So, it was early December, 1974. I was in a cab with two of the other guys in my band, The Planets. It was about midnight. We'd wrapped up our rehearsal down on Duane St. about 15 minutes earlier, pooled our money, and hence the taxi instead of the subway. We were sitting at a red light on the Bowery at Bleeker St.
For as long as I'd been alive, the Bowery was the definitive Skid Row.
Most weeknights, my wife watches Diane Sawyer's World News. About 3 months ago, Diane ended her broadcast with the announcement that that day, May 6th, was the 45th anniversary of Keith Richards waking up in the middle of the night, groggily taping the main dada dadadaa riff of "Satisfaction" and muttering, "I can't get no satisfaction..." into the mini-recorder that he always
When I was six years old, The Gear Clashers, a hot rod club in my Brooklyn neighborhood, had their headquarters/clubhouse in the basement of the building two doors down. As soon as I'd get home from my day in school, I'd go sit on my stoop and watch these guys (gods to be worshiped, really) with their lanky hoodlum hair and sideburns and their packs of Lucky Strikes...
During the second half of 1974, I got a job in a building called The Interchurch Center as a mail clerk for a non-profit company that wrote and proctored small town civil service exams. Impossibly boring stuff. The Center was located across the street from the world-famous Riverside Church up in what George Carlin used to call "White Harlem," aka Morningside Heights on way way way West
