Write? Right!

Catskills, cat skills…

I was supposed to be in the Catskills right now—at my friend Fred’s place in West Saugerties—working on NIHILISTIC (the book, not this newsletter) and cat-sitting. I’ve known Fred since the early days of my involvement with Coney Island USA (see the pic, above). Back then, Fred was “The Great Fredini,” doing magic in the ten-in-one sideshow at Sideshows By The Seashore. He also worked the bally, standing out on the boardwalk in front of the old Coney Island USA building (now a Nathan’s outpost), trying to lure the skeptical, distracted, half-baked public inside.

Fred was good at it. He could turn a tip. He had the patter, the timing, and—most importantly—no fear. In a knife fight, Brooklyn 1988 would loom menacing and victorious over a bleeding-out Brooklyn 2026.

I know how hard that job is because I tried to do it.

Somehow I got it into my head that my radio talk-show skills would translate. Dick Zigun, Coney Island USA’s founder and artistic director, humored me. I wrote a spiel. I practiced it at home. I recorded myself doing it, listening back for cadence, emphasis, confidence. By then Coney Island USA had moved down 12th Street to the corner of Surf Avenue. As I climbed the steps to the three-foot-tall bally stage near the sideshow entrance, I distinctly remember thinking: What the fuck am I doing here?

Which brings me back to where I began.

I’m not supposed to be home. I was supposed to spend three or four days writing at Fred’s while he’s away in Wilmington, at the Cameron Art Museum, doing his glass-art thing. In the intervening years Fred reinvented himself as a serious, accomplished artist, and I was looking forward to hearing all about it over dinner when he got back from North Carolina.

Then the cold came. And the snow.

I was meant to leave Weehawken Sunday morning around 9 a.m., but my resolve weakened every time I checked the weather on Saturday. The forecast kept getting worse: more snow, lower temperatures. When I ran my antiques store, That Cave, in Saugerties, I drove my 1994 Mercedes back and forth no matter what. This trip feels different in its replacement: my 2023 Mini Cooper EV.

The Mini has front-wheel drive and a set of slightly used snow tires, but I kept picturing some speeding fucking maniac hitting black ice and plowing into me on the Palisades Parkway or the Thruway. The Mini also gets about 110 miles on a full charge—less in the cold—and my plan was to stop 65 miles north at the Plattekill service plaza to charge. Then I started worrying I wouldn’t even make it that far and would have to stop at Suffern just to get to Plattekill.

Why I chose an EV with such limited range is a sidebar conversation, but it boils down to personality and money. The Mini is fun. It’s less “computer on wheels” than most EVs. And it was, by a wide margin, the cheapest option. Around here it’s perfect—you can park it anywhere. But trips longer than 40 miles in one direction require forethought, planning, and a mild existential crisis.

This wasn’t an urgent trip. Just a one-person writing retreat. But I also planned to stop at Freakout Spot in Kingston on Sunday to sell some vinyl and raise the money to pay Fred (he rents his place out). There was a get-together planned Tuesday night with friends. I was going to drop off our wrought-iron nesting tables to be media-blasted and powder-coated in Kingston.

Then, Sunday morning, around the time I was supposed to leave, I texted Fred and told him I wasn’t coming. He understood. His flight had been cancelled and rescheduled anyway. He told me not to worry—he’d find someone else to feed Clementine.

I let down the cat.

Dammit.

I texted Fred again, asked if maybe I could come up Thursday. I didn’t hear back.

It’s ironic, because one of the reasons I wanted to go away to write was to escape cat distractions. I can’t sit at the dining room table or the office desk without Marty demanding attention. Baby Billy is less intrusive but still finds me and will cry for food, play, or a warm body. Fred warned me Clementine might avoid me entirely, or might decide we were pals.

You tell people this stuff and they look at you like you’re unwell. Really? The cat? The cat’s the problem? It sounds ridiculous. Haven’t great works been produced amid far worse distractions? During war? During FAMINE?

Sure. By better writers than me.

When I’m home, I can’t focus. I feel pulled in a thousand directions. If it’s not the cats, it’s a problem that needs solving or something that needs fixing. If I’m not checking items off a list, I feel like a slacker—like focusing on my writing is some indulgence that has to wait until the “real work” is done.

I’ve talked to my shrink about this, trying to get to the bottom of why writing never quite gets first position. Shockingly—CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?—it goes back to childhood. Any time I disappeared into something creative—models, guitar, writing—it could and would be interrupted by CHRISTOPHER! I TOLD YOU TO (fill in the blank)! The practical always crushed the impractical.

There’s shit to do, you lazy fuck.

Jesus, Chris. You’re a grown man. Are you still blaming your parents?

I hear you, bastard. No. I internalized their voices. That’s all. I learned early to shove aside what I wanted to do, and now I feel guilty when I “indulge” myself. I didn’t even feel good about being away for three or four days.

Then I remembered Saugerties. The little apartment we rented when I had the store. Sweet T. back in Weehawken. I’d close up That Cave, pour a drink, sit at the vintage kitchen table, and happily bang out installments of See You Next Tue! or write about Mike Nicolosi and myself. I’d work until my neck hurt—this was before I gave up on the aggressively unergonomic Freewrite “Smart Typewriter.”

During my recent year-end digital detox, I went back and reread some of those newsletters. They were epic. Entire weeks documented. Dialogue. Scenes. Texture. That work happened because I had time and space.

Somehow, I need to recreate that here in Weehawken. It’s not practical to flee to the Catskills every time I want to get any writing done.

As I write this, Fred texts back. I can come up Thursday. Maybe stay until Saturday.

We’ll see.

When we finally sit down with a drink, I’ll tell him about the day I tried to do his old job—standing on that bally stage at Sideshows By The Seashore, trying to sound spontaneous, trying to sound inviting, trying to pull strangers in off the boardwalk. How it was one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever had. How I never quite figured out how to make the spiel feel alive.

How I couldn’t quite turn the tip.