Live! At The Gaslight Café

Come you ladies and you gentlemen, a-listen to my song
Sing it to you right, but you might think it's wrong
Just a little glimpse of a story I'll tell
"Bout an East Coast city that you all know well... ~ Hard Times in New York Town

The other night I fulfilled a long-standing dream of treading the boards at the legendary Gaslight Café in Greenwich Village, now known as 116 MacDougal St. During its heyday from 1958-1971, the Gaslight hosted the likes of Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Mississippi John Hurt, and was "overrun by every guitar-picker who had ever migrated to Greenwich Village," according to the late Al Aronowitz.

This time it was all about the inspired word - sans guitar. I signed up for a full evening of poetry and panic bliss and had a blast. The room is literally underground, beneath MacDougal, and is easily missed if you're not looking for it.

I first heard of the Gaslight when I came across a three-record box set of Dylan's Gaslight Tapes on sale at Track Records on Seymour St. in Vancouver in 1987, just before my first busking trip across Europe.

It's a fantastic album, full of classic folk standards, audience murmers and the odd clinking glass. I knew it was only a matter of time before I'd discover the remarkable room in a New York City village that conjured both Jimmy Dean and the Child Ballads...

Gem Spa: New York's Finest Egg Cream

The Gem Spa is an institution in New York City celebrated for its delicious egg cream. Allen Ginsberg wrote about it, as did Lou Reed...

Rain-wet asphalt heat, garbage curbed cans overflowing
By Allen Ginsberg

I hauled down lifeless mattresses to sidewalk refuse-piles,
old rugs stept on from Paterson to Lower East Side filled with bed-bugs,
grey pillows, couch seats treasured from the street laid back on the street
– out, to hear Murder-tale, 3rd Street cyclists attacked tonite–
Bopping along in rain, Chaos fallen over City roofs,
shrouds of chemical vapour drifting over building-tops –
Get the Times, Nixon says peace reflected from the Moon,
but I found no boy body to sleep with all night on pavements 3 A.M.
         home in sweating drizzle –
Those mattresses soggy lying in full five garbagepails –
Barbara, Maretta, Peter Steven Rosebud slept on these Pillows years ago,
forgotten names, also made love to me, I had these mattresses four years
        on my floor –
Gerard, Jimmy many months, even blond Gordon later,
Paul with the beautiful big cock, that teenage boy that lived in
        Pennsylvania,
forgotten numbers, young dream loves and lovers, earthly bellies –
many strong youths with eyes closed, come sighing and helping me
       come –
Desires already forgotten, tender persons used and kissed goodbye
and all the times I came to myself alone in the dark dreaming of Neal or
       Billy Budd
– nameless angels of half-life – heart beating & eyes weeping for lovely
       phantoms -
Back from the Gem Spa, into the hallway, a glance behind
and sudden farewell to the bedbug-ridden mattresses piled soggy in dark
      rain.

Today I had my first - a frothy, vanilla egg cream on St. Mark's Place and 2nd Avenue in the East Village.

Here's Lou Reed on the wonders of this awesome refreshment...