busy day coming up...

will meet my friend Ben in Brooklyn in about 4 hours. Cityboy is recovering from a busy weekend.
Report:
Pass Over, the play itself I found somewhat manipulative---the performances were amazing and the writing, if you can separate it from the manipulativeness of the play was very inventive. Also met an actor, M, and we spoke about past projects (his) and talked a bit about Shakespeare. A good afternoon--see, the choice to spend extra money on the ticket actually paid off.
That evening, went to see Saint Fortune's project at the Ice Factory---really disappointing---the creator-director is a very nice guy, but this was all in his head. Bored a lot of the time. Did, however, have a nice chat with Lindsay, who is part of ERS. Afterwards, my body was tired, but my head wanted to hang out. But where? I returned to the upper west side, and chose a bar on Amsterdam near 80th street---one that I had passed several times and looked mellow. Unfortunately the bartender and her friend had a discussion that included a lot of cursing and was near enough to me to make me uncomfortable. I watched what I could of the Red Sox-Royal game (the bartender was nice enough to find it for me), but did not feel good. Kind of barren that evening, but remember cityboy, when you try a bar where you are not known, you can't expect "magic". Might return and hope for some better conversation and some quiet.
Yesterday, spent the early part of the day chatting with my friend Clint at South Fourth. Good talk, then on to Cobra to see my friend Bartender Olivia and watch baseball. Olivia told me she is bartending at Sweet Jane's a bar in Queens that I have long wanted to visit. Will do that, I hope, on Wednesday. Then it was off to a forum on gentrification at Mayday Space. Four panelists, not a great discussion---I presented a question afterwards that, I think, galvanized more talk about the role of elected officials in the fate of Bushwick. I left, and as usual, felt angry and somewhat helpless. The monolith of gentrification seems to be pushing so hard in Bushwick and in other places.Stopped off at Starr bar the sister bar of Mayday and had a coke (well, it is an activist bar, so I did not have to order a beer) Nice time, very quiet---only 7, but tiredness had set in, and it was time to go home.
That is all for now---feeling somewhat fatigued, and I have a few things to do before I meet Ben.
Will report tomorrow.