The Log

January has been my favorite month for a long time. January is quiet, unassuming and makes no demands of you. January is like a mellow friend that is happy to just have you visit and doesn’t care if you come over empty handed. It’s not a month of parties or vacation or a pressure to go outside because the weather is so nice. January has no expectations. January is perfectly content to stay at home with a book and some Thai food.

Saturday, January 8th, 2005
The Black Table’s 2nd Anniversary Party

When I find myself in time of trouble, Black Table parties come to me. Since November, life on Planet Pauline had reached some new levels of Suck. There was that dreaded overnight shift during the holiday season. During the week in December that I was in “Amahl and the Night Visitors” I caught the flu. Then, literally on the morning that I came back to working days, a tsunami hit southeast Asia and sent me into a work tailspin.

It was all enough to drive me to drink.

And drink I did at the Black Table party at Slainte (pronounced Slon-cha). It’s a big Irish bar on the Bowerie with lots of television screens and football. It was a strange feeling to drink a beer at eleven o’clock on a Saturday night, because it had been so long since I had done it. And was that a buzz coming on? Fantastic! Most importantly there were people. The party was full of lots and lots of writers and assorted bon vivants. I talked about everything from millionaires to what exactly my dress was made out of. (That would be lace and a polyester blend.) After about three hours of merriment, I draped my red cape around me, put my furry hat on my head and disappeared up the Bowerie looking like an extra from Dr. Zhivago.

When I came home, I started playing DJ with all my CDs and eventually fell asleep. (No, not on the carpet.) When I woke up, I found albums such as The Carpenters and Dar Williams lying helter skelter all over the floor. What kind of drunk was I if I came home and put on easy listening? I slipped them back into their cases and got ready to go out to Williamsburg. I had to sing.

Sometimes when I am on the overnight, I get strange ideas. Back in 2000 I wrote bad poetry which I then mailed into the New Yorker for possible publication. I’m sure that someone over there had a good laugh at my expense. Another time I had the brilliant idea to take violin lessons, despite the fact that I would schedule them when I should have been asleep. Again, a $1,000 mistake that didn’t need to happen.

Not every endeavor that I started while on the overnight ended in shambles. For instance, the bulk of the novel I wrote last year was written when I was on the overnight, as I killed time between my evening trip to the gym and going into work. I also did the first third of my graduate degree at Columbia while working the overnight. It’s amazing how much reading one can get done with news isn’t moving.

One area that seems unfettered by poor overnight judgment is singing. I found the audition for Melodia, my women’s choir, while scrolling through Craigslist at 4:00 AM. Same goes for my latest project. One night early in the morning in December I found an ad that a couple of guys were looking for a female back-up singer for an electronic piece they were producing. Sure, I can be considered a trained singer, so I replied. I figured I would have to go in and audition just so they could see if I had any chops.

A few days later I got an e-mail from a guy named Dan who wrote that even though he had never heard me sing, I had the gig. The studio in Williamsburg was booked for January. A few days later he sent me an MP3 of some beats and pianos chords as well as five lines that were the lyrics. I had no idea what the song actually sounded like or what I was supposed to do with all this information. But since 90% of life is showing up, I did just that on January 9th.

The studio was off the Lorimer stop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I followed the directions to a T and realized once I got to the loft that I had been there a year earlier for a party. I was greeted at the door by Ellis, who ran the studio. He led me into a dark control room in the back of the building. There I met Stan, originally from Uzbekistan, who was in his early 20s and the producer of the project. With him was Travis, also in his early 20s, who was the composer. Dan was on his way in from Connecticut.

Once Dan arrived we started recording. First he went in and sang the lyrics. This took all of about 10 minutes. Then I went into the studio, put on the headphones and started oohing and aahing under his vocals. I thought I was done when a voice came through my headphones.

“Hey, uh, Pauline?” It was Dan. “I know the lyrics are new, but could you try and sing them as well? It could sound cool.”

And so I spent the next 45 minutes singing, trying different variations of Dan’s lyrics about lying in the sun on the beach. I took a short break while Dan laid down verse two, and then once again I was wearing the headphones and interpreting lyrics I had only heard a handful of times. It was difficult, but at the same time exciting, because I knew that any mistake I made could either be erased or tweaked thanks to the wonder of Pro Tools. This was especially apt about three hours into the session when Dan and Stan and the rest of the guys wanted me to hit some really high notes and I just couldn’t get enough air into me. The ethereal effect they were going for was cool but I could tell that my rough cuts were going to need some adjustments in the final version of the song.

By five thirty I was spent and ready to go home. By this time the guys were adding guitar flourishes and Ellis had called in his guitarist buddy from down the street to add some power chords. We had recorded probably enough tracks for three songs and a remix. I was paid twenty dollars and a bag of almonds for my efforts as I left.

It’s an amazing feeling knowing that four and half hours of singing has all been caught on tape, even better knowing that someone is going to go home and polish it all up into a five minute dance track. I clicked on my iPod and let The Beatles White Album carry me back to the subway station. I was light and floating, but still so tired that I felt as if I had been hit by a truck.

And the best part? Once this song is mixed and mastered, we’ll likely do another one.

I was sitting at home reading Koren Zailckas’ memoir, “Smashed” which is about a girl who spends younger years wasted, when the phone rang. It was the esteemed writer and my friend, Kerry Smith.

“Hey, Pauline! What’s new?”

“Oh, nothing. Just reading this book about being a party girl at Syracuse University. Strangely, I can relate.”

“Cool. You know I’m on the apartment hunt? My landlord is selling my building in Williamsburg. I need to be out by March 1st.”

“The communist,” I replied flatly. “How’s the hunt going?”

“Not bad. I think I found something,” Kerry said.

“Oh yeah? What’s it like?”

“It’s on the Lower East Side. Right on Ludlow and Stanton.” (Note to non-New Yorkers: Ludlow and Stanton is the epicenter of activity on the Lower East Side.)

“Score!” I said, genuinely happy for her. Good real estate karma had come her way. That’s rare. “Is it a studio?”

Kerry was quiet for moment. “Actually, it’s a three bedroom.”

“Three bedroom? But there’s only one of you…”

“Yeah,” she said. “I need to fill it up.” There was a small silence. “How do you feel about moving, Pauline? Want to take a look at it?”

I thought about it for a minute. Leave the Gramercy bunker? To actually live with other people? What about Pookie the Fearless? However, I didn’t want to be a spoil sport. “Okay. I’ll take a look. I might like it.”

The next day I met Kerry and our friend Chris, drummer turned real estate agent outside 161 Ludlow Street. We climbed up three flights of stairs and Chris opened the door to apartment number six slowly, like Willy Wonka opening the door to the Chocolate Room. Inside was what could be our new home, still inhabited by its somewhat sloppy male tenants. The living area was large with exposed brick and lots of big windows that faced east. It was a cloudy day but I could already imagine the morning sunlight that would pour through.

Kerry hopped from room to room, lit up like a Christmas tree. I could see that she was already mentally moving furniture around, figuring out where to put her bed or the couch. It was smaller than the Gramercy bunker, but still a great place with brand new fixtures, a shiny silver refrigerator as well as track lighting. I was drawn to a bedroom that faced the street. It was cozy and quiet and the large window had a perfect birds-eye view of the corner of Ludlow and Stanton. There was also a fire escape where I envisioned sitting out on on summer nights, drinking beers and heckling all the hipsters below.

I came back into the living room. Kerry, ever the businesswoman, was haggling with Chris over the broker fee. “I’m not paying a fee because the last time I did that my landlord sold my building and I had to move out six months later. I’m not getting hosed again.” In an effort to cool the deliberations, I suggested we take a look at the roof deck. Could I hang out up there and sun bathe as I do now in Gramercy? If I couldn’t, then the deal was off. Everyone has their deal breakers. Kerry wanted a place in Manhattan. I wanted a place where I could parade around in a bathing suit, like my own personal French Riviera.

We climbed about four more flights of stairs before landing on the roof. Sure enough, there were lounge chairs and an abandoned barbecue. There was also one of the most amazing views of lower Manhattan I had ever seen. Even in cloudy weather, the view of the Lower East Side from eight stories up was truly enlightening, if not majestic. Kerry and Chris chased around the roof, chirping about all the people and parties we could fit up there. Immediately I could see all my friends, from Jen Crupi to Heather to Godfrey up there drinking beers and talking shite. It would be warm out and the air would be full of the aroma of barbecued hamburgers. If it were the Fourth of July there would be fireworks. If it were my birthday there would be balloons.

“Hello New York!” We all shouted from the edge of the roof, as if we were waiting for someone to holler back or throw something at us. “Hullloooo!”

But, as they say: Change your house, change your luck.

Laissez les bons temps rouler.