The view from the stage at the Greenburgh Nature Center just before Sal Casabianca started playing, 11:45 AM, October 23, 2022. That’s my Alvarez in the foreground on my knee and Neil Herman (in baseball cap) at left center.
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Yesterday I took the MetroNorth train from the 125th Street/Harlem station to Scarsdale, to play some songs at the village’s annual Fall Festival, held at the Greenburgh Nature Center. You’ve seen this drill in the suburb nearest you— makeshift barns, cornstalks, scarecrows, pumpkins, ghoulish clowns, games, hayrides, haunted houses, apple cider doughnuts, and live music. The festival’s music this year was curated by Neil Herman, a famous bankruptcy lawyer by day, a singer-songwriter at night. Upon his return to New York from an eight-year stay in Nashville, where he wrote and recorded a hundred or so songs, he ran a monthly open mic at The Duplex (adjacent to the Stonewall Inn) on Christopher Street until Covid struck and closed down the neighborhood. He asked nine of us from that distant venue to play at the Scarsdale event.
I was eager to do it, but the whole thing made me nervous. I’m not exactly mobile—my legs are still so gelatinous that stairs remain a challenge—so just getting there was a project that required answers to questions I never had to ask before the surgery in June (yeah, 4 months ago). Did the MetroNorth station have an elevator to the tracks? What about the Scarsdale station? There was no mention of public transportation in the online directions to the Nature Center: how far from the train stop was it, could I get a cab at the station? How rustic was the Center itself? Were there rocks and hills to climb? Could I navigate the terrain, if irregular, with the guitar in tow and the cane out front?
We were going to be playing outside, on a deck raised two feet off the ground. Would I be able to clamber aboard? Or would I have to ask for help? We’d be sitting down to play—could I get out of the chair once I sat down? And so forth.
Turns out that elevators were anywhere I needed them, the cab stand was thirty paces from the front door of the Scarsdale station, it was a seven-minute ride to the Nature Center, and the grounds were beautiful as well as navigable. Neil helped me onto the stage and Sal Casabianca, a great singer-songwriter and guitar wizard (he covered Led Zeppelin’s “Ramblin’ On” with his Taylor acoustic), got me down, then drove me back to the Scarsdale station. The rain held off until I was back on 125th.
Playing from that stage alongside Sal and Arielle Eden was a treat. Sure, it was a humbling experience. Their guitar skills and voices are way better than mine, and Arielle writes some amazing lyrics. But I did OK on two of my own songs, “Miles To Go,” and “God Auditions,” and finished with a cover of Danny Kortchmar’s “You’re Not Drinkin’ Enough” to commemorate my 364th day of sobriety.
I told the (not-quite-a) crowd that “God Auditions” was an X-rated tune—it’s sung by a God who wants to understand his hapless human creations, and decides the best way to do that is to binge-watch “Law & Order,” then, once he gets the hang of the show, to audition for Dick Wolfe as a camera-ready sexual predator on the Special Victims Unit spinoff—and waited for a polite exodus. I was surprised to see parents and kids alike clapping when I was finished. I’m not sure they fully understood the words, but then neither do I, and I wrote them.
My favorite part of the day, though, was the cab ride into the Nature Center with John Roberts (his real name). He got me within 100 yards of the stage by persuading the event marshals to unblock a back road. Here’s a transcript of our conversation (I took notes, as per my perverse habit):
So this is Scarsdale. Never been here. What’s it like?
“Snooty.”
Snooty? You mean, like arrogant?
“Yeah, the people here know who they are.”
Why’s that?
“Money. It’s the richest town in America.”
Oh yeah? How do we know that?
“The rankings came out a couple weeks ago. By zipcodes and by borough, USA Today I think it was, I heard it on 1010, news radio.”
Gimme an example, you got an example?
“Right up that hill,” he points to his left as we turn right onto what becomes Old Army Road, “Guy just built a house for 30 million dollars.”
Jesus fucking Christ, how big are we talking here?
“22 thousand square feet. Five floors, guy put a hockey rink in the basement. But just one garage out front, I seen new houses with five, it looks outa whack, kinda. There’s a catch, though.”
A hockey rink??!! What, is he, a fucking Canadian?
“Nah, a hedge fund manager, 40-something. His wife says, ‘you can have your hockey rink if you let me cover the ice’—you know, like they do in stadiums—’and hold my parties down there.’ She’s gonna turn it into a ballroom, these are big parties.”
Jesus. What’s the catch with the garage?
“I took the housekeeper up there one day, she was late or something. Told me to drop her at the garage, that’s how she got in the house, automatic door. I asked her about it, why just the one door, this guy ain’t takin’ the train to work, where’s all the cars? ‘Oh,’ she says, ‘there’s a parking lot down there, below the hockey rink, 25 spaces, it’s where he keeps his collection.’”
And where the guests park their cars for her parties. The ones without the limos, I mean.
“I guess. My daughter went to high school with the guy, Edgemont High. Great school, public school, one of the top ten in the nation.”
You can afford the property taxes here?
“[Laughing] No, no, I lived here 40 years in Greenburgh township, outside the village of Scarsdale, it includes Edgemont, Dobbs Ferry, some other towns. Nobody can afford to live in Scarsdale anymore, except for the hedge fund managers. You see that new house, right there? [He gestures to his left, at a four-story colossus on a quarter acre corner lot] I drove by here at 7:00 AM one morning, it was an empty lot, a tear-down, and when I went by again at noon, that house is standing there. Prefab modular, they just stack the pieces with a crane and tie it together. 6 million.”
Jesus. You gonna retire here?
“Yeah, I guess so. Where am I gonna go, Florida? If I could afford it, which I can’t, why would I go there? It’s warm, OK, but it’s hurricane central, right, you see all those old people on TV, standing around being homeless after what was the last one, Ian?”
I’m staying in Manhattan. Good public transportation, lots of elevators. Official retirement date is January 1, 2023.
“Well, good luck, Jim Livingston. Nice to meet you.”
Nice to meet you, John Roberts. Take care.
Know the area well. Even more insane inequity now. Their time is short. Glad you took the risk in going. A good conversation for a cab driver is the equivalent of a generous tip. Be well.