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Subway Tales
Ovid, Phil Ochs, and Inauguration Day
As Ovid enters the turnstile at the subway station at 103rd St. and Broadway he spies a familiar face sitting in a corner on a bench. He’s wearing a New England fisherman’s cap like Woody wore, bushy black hair and a guitar case that sits up full of presence and miles. Ovid approaches him with the same aplomb he took when introduced to Augustus and his inner circle. He was comfortable around big personalities.
Ovid: Excuse me for asking kind sir, but is that you Phil ? THE Phil Ochs?
Phil: And to whom do I have the pleasure of such a salutation ?
Ovid: Publius Ovidius Naso of Siulmo. Ovid, according to my publisher.
Phil: Well I’ll be damned. My pleasure. What brings you down here?
Ovid: I like to come down every quarter, to visit Macy’s at this time of year. I am and will always be a denizen of Rome. To be honest, I like the time of the year here between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I like the tinsel and the turkey. The way the smoke rises through the grill-work on the street, the glow of the tall buildings. And hot red, happens to be one of my favorite colors. What about you?
Phil: Well, if you really must know, I don’t come back with as much frequency. There was a brief time in New York when we all landed here, (Bobby, Eric, Van Ronk, Fred) the original folkies, and lived within 3 blocks of each other between MacDougal, Thompson and Sullivan Streets.
Ovid: No. What a coincidence.
Phil: Even have an unpublished song we all wrote together. Truth is Ovid, I’m here because I came to watch the inauguration on the big screen in Times Square the other day. Figured to bring in the new year and new regime at the same time with a Dionysian welcome. I couldn’t bear to watch it alone from up there.
Ovid: Oh, so you watched it.
Phil: There was even a posse of Proud Boys calling themselves Rough Riders signing up recruits with signs that said “Take back the Canal.” But that was nothing in comparison to the Peter Max “Drill Baby Drill” posters in 3D. How could I miss that?
Ovid: Still following politics. Phil?
Phil: Me and Tom Paine. The Rights of Man. The voice of Edward R Murrow. Yea. I was a journalist who turned troubadour. Until the music stopped. Or something metaphysical like that, if you can describe despair.
Ovid: Do you ever have thoughts about a comeback? A book tour? Maybe a duet album with Dylan?
Phil: I like your sense of humor Ovid. Actually that’s an interesting idea now that you mention it. But I don’t think so. I actually prefer being dead. It suits me better, from a career perspective, besides the comeback story is old by now.
Ovid: You could rewrite your ending this time.
Phil: I’m gonna pass on this one Ovid. That hard acid rain Bobby wrote about? Well tell me it’s not pelting the land as we speak. You don’t need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. No. It’s another reason why I left this world and wouldn’t want to go back to it. At least, not for the next 4 years.
Ovid: You give it that long? You are a generous citizen. The people have spoken. And they have no idea of the chaos that is about to ensue. Then again Phil your friend Bobby Dylan is at his apex still on the road. He’s become quite a cultural icon much as you still are Phil.
Phil: Kind of you to say. No appetite for fame. Bobby was always more agile and fluid. and chameleon than all of us. I’m afraid I had too much Milwaukee in me and Irish Catholic. I stood pat with one way of writing and singing until it wasn’t my time anymore. But I’ll tell you this, I know that I died in a rented room in Far Rockaway, not my idea of a happy ending or my Wikipedia page. But you know what? We mattered. We changed the sound of history. The fucking course of it. At least for a while. You know what I mean Ovid?
Ovid: I understand dear Phil. I must add that “Love Me I’m a Liberal” is up there with the finest of satirical writing, including my “Art of Love.”
Phil: Thank you so much. Maybe we do a sequel. Call it “Love Me I’m Woke.” Remind me Ovid, how were you fucked over?
Ovid: Exile. The worst kind. At the end of the empire by the Black Sea. But like you, I found insight in retelling the old stories. I wrote with the tools available: mythology, allegory, erotic poetry. I deployed them all for observing the ways of men, and gods, and men who thought they were gods, and gods who behaved like men. I defied the censors and got in trouble with the Roman authorities. One warning is all you get. The fact is Phil, “And there but for fortune, may go you or I.” I believe you said that. We just need to keep on keeping on. Justice and Liberty needs to announce itself like a cock does each day at dawn.
The 1 train emerges from the armpit of a darkened tunnel
Phil: What do you say we continue this conversation Ovid, above ground, where its wintry and New York?
Ovid: I’d say that was a splendid suggestion.
As the doors open both men get on. When they reach Christopher Street they leave the station and head east towards Bleecker Street.
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