Three

Prince is in San Francisco playing a live rendition of (Rufus and) Chaka Khan’s “Sweet Thing”. Backed by his band, he’s playing some smooth guitar. He leaves the singing entirely to the audience at the Fillmore. I find the moment incredibly moving. I could almost cry, but I don’t.

I’m in a supermarket on Long Island, NY. I have my portable CD player on, and I’m listening to an awesome audience recording I downloaded earlier this year. I normally do my food shopping on Saturdays. Sometimes I’ll stop at the supermarket (Pathmark) near my job to pick up whatever.

Hempstead has four supermarkets, that I’m aware of; Stop and Shop, V&T (lots of Asian food and stuff), Associated and another not far from Associated, that keeps changing it’s name. I don’t go to the latter two. The store that’s now Associated (I don’t know if that space hosted another market, previously) once advertised in it’s window, something they called “ugly pork”. I realize that this village’s population largely stems from the south, but you know what? I don’t. I refuse to purchase food from an establishment that won’t even put in the effort to make their crap presentable. The store that keeps changing its name has a similar low budget look to it. I think I’d been in there once before, but it was very crowded and felt very closed in. Didn’t like it.

Stop and Shop, unlike other major supermarkets that opened here in Hempstead, has kept up its appearance and remains a very decent supermarket. This is where I do most of my shopping. I’m not too crazy about their poultry and fish prices, but they have a natural foods section, and there’s always stuff I need on sale.

V&T, I like better for fish, poultry and some fruits. There’s also a little sushi shop located inside.

Stop & Shop also has sushi. I consider picking some up for a late lunch, but first to the natural foods section. It’s a small area right past the floral department next to the front door. To add to its organic appeal, it has a wooden floor that sets it apart from the rest of the floor tiled store. The alternative milks are in quart sized cartons that don’t have to be refrigerated until they are opened. Traditionally this is how soy milk is sold, however, as it has become increasing mainstream, you can now find it packaged the same way cow’s milk is. In the dairy department in half gallon containers more familiar to consumers. The soy milk in these containers also have a consistency that’s fairly close to real milk, and doesn’t need to be shaken nearly as much (if at all). I’m guessing that the companies that still package soy milk the old way are suffering due to the mainstreaming of this product into something more familiar. I see prices falling sharply for the quart containers. I prefer the half gallons for the reasons stated above. However, neither almond nor rice milk are sold this way, so I continue to buy them in quarts. I get one of each and head towards sushi.

Prince and the band finish “Girls & Boys” and are about to go into “Mama Feelgood” with keyboardist, Rad on lead vocals. I think I hear my name.

“Yo, Jeff!!” I turn off the CD player and turn around. I see someone I know walking towards me with a shopping cart. He’s got milk (the regular kind), a carton of orange juice, a package of chicken drumsticks and some other stuff.

“Hey, Elvin. How’s it going?” Elvin also goes by the name Pop Nice. He’s a local hip-hop artist who’s ghost produced for some semi-big names and produces on his own as well. He’s got a nice recording set-up in his basement. I’ve played a little guitar on one of his projects. The name Pop doesn’t indicate his age as he’s probably a good five years younger than I am. Maybe he used to breakdance. I dunno. I just call him Elvin.

“Yo, Jeff, I was callin’ you, man.” He extends a hand, which I grab and shake. I pull the headphones from my ears, so he can see why I couldn’t hear him.

“My music gets a little loud.”

“Yeah, I see. What you listening to?”

“Got some live Prince.”

“Yo, that’s hot. Check it out, Jeff, I gotta favor to ask you” He liked to get right to the point. Which is fine by me. I’m not crazy about useless small talk. His favors never involved money, so I was willing to listen.

“Whatever you need, El.”

“I got this hot track that could use some live guitar shit on it. If you could come through, I’d really appreciate it.” He paused and looked at me like a third eye opened up on my forehead and winked at him. “Ohhh, shit! Yo, Jeff, what happened to yo’ eye, dude?”

I wasn’t thinking. I had a slight inflammation under my right eye. I should’a worn my shades, but it was a cloudy day. I don’t normally wear shades if it’s too dark. So I told a version of the story that made me seem much more valiant and, of course, victorious. I’d fought off three thugs who aspired to possess my wallet.

“Yo, G, lemme know if you need any them bitches taken care of, cuz you my nigga. I got your back. You know that, right?”

“Of course. Everything’s cool, though.” Okay, maybe I do have some friends with weaponry, but I wouldn’t want to go that route. Perhaps I was still a little steamed, inside. I’ll get over it in a couple of days, though. I’m not the stay mad type. “When do you need me to come by? I’m not really available till Saturday morning.” Not That I’d be terribly busy aside from work, but I’m an infrequent, and sloppy guitar player. Having a couple of days to warm up my fingers wouldn’t be a bad thing.

“Naw, Saturday is cool. Come through, though. I’ll make it worth your while. Word.” We both have some reliability issues, though it might be fair to say that his issues are bigger than mine. He has an occasional tendency to forget appointments, and perhaps that has led to a bit of a blasé attitude on my part where I myself haven’t fully accepted his open invitations to stop by his studio at anytime, and have also skipped an appointment or two. At this point I have every intention of showing up as I said I would.

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