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January 20, 2004 #
 Photo: Weller, Buckler & Brooks on Stanley Road, 1974 Music: The Jam - "Going Underground" When I asked Chris Gage to write something about the subway I knew it didn't have anything to do with the nuclear proliferation subtext of "Going Underground" but it can be a war down there too. This might be the first actual "writing" to grace this page. "The braying sheep on my TV screen make this boy shout, make this boy scream!" I hear ya, man. Randy Kennedy stole my life. I swear to God he did, I just don't remember when. He must be stronger than me, because he must remember when he did it. I mean, he had to plan for it and all. It could have been during the holiday rush-hour bump-and-grind fest that is Grand Central on Christmas Eve in 1982. Some dude ran into me full tilt. WHAM! Knocked the siroccos right out of me. WACK! It could have been then. Or a few New Year's ago when I fell asleep on the subway and ended up in Astoria, Queens, with a gaggle of Greek sailors rolling the bones against my freshly shaved head. They dressed me up like Popeye and made me eat a whole zip-lock bag of strange smelling spinach. It could have been then. It could have been a million times, now that I think about it, when some "Freaky Friday" / "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" moment took place and POW !, Randy Kennedy and I switched lives. There's been a few times when I felt something . . . something strange and pleasurable happen to my body. Like a really bad case of the DTs except I hadn't drank anything stronger than a tube of Crest all day. And now, now I'm stuck not writing about life on the subway for the NYTimes. Or about the 10-minute credit crawl after "Lord of the Rings: Return of the Kings." I don't know when he did it, but he took my life away. That was my beat! Now, I am merely fostering a slavelike devotion to Kennedy's prose, his keen eye on the bigger picture of the minutia; or maybe I just am looking on forlorn at what was once mine, like a kid whose popsicle was stolen by a bigger kid. The rivets that hold the GWB together! I had a great story about where they were made. This guy in north Jersey was going to tell me about it. It was going to be great subway reading, perfect for the NPR set, the Metro section had my name writ large all over it. But that's the last memory of my old life I have. I tried to write it down, but it was gone. Poof! Just sort of vanished. I guess I don't begrudge him. He's very good at what I should be doing. Spins a yarn like Joseph Mitchell, he does. A yarn firm and intricate. That Randy Kennedy. He used to be me. Randy? If you ever want to talk, please let me know. I won't try to ambush you or anything. I just want to say hi. Are you there, Randy? It's me, you. Archives "The Other Page" powered by Removable Hype. RSS. Copyright © 2003 La Otra Página, Inc. All nights observed. Feel free to email "info(at)krucoff.com" for questions, comments, stock tips, and family gossip. |
