This Recording

Getting there.

Wedding

On Saturday evening I woke up and a University of Chicago man was in my home. A Harvard Man too as a matter of fact.

This was Jerry Galen. He was dressed in scrub pants and no shirt. The night before, he had said, “What are we going to do, Alex?” My thinking was that we would go to the wedding.

You have to understand I don’t have a lot of life experience dealing with twins. The only twins at my school were these weird white boys who sat around reading Tad Williams books and wearing turtlenecks.

Jeremy & Jamie. Band name: “Sleep in My Bed”

It’s amazing that these two little guys, when infants, were destined to attend prestigious Ivy League universities…and sleep in my apartment.

But I had other problems to deal with. I was feverishly practicing a short speech I was to give. I don’t really fear public speaking, but it’s best to be a little nervous. By about 3 pm, I was rabid.

The previous week, I’d spent about eight hours generating potential material, and whittling it down was proving to be tough. Actually, it was easy enough to get rid of all the material that was about me. There was a five minute sequence where I only talked about a brief period during my high school years when I spoke at local schools. It’s easy to be meta-, but it’s important not to be that, too.

Even worse news was that I’d been ordering to vet my speech with a professional who was bound to make things difficult. This young woman was a trained editor and she did not much like what I put together. Nine times I resubmitted my manuscript to her unforgiving eye. She said, repeatedly, “You really can’t include this part where you talk about your fantasy baseball team.”

“I made some key trades,” I said. “What do you know about it?”

I can take rejection but I can’t take criticism. Or at least that’s what my mother told me when I was twelve.

“Touch the Sky” — Kanye West feat. Lupe Fiasco

Two really big Wieners. Like I wasn’t going to use that joke eventually.

Feuer came over for the pregame, which consisted mostly of me ordering people to button my suspenders.

Feuerstein. “I flew in from Jerusalem yesterday! Get me Harvey Weinstein on the phone and some gold bond powder!”

It’s always interesting to see how people handle themselves at a wedding.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We hopped in a cab downtown. It occurred to me I had it very lucky having the wedding in my zip code, because plenty of people had travelled farther to get here. The bride’s aunt, in fact, was planning on walking some forty to fifty blocks south because the wedding was taking place on the Sabbath. With a kid, no less!

The evening began with a cocktail hour from 6 to 7.

As you can see in the above clip, everyone looked straight out of The Great Gatsby. It is so awesome we have this video because this will be a place in time. When Ben Yaster is running GloboChem, Dan Murray is whoring himself out for crack, and SK heading a major brokerage firm I know I will have jumped into the other universe, you know, the one besides my own.

I used some of this time to scout the proceedings. You see, I have seen people poisoned, shot, or masturbated on at the altar. Trust me, work in catering for a summer and you’ll see everything. (note: I did not actually work in catering, are you kidding, that’s hard!)

The point is here I was where my friends would be married. I am glad I had a chance to take a quiet moment…a moment so quiet it was documented in the medium of photography. Snap. (note: that was a sick pun.)

My plan going in was to take my requisite dose of klonopin and not drink until I had given my toast. This would have been a fine outline of the evening had I adhered to it. Instead when I saw some kind of pseudo-gey martini mixture, I was all, “Hit that with the rocks!” A few martinis in and you have no clue where you are. That’s why my hand was shaking during the ceremony, which I got on full video. (Nice!)

This could easily be from 1920. Damn that couple is timeless. Actually this kinda reminds me of the alternate ending to Marjorie Morningstar. Be glad you don’t know what I’m talking about.

I thought I was going to cry during the ceremony. It was very emotional, but perhaps because I am a few weddings in now things have gotten a tad bit less impactful. Or perhaps I was just drunker the other times. The point is, I think what made me cry previously was that the couples involved had finally found people, and this made the fact of the union all the more miraculous. Rach and Gid, on the other hand, are a pair of beautiful babies that could bone long into the grey morning, so I was more just happy I guess.

“Prayer of Kala Rupa” — Monks of Dip Tse Chok Ling Monastery

Like I said before, a wedding can be an emotional place. Actually, if I hadn’t been given a forum to express my feelings on the Bedard-Friedman tandem bicycle, I might have felt a little emotionally repressed too.

Toronto, the bride’s hometown, is a shady place. According to the various inhabitants my fair city was sheltering for the weekend, it was like Watts and Singapore all rolled up into one. I learned quickly that Canadians don’t like it when you say “eh.” For me this is the refreshing thing about being Canadian–isn’t that why they pay so much more in taxes? Wink. Wink. Wink.

By this time, one of the wedding planner’s buxom goons had come over to make sure I was ready. Perhaps someone had already told her what a head case I was. She said, “You’re Alex, right?” I said, “Let’s not quibble over this. When I am to be on?” She said, “After the main course.” “Goddamnit, Jesus,” I said. “You do believe in the holy lord, woman, don’t you?” “Yes,” she said, “I’m a Presbyterian.”

Charlie went first with his toast, which concerned an Italian vacation where Gideon was apart from Rachael. I thought, singularly, “Where the fuck was I during this?” Anger comes quickly in these large moments of anticipation.

“Don’t Let It Bring You Down” — Annie Lennox

“You Have Killed Me” — Morrissey

Justine Kahn. Not even I would fuck around with a caption when it comes to this woman’s temper.

I basically just closed my eyes and did the speech. You see these were my very bestest friends getting married. I’d already had some time to prepare. I beg out of a lot of stuff, but not this. Since I had to type this whole thing up, we can pull a quote.

This was for the groom:

He is the easiest person I know of to love, because all he requires of you is yourself, and no other self. Because I feel, have felt since I met him in that apartment on that evening, that he enjoyed being around me the same way I adore being his presence, in the glow of his light. Gideon has never told me exactly what is best for me, even though he often knew better than I did. In fact, he has never done anything but pick me up. He has never been away when I needed him.

The groom gets down with his no longer bride to be.

The only mean thing he ever said to me…He once told me “You know…what you’re eating right now is like the worst possible thing to be putting in your body.”…but he was right, I was just eating a carbohydrate sandwich. He is only judgmental when he is doing so for very righteous reasons, like getting me to treat myself better. There is absolutely no empathy he is not capable of as a partner. This is how I know why you did what you did today, Rachael.

“That’s Just What You Are” — Aimee Mann

Her classic album, I’m With Stupid, is $11 here.

Becca’s reaction to this was, “How can you be in the glow of someone’s light?” I said, “It’s a metaphor.”

Then there was the bit on the gorgeous bride.

When I talk about Rachael, which I do as often as I can, it sounds like I am teaching a course in jurisprudence.

She is more moral than I, she is stronger than I, more modest than I have ever been. She has taught me by the way she treats people how they ought to be treated. We are both easily moved by the plight of others, but she knows it better, knows herself better, than any person could. She is clearly without question the most empathetic person on earth.

Because she actually cares, because she answers the question even if you know the answer, and she knows that you know the answer. One time I came to her with a particularly difficult relationship problem. I can’t forget what she said. She said to me, “I’ll tell you what to do, but I’m just worried you won’t do it.” Spend enough time with her and you realize there is literally nothing this person could not accomplish. She has no limitations, and she puts no limitations on herself.

She’s made better decisions than you have at virtually every moment in her life, but allows you to live under the illusion that it might be otherwise.

I never actually read the above line, because I felt like I was going too long and I wanted to cut to the end. Originally I was going to read this Raymond Carver poem as a close, but I would have skipped it anyway. As it was, it got read during the ceremony so there went that plan. That’s what I get for posting about Carver on the blog. I scooped myself!

Anyway, then we got down to dancing!!!!

“You look more like the guy from Miami Vice!” “No, you do!”

If you want to party with me, put your hands where my eyes can see.

I got in a lively conversation with Danielle. It went something like this:

Me: “I don’t think we should have the military or basically any laws besides a prohibition against murder.”

Danielle: “What about assault? Nah.”

“Would someone please freakin’ tell me to whom I am supposed to be raising the roof!”

Apparently the groom was well on his way to an ill-timed groanfest on the bathroom floor somewhere while I was strutting my stuff on the dance floor and making wry acerbic comments about everything from the state of the world economy to how Morgan was being really nice to Becca when the after-party struck. Before I knew it, my Mastercard was behind the bar of a place that was probably calling Meatpacking. Some enough we got back to the afterparty proper, but not before there was a Dan Murray sighting. He doesn’t just shoot meaningful photography people.

We laughed long and hard. It was over, but only for us. They were married.

We let our homeboy Billy off at the Roosevelt Island tram though long before the Galen Bros got in about twenty combined minutes of “Why do you live out there” “That’s so weird” “Why do people live out there?” I was going to kill both of them, but instead I took them to Hot & Crusty.

It is very lucky to find someone else in this world. Some people go on searching forever. Much of life ends in disappointment, and it’s good to have someone around. Perhaps that’s what I find most empowering about the concept of life partnership. Things are better when there’s someone else there, you know, to tell you that you shouldn’t be disappointed. That you should be grateful for what it is you have. As Robert Creeley wrote, desperately, “there must be an act beyond gratitude.”

Purchase Anne Waldman’s Marriage: A Sentence here.