A Valhallian in Hell's Kitchen

A recurring theme in my snooze time wanderings is that I’m living elsewhere -- no longer here in Valhalla. This is often disconcerting at the least but occasionally interesting and sometimes way cool.

My favs of this series are when we all, The Amazing Bob, Jen, Oni and I, are elsewhere together -- you know come una famiglia.

I’ve Little Nemo-ed our home to as far away as L.A., but more often than otherwise we’re back in run down student-y Brighton. The digs have evolved though -- I find us in hip, huge, raw industrial space that we’re making over into live/work artist space. It’s a bad news (having to leave Valhalla)/good news (fun new space!) and all-is-not-lost kind of a shift.


Once we even scored a building in the nearly arcadian town of Arlington.

In last night’s sleepy time peregrinations, Team Valhalla had just arrived at our new home in Hell’s Kitchen. This was def not the posh, new, remade and unaffordable real estate developer bonanza of today. More it was the Hell’s Kitchen of the ‘70s. Still gritty and a little nasty -- home to hoards of actors and artists.

Back in the early ‘80s, I often stayed at a friend's apartment there. The area seemed totally fab to me but then, I’d just come off the skeezoid carnival road and was living in a nasty, basement, back alley Kenmore Square apartment (you know, before the Square got it’s big ass face lift).

In this REM ramble we were in a big mess of a dilapidated joint but rehabbing it to meet our needs -- again with the bad/good/not lost shit.

My friend Sean was still alive and living in nearby Chelsea. (In life, he’d lived in the hip Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.) I was setting off to meet him while the rest of Team Valhalla did the hard, dirty work of unpacking, cleaning and setting up our new home.

Yup, in my dreams, I get out of hard work. This is how we know it’s a dream.