7-10-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians – Starter Job #143 (The Washington Squares - Sidebar about Syd Straw . . . )

Because I was hanging out with Syd Straw in late 1983 and early 1984, just into the Squares days, several opportunities came my way and I look back and have to thank her.  I met my boyfriend, Rick, because she told me about a party on 8^th Avenue at a friend of a friend’s apartment (it was Rick’s). She never showed up there, but it didn’t matter ‘cause I met a cute guy -- and a good man -- who took a big shine to me and we were together for over 5 years.

I also took on a part time job that I needed to pay my rent for a few months.

Syd Straw was an interesting and fun friend. Tall, gangly, bespectacled, hippie-cute in a skinny, long-haired, Patti Smith way, she had a self deprecating “Aw shucks” manner, was very warm and schmoozy, and always ingratiating. We got along great at first: Syd has a neat sense of humor and can make you feel really good because, as I said, she’s a fantastic charmer and schmoozer.

I’d just get annoyed when she’d break out into these mini-rants with a loud sing-song voice, twirling around while walking on the streets with me, “I have to SINNNGGGG!”  Yeah, I thought, can it, Straw woman “--and some of us, we gots to work/ooh watch me now. . .” from ”Sweet Jane” by Lou Reed & the Velvets. I, too, had to sing -- but wasn’t as good about taking that message to the skies. Besides, I was already in a band that was working hard & moving ahead. Syd was self-grooming for solo stardom (and I admire that -- it’s hard for me to do), and she succeeded in a few years with the Golden Palominos (or the Go-Pals, as the hipsters called ‘em).

(photo of Syd with Bruce on bottom left from CA trip --when the Squares visited John Stewart, in Malibu)

7-09-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians – Starter Job #142 (The Washington Squares - Waxing on about Love & Romance)

Back in the Squares days, I was also excessively energetic and hormone-driven. I confess, I developed crushes on “cute guys” seemingly every other month. Most of the time, they liked me a lot but didn’t fall in love. . . because love is, indeed, a big mystery that nobody can really figure out. There are just so many “triggers” when it comes to love, so many factors that are inscrutable. I don’t think “love at first sight” is the only kind, but that’s fascinating in itself, right?

That kind of fast-attraction love gets sparked by hormones. . . you don’t hear about it happening with older people too much, unless it’s (generally) older men and younger women -- but there are other motivators there, too.

How about the kind of love that grows once you know somebody? The kind that develops with time until one day you look at your friend and go, “Wow. Here they are, right in front of my eyes, my very own friend and soul mate?”

Back in those days, I was rudderlessly, flounderingly in love with love and not having a smooth sail of it at all for about a year and a half in NYC as the female square, that saucy little gal who sang, strummed, and smiled big, who could stand up to almost anybody if need be.

And then, I became romantically linked with a great guy like my boyfriend, Rick, who I met in the middle of 1984. . .