PapaSweenBean’s Friday Night – Road Rage

I’m free and I’m flying down the highway at a cruising speed of sixty, the perennial “five over” that we all hold up as a crucifix to a speeding ticket. I’m on my way to Whole Foods, which, I found out from friend and fellow artist Sarah Petrucci, was hosting an art exhibit of her work, or some of her work and that of others. I, of course, didn’t know that Whole Foods did that, but I’m always primed for pleasant surprises.

Somehow on the way, Everett Road, I angered a motorist, whole rolled down his window in front of me, which was about useless for acoustics. Couldn’t for the life of me figure out how I’d initiated the bout of road rage, but I kept cool and got to my destination. As did he, and I got a slow roll through the parking lot with a nasty stare down before I went in.

I am not a fighter. And with the odds of someone in Albany packing a gun in their car, I’m not a gambler either. I went in and never saw him again.

The gallery was called Poetic License. I was there early, so I didn’t see Sarah, or get to talk to anybody. Also, I was a little itchy about what might be waiting for me in the parking lot when I got out. But I did see the artwork, which was adorning the walls outside of the Community Room. I don’t know which ones were Sarah’s, but they were all great, so any one of them could’ve been. It’s like a firing squad loading all blanks but one, so anyone could’ve shot the guy. Kinda like that.

Did I tell you I got my hair cut today? I went straight into downtown Albany on Howard Street, close enough to State and Pearl to hear a guy bum a smoke. Howard Street, and under the scaffolding stood the iconic edifice to grooming, Patsy’s Barber Shop.

Patsy’s looks in every detail like the place where a young man in a custom-tailored suit got his best haircut before going off to war and return for his best haircut after coming back. A place where patrons read papers and during a hot towel shave one could hear what all that they left out of the editorials. Four generations of barbers, their work brightening the society pages and the church pews every day since 1930.

I wanted the full hot towel shave and pretty much the full deal, but my wallet wanted things too, the kind of things that get turned off.

So I got a haircut.

I’m in a group on Facebook called “Troy, Albany, and Schenectady Social Lounge,” which is, well, what it says, and is the repository of refugees from a group called “518 Singles and Social Club” which itself was refugees of “Albany Singles and Social Meetup.” It’s a good group, and they were putting on a backyard karaoke in Troy.

Normally, I’m a loudmouth, adding to a conversation the way salt adds to a meal when a joker unscrews the cap. But I figured I’d hang back for a change and just listen. I was so good at hanging back that everybody gave me a warm welcome when I had to get up to leave.

There is a great camaraderie in this group. People aren’t afraid to go at length about a comic book or a movie or a celebrity sighting, and all shared a passion in not getting shot, and along with that the tales of local gun-battles recently witnessed. The karaoke itself was the domain of the brave, as that is a universally accepted truth of all karaoke. A few people got up and sang, and nobody was trying to impress anyone; everyone was just out for a little fun and camaraderie on a Friday night.

A stop at Price Chopper for seltzer, my new calorie-free friend, and I was home.