One day in July of 2002, I woke up early and caught the first Chinatown bus from Baltimore to New York. At the time, I was working as a furniture salesman at a run-down ripoff discount store in East Baltimore, a job that I only managed to hold for another month or two. I’d worked Friday. I had to work Sunday. But today was Saturday, and I needed to get up to New York. Rock ‘n’ roll things were happening in New York.