Characters
George Gershwin Part 1: Laundromat
Wednesday, December 28th, 2011: Characters, Stories.
“You a musician?”
I looked up. I’d been drumming on the table, in time with the churning washing machines, as I read yesterday’s paper. Across from me I saw an older man, slim and rugged in a denim shirt and faded jeans.
“Yeah, I guess. Among other things.”
“Look at these hands.” The man spoke quickly in a gruff urban accent. His eyes were large and bright, his features chiseled. I saw that his hands were huge. “An octave and a half. I play piano. Live right up the hill. What about you?”
“I write mostly, play whatever. Sing. I guess guitar’s my main thing.”
“Play by ear, huh? We’re the lucky ones. First thing I teach is to listen. That’s what Duchamp taught me. Marcel? My name’s Gershwin. George.”
I shook his hand, took him in. Big nose, big ears. Looked early-to-mid fifties.
“No way. Gershwin’s dead.”
George smiled. “Fact is, he came to me in a dream. Ten years ago. Said I should take up the name. A vocation. Before that I was CIA. Strictly underground. You wouldn’t believe it, but to this day I pass them on the street all the time, here in the city. KGB, British Intelligence, hand signals, winks, just like gradeschool.”
I felt stumped. My dryerload had stopped and I began to fold.
“How old do you think I am?”
“Fifty,” I said.
“Sixty-eight. My wife’s twenty-four. Met her at a march in LA. You should meet her some time. Sings those old labor songs.”
Gershwin heard his own dryer stop and went to empty it into a patched canvas bag. The other denizens of the laundromat, Latino women and their daughters, looked up shyly from the benches along the window. George passed me on his way to the door. “Here’s my card. Call me.” And he was gone.
I stood puzzling over a neat, elegantly embossed business card bearing the name John Christy, Piano: Concerts & Lessons.
From Loft of Dreams: True Stories by Max Carmichael
George Gershwin Part 2: Dog Food
Thursday, December 29th, 2011: Characters, Stories.
The whole band was there around the kitchen table, dressed in our thriftshop suits. Bottles of decent wine waiting to be poured.
The buzzer shrieked just as the clock hit the hour. My eyebrows arched in surprise. “I’ll get it,” said Fenton.
We all turned to face the top of the stairs. Mrs. Gershwin’s head rose first above the railing. She was a giant. But then George himself was quite a man. “Swell place,” he enthused, looking enviously around at the stereo and recording equipment.
I pulled a huge stuffed catfish out of the oven. Mrs. Gershwin was a vegetarian. George didn’t drink. The Bike Messenger sat up, his hands clenched on the table in front of him. His eyes practically bugged out. “So, how did you two meet, Mrs. Gershwin.”
“Oh, George and I met on a march,” she replied, in a thick, sweet drawl. George himself threw his hands out over the table.
“It was a labor march, for civil servants. They were advancing on City Hall, and Tessie was belting out these old labor songs, old Wobbly songs, you know? I just happened to be there, waiting for a bus.”
Tessie was staring at George in rapture. “So I went up to her afterwards, and asked her to sing with me. We’re going to do a concert at the Bank of America next Wednesday, aren’t we, Tessie.” She nodded mightily. “My friend Bob is the program director for the local classical station, he sets these things up. I’d like you all to come.”
“What kind of stuff do you play?” said the Singer.
“Something for everyone,” George whispered, tucking his chin and grinning mischievously.
“Rhapsody in Blue?” I asked.
“Naturally.” George turned to Tessie and fell to smiling at her. After a while he turned back and looked straight at me.
“I had no place to live, but I had a toy piano. Tessie let me move in with her and her mother. A suffering soul. Have you ever eaten dog food?”
In the silence they could hear Fenton chewing food he’d grabbed off somebody else’s plate.
“It’s not bad, you know.” George smiled comfortably. “Got everything you need.”
From Loft of Dreams: True Stories by Max Carmichael
George Gershwin Part 3: Rhapsody in Blue
Friday, December 30th, 2011: Characters, Stories.
The auditorium in the heart of downtown San Francisco is packed at noon on Wednesday. A noisy crowd. Without any introduction, George strides across the stage wearing a tuxedo, at just the appointed time, dropping his butt on the bench before the grand piano and aggressively attacking it, his feet dancing and his butt scooting around on the bench. He beats out a ragtime, looking up at the audience and nodding with that Popeye grin. It’s loud and technically bewildering, it’s over quickly, and he jumps up and grabs the microphone.
“Some of you may know the name Marcel Duchamp,” he suggests hoarsely. “An artist of some renown. He devised this next piece to settle a bet.”
Mrs. Gershwin advances onstage, carefully pushing a cart stacked with what appear to be crystal wine glasses, brandy snifters, filled to different depths. George is theatrically rolling up his sleeves, revealing his muscular arms. He wets the tips of his fingers in a glass of water, and begins to play a tune by caressing the rims of the glasses. It’s “Chopsticks.” The crowd explodes with laughter and applause.
When he’s done Tessie looms at the microphone and George launches into her accompaniment, this time fixing his hunched concentration on the piano. She sings stridently off-key. Old labor songs.
“And now, I will do something no one has ever attempted,” says George as the hour approaches one. Tessie’s returning onstage with a little red toy piano.
“I will play Rhapsody In Blue on two pianos, the grand and the toy, at the same time.”
And he does, brilliantly.
From Loft of Dreams: True Stories by Max Carmichael
Wednesday, August 20th, 2025: 2025 Trips, Characters, Mogollon Rim, Regions, Road Trips, Stories.
here I am again
trying to escape my unbearable life
even here, high in the mountains, far from towns, far from home, hard to shrug off the pressure, the need to be obeying my schedule, my obligations, getting things done, solving problems every damn minute
at sunset last night the elk came out into the roadside meadow, between fifty and a hundred, cows nursing calves
my mind absent with stress, i left my car lights on during dinner, came out in the dark to a dead battery, a little over a mile from my room and a couple hours from the nearest AAA service
i called them and sat in the car waiting for an hour, went back in the restaurant to pee, had to explain to the servers, the cook came out and jumped my battery, got me started
it’s morning, i’m on the veranda in the sun
sky clear, air warming to mid-70s by afternoon
watching the road, people visiting their vacation homes, contractors resupplying or renovating
want to drive across the alpine plateau, never get tired of that endless dreamlike landscape, meadows and lakes and volcanic ridges, but if i wait till afternoon monsoon clouds will come to complete it
brought my guitar, working on a song about a visit with a sometime girlfriend 34 years ago
beautiful, talented young woman struggling with mental illness, to whom i brought an abundance of patience and gentleness but no relevant experience or skills
how as an adult from a severely dysfunctional family she was alone in the world, society demanding she follow the rules, stand on her own two feet
and she tried, again and again, to fulfill society’s expectations, to conform to the patterns of career, home, relationships, consumerism and the market economy, while randomly but continuously derailed by terrifying hallucinations and the impaired judgement and faulty decisions that resulted and regularly misled her
under that relentless pressure from this fundamentally suicidal and homicidal society, afraid of being locked up in an institution, she believed she had been given all the resources she needed to succeed, and when she sought treatment, it was for the symptoms, not the illness
and we think if we could just elect the right president, solve climate change, and allow trans people to serve in the military, we could get back to normal
as i listen to the radio at home every day i note music that surprises me, and after the list nears a couple dozen I review them and download the ones that still surprise me
did that before leaving on this trip, and the result is probably the best playlist I’ve ever put together, ranging from John Mayall (1960s) to Arthur Russell (1980s) to obscure, short-lived British and American indie projects from the past 20 years, women with angelic voices, men who sound like pipe organs, Ethiopian jazz, and “world music” collaborations
so it’s on continuous shuffle on the boombox beside me on the veranda here
and because i can’t just sit and do nothing, i’m writing this Dispatch
and yes, wishing you were here