Marc Spitz

” Time is a funny thing. Time is a very peculiar item. You see when you’re young, you’re a kid, you got time, you got nothing but time. Throw away a couple of years, a couple of years there… it doesn’t matter. You know. The older you get you say, ‘Jesus, how much I got? I got thirty-five summers left.’ Think about it. Thirty-five summers.” – Tom Waits (as Benny in Rumble Fish)

i was thinking that there are people who get beach houses, people who go to the fucking hamptons and montauk and drink domestic beer by the pool and the ocean but for as long as i can remember i’ve worked through the summers, worked on big books or fixing plays for fall runs.  this summer i am working on a big book and fixing a play for a fall run (maybe a winter run) but fuck man i am going to have a summer too.  i am going to go to coney island and up to the stadium.  i’m going to get a lawn chair and put it in my living room and sit in it wearing shorts.  i don’t own a pair of shorts but i own two pairs of sneakers now, which is a real leap for me.  only one is black.  more fresh prince, less lovin’ spoonful (or bananarama).

i’ve been thinking a bit about these projects and i am realizing that they are the first i’ve written in my 40s, the first i’ve written sober (ish) and the first where there is no cataclysmic personal shit to bleed in, and that is beyond auspicious.  i am cool headed and cannot lose at the moment.  you get a scary clarity and confidence at this end, after highs and lows, having done this for what i guess is a long time now.  writers get better with age.  writers and british actresses.  rockers get worse.  you need the coltish, spastic thing for good rock, and it drains out of you over time naturally like osteoperosis.  there ain’t no amount of boniva you can take to get that shit back either, but i say good riddance.  or maybe you get it back towards the end.  that’s probably right.  you get it back for the golden  years.  the sunset.  the sinatra years.   writing this memoir is making me realize i’ve got enough wild rock energy for three lifetimes, and i should be dead.  i did so many drugs, i should be dead.  but then so should the stones.  when they lost the coltish thing though, it was initially a heartbreaker but as i’ve posted here before i see them now as just a cool, confident working band.  keith richards knows nobody can touch him and one of these days mick is going to be cool again.  i am going to help.

in the mean time, robert deniro’s waiting, talking italian