2003-03-28 - 7:12 p.m.

i think today was offically terrorism day in williamsburg, brooklyn.

it began at 1:30a. i walked from the bar where the jam session is to mobil car service. normally i would probably just hoof it the 20 or so blocks back to the homestead. but that cheap argentinean wine had really got the better of me, and i ws exhausted. in front of the cabstand, one of the drivers said to me, 'you're here because of the trouble on the subway, aren't you?' i'm paraphrasing here because this man's command of the english language was not strong. i told him i didn't know what he was talking about and walked into the office to order a car. as i came out, he offered me an orange, and said, 'please take it'. what could i do? i know i'm not supposed to take candy from strangers, but perfectly good fruit? i took it. then he said, 'the subway's closed. they found a bomb on the subway. you need to listen to the news'. at which point, thank goodness, my ride pulled up and i threw my guitar in before further conversation with this friendly harbinger could take place.

i got home without incident and told f what had happened. he got almost as panicky as i was and turned on the radio. the BBC world service was reporting on bombs over baghdad, but none underneath new york city. i checked some of the news sites and didn't find anything. i found out today from friends that there was a bomb scare and the bedford avenue station was closed for a couple of hours. but i still haven't heard anything at all about it on the news.

this morning, f and i were awakened by helicopters overhead. its not all that unusual in recent weeks, since the air patrol over nyc has been stepped up considerably. plus, we both grew up in LA and police surveillance copters are a sad fact of life in the city of angels. but there was something extra persistent about these copters. and they weren't the military-industrial black apaches, it was mostly news and traffic copters.

later on the news i heard that a couple of drunks had climbed up an escarpment of the williamsburg bridge, and that construction workers who saw them called it into a terrorist hotline. the police closed the bridge, causing morning chaos on all east river crossings. but it was drunks, not terrorists; and they had beers, not bombs.

i still haven't eaten the orange.