Simon, Garfunkel, and Me (Part 2)

Simon, Garfunkel, and me didn’t end with Paul calling me a nitpicker and me running home to cry in my bedroom. As I said, I was Paul’s muse, and in that role I would suggest things for him to write songs about. Though how my mental breakdown while driving across the Brooklyn Bridge in rush hour turned into that slaphappy “59th Street Bridge Song” I’ll never understand.

My only real disappointment occurred when I couldn’t get Paul to write a song about a woman who falls in love with a cheese.

Remember, Women’s Liberation was just getting off the ground. If the male was a cheese, just think of how that would boost the female’s clout in the relationship!!! A woman would meet the love of her life at a party. “He” would be Italian and pungent. She would call the shots and he would never complain. Or criticize her choice of restaurants or movies or friends. He wouldn’t leave any hairs in the sink, either.

“How about picking up the tab at pricey restaurants or buying expensive jewelry?” That from Artie.

“What are you implying?” I asked.

He shrugged.

Paul, who was in the midst of writing “America,” hit me in the head with a wiffleball.

Still, I suggested having Kathy travel with a Gorgonzola. She could keep him wrapped up in her raincoat pocket, along with her cigarettes. And she wouldn’t run out of ciggies so fast because Gorgy wouldn’t smoke!!!

“Explain something,” Paul said in the testy way he had that irritated both Artie and me. “How does a cheese hitchhike from Saginaw? Or count cars on the New Jersey Turnpike?”

Then Artie, who usually sided with me, piped up with: “This cheese, how the fuck does it go looking for America?”

Looking for America—or anything else, I had to admit—would not be Gorgonzola’s strong suit. But, but, but, I said, what about that rock and that island and that stuff in the pantry with the cupcakes? What about poetic license?

~~~~

No, the break came a few months later. Paul was mulling over another of my ideas: A boxer called Al marries Rosie, the queen of Corona. They settle down on Bleeker Street. To support them, she sells the diamonds on the soles of her shoes. They all wind up on the cover of the Village Voice.

“Newsweek,” Paul said, already toying with lyrics.

“Then everything goes to hell when Rosie’s ex, Julio, shows up,” Artie added. A direct reference to an old boyfriend of mine. A Brit, in town on tour.

“Mick and I are just friends and you know it.”

“How about a radical priest?” Paul said. A catch phrase that always broke up the tension. Our bridge over troubled waters, so to speak. As usual, it made us laugh hysterically. And think we would last forever.