Tell your ma. Tell your pa (click me)

July 6, 2001.

"I'm alright," I said as I knelt down to the curb. "I just need to sit down for a minute. I need a sip of water."

Wayne Shorter had just finished tooting his horn in front of a packed crowd at Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. The Jazz Festival was in full blast as Stenka, a smitten redhead and I had discovered all week. This was the first time I'd had a 'spell.'

Though Wayne was no quintet by himself, nor was he Herbie, his chops rose the crowd to their feet, regardless of the fact that the gardens had no chairs. Genius loves company.

Ray was playing the next night. The same night as Greg's birthday. The same day as my flight out of Copenhagen into Heathrow. The day before I was scheduled to fly back to JFK. I needed some sort of lag, just in case.


This was the closest I ever came to Ray. I was in the same city as he was, that was certain. I knew I would never get closer.

I crashed on the comfortable futon at Stenka's house, just outside the center of Copenhagen somewhere near Vindebrogade. I still have her email address, that stenka.

Denmark was the stop after Helsinki... the extended stay after mun rakas' in Hanko and Helsinki. The layover after Sweden, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Czech, Germany, Switzerland and Holland again. It was hectic, but the danes accomodate. I picked up a Herbie album and a beige shirt while I roamed the streets by myself with nothing more than a small backpack and a borrowed bicycle with a basket on the front. Bikes in copenhagen, I tell ya, what a city. Commuters scoff at engines and 10 speeds... easier to stop in Christiania, or Free town for a toke or two on a biped...

"Ray" certainly was a good flick. If you look at it the same way you would "Aviator," you too would want to strangle both Leonardo and Scorcese... I certainly can see what all the hubub is about. You certainly could mistake the two of them.

The problem with biopics, for me, about people I adore is the inevitability that I will begin to picture that idol as his idolator... or, Ray as Jaimie... the tattoed motherfucker.

I could care less about Howard Hughes, his hercules, or Kate Blanchett. Misery loves company; compulsion deserves derision; obsessions obfuscate destiny; genius engenders influence.

I'm talkin about. America. Sweet. America.


Baby what I'd say.



Ray in Copenhagen... July, 2001