Page 36 - Tales the Maggid Never Told Me

Blood Libel

about, either. He was seven years older and I was never any kind of
rival. So while I wasn’t exactly happy-go-lucky—we were just barely
at the bottom of the middle class—I didn’t have to put up with the
same kind of pressure as a lot of my better-off classmates did.

S: What about your friends. Who were they?

B: (laughs) If you don’t know, I’m not going to name names. If you
think they are worth rounding up, you can find them on your own.
Same for the opposite sex. If a girl wasn’t interested in a musician
with few prospects working part-time in a Brooklyn music store, then
I didn’t know her. In fact, just about everyone I knew or cared to
know had some connection to music. If you want to know my
favorite bands or instrumentalists I can go into that.

S: Maybe another time, if it becomes relevant. When did you stop
living in your parents’ home?

B: I don’t remember the date. You can get it from the telephone
company if you need it for a show trial or some other legal mockery.
It was two or three years after I graduated from high school. In those
days you could pool your money with three or four other guys and
rent a place in a run-down old building. Naturally I got together with
like-minded musicians and we found a loft we could use as a practice
studio as well as partition off into living quarters. If anyone wasn’t
compatible musically or couldn’t pull his weight in the domestic
responsibilities, out he went regardless of friendship. We were easy-
going but tough when it came to mutual survival.

S: Was that the beginning of your band?

B: You mean Count Geiger and the Particles of Decay?

S: If that was its name.

B: You really haven’t heard of us? I’m not insulted. Maybe you’re
supposed to play dumb. It doesn’t matter. Well, despite what might
appear to be a lack of adult responsibility it was inevitable, in
retrospect. At some point we knew we were good enough to get
weekend gigs. At first it was Long Island bar mitzvahs and weddings,
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