Stephen Mejias

In "Pony," Frida sings:

I didn't know what this was when I picked it up. The jacket offers no band name or album title. Kind of like the Park Tavern on West Side Avenue in Jersey City; there's no way of knowing it's the Park Tavern unless you walk in, and once you're in, you never really want to leave.

I was flipping through the current issue of <i>Rolling Stone</i> (RS 1068/1069, with a mustachioed Brad Pitt on the cover) and stopped at their "Rock & Roll Gift Guide."

It was November 1999, in New Orleans. I had been on the road for almost a month, traveling on my own aboard Amtrak trains. I had a rail pass that allowed me to get on and off wherever I pleased. That freedom was great, but I became terribly lonely. Part of the deal was I had to make at least two stops in Canada. So, I went from New York City to Rochester to Niagara Falls and then up to Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa, and Toronto. All the while reading crazy shit like Pauline Reage's <i>Story of O</i> or Henry Miller's <i>Quiet Days in Clichy</i>, meeting beautiful people, falling in love with perfect strangers a hundred times a day, discovering wonderful new places and then leaving almost as soon as some hint of a connection was made.

She had short brown hair, brown eyes, and wore a brown bomber and a blue and green checked ivy cap. Every ten minutes, we'd have to stop so she could take a picture of something.

Well, I wasn't able to attend Saturday's "Deep Listening" discussion at the Philoctetes Center. A plane to Mexico was missed and I wound up drinking exotic beers and helping newlyweds plan their honeymoon. Long story.

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