, good and bad in their own respects. Negotiable and stubborn as well. Some of them have hearts, which gives me a gap to bargain with. The conditions of my knowledge were; I get told the secret as long as I swear not to do anything to stop it. If I do, the culprits get a Book. I flinched and agreed to it like an alcoholic shaking hands with the Captain. What I heard wore me out instantly. Not him, them, not again.

The other day I could have sworn I was waking up in Phoenix. Something about the way I was laying when I woke up, the way the air was cool around my face but I could sense the humidity outside. That's what knowing a scene secret is like. Being safe at the moment but knowing the heat you're about to enter. It's complicated for me to know what to do. To protect my friends and the 'home' I love so dearly, or to just let it happen and write my headline. This Condition says stay out of it. Set In Color wants me as their partner. Score 24 is like a snow globe that people just love to shake. When I was little and wanted to go out and ride in the winter, my dad always told me to sleep on new fallen snow. If it's still there in the morning, you'll know what to do with it.

This morning I feel like I'm in Clarion. Chandler's whispering on the phone and it feels like it's ok to go back to sleep; someone else has things under control right now. There's time before the headlines have to go to press. There's a few more hours before I have to laden my lies with kohl and aerosol hairspray. In the meantime, I'm listening and trying to make the right calls right here beside you. No matter what I say I'll stay for a while.






....Ricky.
"We All Roll Along" by: The Maine