January 05, 2009
There are helicopters with flashlights all around the Empire State
Building. I hope someone is climbing it but I would be equally
thrilled if someone were on the ledge.
Building. I hope someone is climbing it but I would be equally
thrilled if someone were on the ledge.
I agree with George Carlin. Just about the most interesting people do
with their lives is end it.
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Back in Chicago we used to go to this coffee shop near the Damen stop called Filter. You could smoke in there, so I guess the name was a pun or a ploy of some kind. Somedays I'd meet Ben there while he was working on a video. The place was huge in what is Chicago's version of the Flatiron building. Some of the older artists in Chicago had studios upstairs, which was great because they displayed their often pornographic art work on the huge second story windows out to the street below.
The men's bathroom of Filter had walls painted like chalkboard so the guys can do grade school graffiti. The women's bathroom--and this says alot about Chicago women--was completely tagged over in marker. "How come we don't get a chalkboard in the women's room?" "The manager said women don't draw on walls." "We do now." "Watch out ladies--Curves [Gym] gives to pro-life causes."
It was outside of Filter that I met my first dedicated homeless person Mike. He was Biggie Smalls sized and he would beg in the streets. I went to hand him some change one night and he said, "I don't waste my time with that. I'm tryna get some baby food for my little girl." On my first night bartending ever I got off the L at 3 in the morning and gave Mike $20.
You didn't go to Filter for a coffee on the go. For that you go to Half/Half, which was under the El. You go to Filter because it's sunny and you're thirsty and you have hours and hours to kill because you've just bought one of my stolen volumes from Myopic Used Books across the street.
I never asked a single girl for her phone number in Chicago. So on my first date with Annie I met up with her at noon in Wicker Park to read the paper and we decided to go to Filter Coffee. I remember her giving me the first of many specific orders, "Large coffee, splash of skim," she held up two fingers. "Two Equal packets." I said to myself then, "My, this girl is much more specific than I would be on a first date. She's probably demanding and unwilling to compromise for anyone. But maybe I'm wrong!"
The last time I was in Chicago I was dating a lingerie designer who was trying to sell her wares to a naughtyshop up the street. I didn't want to go and stand around all the knickers so I took myself out to Filter Coffee. I stood there alone watching people put up flyers seeking bandmates and fans.
Last week Raphael emailed me from Chicago asking me what there is to do in this god forsaken place. I told him, "There's a coffeeshop with free wireless on milwaukee called Filter. But the last time I was there it was where all the cool kids would go to smoke and talk about how their band is doing something."
And today I got an email from him, "FYI: while I was in Chicago I went to Filter. It's a Bank of America now."
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Sometimes in New York I feel like I have the same complaints at the genie in Aladdin.
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January 03, 2009
The handsome guy who can't keep his shirt on is my friend Trevor. We bartended together in a shitstorm hellhole one summer and became very good friends. I'm pretty sure he won and just can't tell us yet or else he doesn't get to keep the money.
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January 02, 2009
2) In other news it's 2009 and I'm finally getting into Flight of the Conchords. Why didn't anyone tell me that all of my favorite comedians are in a show about nerdy guys who go to all the same bars and clubs where I work and fail with women? What a great premise! They used to come to Pianos when I worked there and not in celebrity-incog. They really dress that terribly in real life.
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My secret wish for 2009 is to find a premise for this line. "...It's
one of those sad truths, like how girls who have naked pictures of
themselves on their phones always have boyfriends."
one of those sad truths, like how girls who have naked pictures of
themselves on their phones always have boyfriends."
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December 31, 2008
A mysterious face came into the bar where I was DJ'ing last night. It was my girlfriend from freshman year in college. The one who punched my V-card! She's been living in the city for the same time that I have. I haven't seen her since 2003, when I told her that I had been working on a novel and my plan was to move to a city and wait tables or something. She had just come back from 2 years in the peace corps.
"I've had enough of poverty. I'm moving to New York to become a capitalist. I'm just going to be one of those people who makes a ton of money and donates to good causes," she said and then added a ridiculously bitchy afterthought, "I'll be rich. And you'll be waiting tables."
Ha! Waiting tables!
Because I am a sick evil person I reminded her of this as soon as we met up. "You're a bartender. Same thing."
I then introduced her to the doorguy, "This is the girl who took my virginity."
"Did I really?"
"Yes."
"You remember it?"
"Of course. I didn't drink then. It was C4 New Apartments. Mattress on the floor."
"You know what's really pathetic. I've lived in the city for five years, I'm turning 29 and I'm still in the single digits."
"Are you serious?"
"Yes. You were #4 and I just broke up with #8. Why? How many have you?"
"I have no idea."
"Really? How many are we talking about here? Like 30?"
"No idea."
"My problem is I get too attached and I end up falling in love with all of them."
"Me too."
"You've fallen in love with 30+ girls?"
"I have no idea."
"Don't you have any cute single skinny nerdy friends you can set me up with?"
"I've been inviting you to parties for 4 years and this is the first time I've seen you. But sure. Stick with me."
I realized she misheard what I said because she replied, "That won't help!"
"What?"
"Did you say 'Sleep with me?'"
"I said stick with me."
I went back to playing records. But something bothered me and I told her. "You're terrible. You thought I said 'sleep with me' and your response was 'That's not going to improve my numbers I've already slept with you.' Not 'I don't like you like that' or 'You have a girlfriend' or 'I don't want to get attached.' You're such a fucking banker."
As the night went on we discussed our types. I told her that I pretty much always date girls like her, blondes with full lips. I wondered aloud if I had some kind of emotional scarring from her that made me chase these women everywhere. She said she always dates skinny writers.
A friend of hers looked over. This friend is a girl who is French and Asian, which gives her an adorably ridiculous accent. "Heem? He no skinny."
"Yes he is."
"No, look at this." she patted my belly.
"It was great seeing you. Thanks for bringing your friend. I guess I'll see you in 2012?"
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Here's a thing I'm kind of working on:
The psychology of love states that people are often attracted to people with the same level of attractiveness. So if you want to go out for a drink and meet an attractive person the best thing you can do: be attractive.
Of course I, as the DJ want everyone to have fun. I also want them to drink because in most places don’t pay you a flat rate but they will give you 15% of the bar ring, which can be an awful lot of money if you get the right mix of people dancing up a thirst. It also helps to have a wealthy, lonely guy who will start a tab and use it to buy drinks for the women who will thank him politely and move on to someone more suitable. Many bars and clubs have a cover charge of something between $10 and $20, which are rarely charged to women and is thought of as a fee charged for putting up with men. My New Years party this year has a cover charge of $35, but that will be split between me and the three bands.
In book four, Gulliver explains to the king of the Houyhnhnms the drinking habits of his people. He describes wine as "a liquid which made us merry by putting us out of our senses, diverted all melancholy thoughts, begat wild extravagant imaginations in the brain, raised our hopes, and banished our fears.”
The dangers and things that can happen to people are truly awful and are the stuff of nightmares for the parents of young adults and the plots of many hit TV shows about young adults.
Of course there are many different ways to be attractive. Without defaming any celebrities we are all aware of gorgeous, intelligent celebrity couples. We can all name a few gorgeous Hollywood types who somehow end up with much-older (wealthy) men. Of course this must be do to some kind of inner-beauty that these vixens find to these older, wealthier, heir-less men.
People meet each other in all sorts of different ways through friends, online, and sometimes from actual personal interactions. Many of us in our twenties go out to bars and nightclubs and cafes kinda sorta half searching for a mate.
People meet each other in all sorts of different ways through friends, online, and sometimes from actual personal interactions. Many of us in our twenties go out to bars and nightclubs and cafes kinda sorta half searching for a mate.
I have spent most of my adult-life DJ’ing in various parts of the country, which puts me in a booth over the room from which I watch the bizarre mating habits of the North American Human.
First of all something must be said first for the selection of venue. I’ve long believed that people are attracted to nightspots that are of their same level of attractiveness. When you go to a quiet out of the way bar you tend to meet quiet out of the way people. If you end up in a cheesy hokey bar with video games on the way you tend to find…cheesesticks. And if you end up in one of those big, fancy, vacuous clubs you tend to find beautiful, fancy, vacuous people.
The men in these clubs seem, to me, a bit over eager. If you’re a woman left alone for more than a few minutes you might find yourself swarmed upon by the kind of guy that a club like this attracts. (And, somehow, men still wonder aloud why women go to the bathroom in groups?)
In the bird kingdom is it quite common for the male bird to bring a gift to ingratiate himself to the female bird. A berry or fruit of some kind. When the over-eager human males approach the female it is often customary to offer the gift of a drink. From my vantage point of the DJ booth this practice is inaudible and quite charming, just as it seems when I see adorable birds on the Discovery Channel exchanging fruits. But in this case the male human is not exchanging a simple berry, but rather a martini in a glass the size of a small birdbath.
In the bird kingdom is it quite common for the male bird to bring a gift to ingratiate himself to the female bird. A berry or fruit of some kind. When the over-eager human males approach the female it is often customary to offer the gift of a drink. From my vantage point of the DJ booth this practice is inaudible and quite charming, just as it seems when I see adorable birds on the Discovery Channel exchanging fruits. But in this case the male human is not exchanging a simple berry, but rather a martini in a glass the size of a small birdbath.
At the end of this drink, the gift will have in fact changed the male’s perceived level of attractiveness. It should be added that when cavemen searched for cavewomen they also went clubbing.
There is also a gigantic downside to the theory of attractiveness: people aren’t always attracted to each other in the same ways. And worse: nothing is less attractive than discovering that someone you are attracted to is attracted to someone you would never talk to.
As a DJ you get precious few breaks to talk to the people who have come to see you. People hire a DJ so that they hear good music, if they hear good music they can dance, if they can dance they might dance with someone wonderful. Unfortunately, people of my generation don’t like to dance to “Stairway to Heaven” (08:02) or “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” (17:05). Instead the only dancing most DJ’s get to do is the dance that four-year-olds do when they have to go potty (locally known as “the Pee-pee Dance.”). You can imagine how thrilled I was this year when the music website Pitchfork Media selected “Enfants (Chants)” by Ricardo Villalobos as one of their “Top 100 Songs of 2008(17:06!). With a tempo of 124 BPM it mixes perfectly with The White Stripes “Seven Nation Army.”
While I’m already out on a horribly sexist limb here I must divulge and important industry secret. DJ’s play songs for girls. Hip Hop Dj’s are all well versed in the importance of “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It). I don’t know a single gay club DJ who won’t throw in a little Madonna or the inimitable Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” even to an all-male audience.
Last year I was DJ’ing in Los Angeles after shooting a music video. One of the extras in the video is a DJ out there and he asked me to DJ an hour with him the next night in Hollywood at a club called Boardners. I didn’t know what kind of music the Hollywood kids liked. But I took a chance and played “The Clapping Song” a schoolyard hit from 1965 by Shirley Ellis. The men in the club stood in wonder as the girls all stood up at once and began clapping along to a song that many of them had never heard. It has a simple clap-along beat reminiscent of “Paddy cake.” Most of the girls were up and dancing because, as it turns out, girls do just wanna have fun.
Last year I was DJ’ing in Los Angeles after shooting a music video. One of the extras in the video is a DJ out there and he asked me to DJ an hour with him the next night in Hollywood at a club called Boardners. I didn’t know what kind of music the Hollywood kids liked. But I took a chance and played “The Clapping Song” a schoolyard hit from 1965 by Shirley Ellis. The men in the club stood in wonder as the girls all stood up at once and began clapping along to a song that many of them had never heard. It has a simple clap-along beat reminiscent of “Paddy cake.” Most of the girls were up and dancing because, as it turns out, girls do just wanna have fun.
Of course I, as the DJ want everyone to have fun. I also want them to drink because in most places don’t pay you a flat rate but they will give you 15% of the bar ring, which can be an awful lot of money if you get the right mix of people dancing up a thirst. It also helps to have a wealthy, lonely guy who will start a tab and use it to buy drinks for the women who will thank him politely and move on to someone more suitable. Many bars and clubs have a cover charge of something between $10 and $20, which are rarely charged to women and is thought of as a fee charged for putting up with men. My New Years party this year has a cover charge of $35, but that will be split between me and the three bands.
In book four, Gulliver explains to the king of the Houyhnhnms the drinking habits of his people. He describes wine as "a liquid which made us merry by putting us out of our senses, diverted all melancholy thoughts, begat wild extravagant imaginations in the brain, raised our hopes, and banished our fears.”
But sometimes people have too much fun. After some people have had a few of those bird-bath margaritas they might get sick. Vomit does not make one more attractive, although sometimes when you drink to the point of vomiting it can make other people more attractive. Sometimes you see someone outside the club, teetering in illness against the wall. If they’ve gotten sick the worst may be over and it’s time for them to go home. “Where are your friends?” is the first question I ask. It’s also the second question I scream at them, “WHERE ARE YOUR FRIENDS?” In the old days I would check their wallet and make sure they had cab fare home and send them to whatever address was written on their license. I sometimes wonder how many young girls from the local colleges were accidentally delivered to a parent’s house in Yonkers at 4:30 AM.
Now you can just pull out their cellphone and call back the last person they called. "WHAT KIND OF FRIEND ARE YOU??"
But even that is better than waking up in a stranger’s bed in some out of the way neighborhood where you have to check the mail just to find out how to get home. God bless New York City and mass transit. I can’t imagine the terror of waking up on a workday in Providence with no idea how you go there or how to get home.
The dangers and things that can happen to people are truly awful and are the stuff of nightmares for the parents of young adults and the plots of many hit TV shows about young adults.
Everyone knows that one night stands are like Horror movies, they seem like fun in the beginning but you can never get attached to any of the characters because they tend to disappear.
Speaking of television: I have spent all of this time discussing a very certain kind of bar and if you had to split it up into genders it would go something like this: Bars with TVs/bars where people dance. Bars for men/bars where the DJs play “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” Bars with television can be a fantastic place to be left alone, whether you want to watch some kind of sporting event or whether you just want to spend your unexpected layover with Anderson Cooper. If you're going to do something real classy like put a TV in a bar. At least get cable or satellite. The last thing I want when I'm drinking alone is to feel like a fourteen year old watching scrambled porn.
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December 30, 2008
Act II Scene 5
§MERCUTIO AND ARLECCHINO WALK DOWN A NEARBY STREET IN THE DARK, LED BY TORCHBEARERS. THEY KNOCK ON A DOOR.
MERCUTIO:
Benvolio?
BENVOLIO:
Mercutio?
MERCUTIO:
Ay, let us in.
MERCUTIO: (SHAKES DOOR)
I am trying to but this door seems to be inoperable.
BENVOLIO:
One second.
MERCUTIO:
Benvolio, my man and I are going out tonight and I need you to make him into a prince.
BENVOLIO:
Sorry, I don’t, uh--
MERCUTIO:
No, not that way. I mean I need you to lend my man some of your gorgeous fabric so he doesn’t look like a shit-smearing peasant when we are at the party tonight.
BENVOLIO:
What’s wrong with your clothes?
MERCUTIO:
There’s a word we learn when we are very young and that word is “No.” I don’t really need to lead us in a discussion about the matter. Can you help the boy or not?
BENVOLIO:
What kind of clothes are we talking about here?
MERCUTIO:
I’m sorry. But were you planning on shrinking back to his age and size later this evening?
BENVOLIO:
No.
MERCUTIO:
Good! And fantastic use of that new word!
BENVOLIO:
I just--
MERCUTIO:
You just what? Had a child? Wanted to make a patchwork arras out of your old sweaters?
BENVOLIO:
No it’s just that some of them have sentimental value and I don’t.
MERCUTIO:
Trust me. You can dress him up like the little boy you’ve always wanted and you can watch a former version of yourself stroll about the hall and no one has to know that you’re--
BENVOLIO:
Nevermind. Forget it. Jesus. Fine. Come in.
MERCUTIO:
You still have to unlock the door.
Benvolio unlocks the door with a series of bolts. In it is revealed a very small apartment of orderly belongings. All of his cloaks are arranged in rainbow order in the closet and his books and personal things are in height order. His jewelery is organized by metal and then by stone.
BENVOLIO: (HOLDING UP CLOTH)
Tell me, Arlecchino, do you want to look like Tybalt or a visiting prince.
ARLECCHINO:
Tybalt!
BENVOLIO:
Fine, but don’t come crying to me when the boys are after you.
Mercutio leaves the room to help himself to a glass of wine.
Arlecchino dresses and reemerges looking like a proper prince. Arlecchio turns from the looking glass standing upright as a musician.
MERCUTIO:
It’s amazing.
BENVOLIO:
I know, it came from Paris, originally I believe.
MERCUTIO:
No, I mean it is amazing the transformation here. Arlecchino, you--you look like a proper gentleman. I mean, look at you here.
ARLECCHINO: (IN PRINCELY VOICE)
How charming of you to say, sir. And may I add that you look quite dashing this evening.
MERCUTIO:
Thank you very much, sir, now could you--Arlecchino!
ARLECCHINO: (REGULAR VOICE)
What? What?
Arlecchino turns like a dog chasing his own tail.
ARLECCHINO:
I already sit in some muck?
MERCUTIO:
No, sir. Benvolio I do not believe that we shall be attending this evening’s festivities with the help of our trusted valet. It seems he has gone missing. Instead we will have to bear our own torches and walk with our cousin who is visiting from Old Rome.
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blerg
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This year is ending somewhat well for me. I have the #1 on iTunes (suck it Beyonce!), Pitchfork just listed my New Years Party as something you should go to and for no apparent reason I was photographed DJ'ing in Spin Magazine. Thank you media outlets!
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December 29, 2008
I really hate using the word "Foreigners." You can't say it outloud without sounding semi-ignorant.
But if you add an extra "E" it sounds exciting. "Yesterday I was on a bus full of foreigneers!"
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On my way home from Christmas I split my pants. To be fair to my ass: these pants were old as hell. I bought them at a thrift store in college. They already had a hole in the crotch, but that was manageable. Then I bent down to tie my shoe and my ass tore open.
So there I am, riding Metronorth from Connecticut with all the other yuppies wearing pants that looks like some bizarre mormon marital aid.
When it comes to clothing I am my grandmother. I repair. I get things tailored. When I found my leather jacket and discovered that the sleeves were too short I sewed new cuffs on them. One time in 2004 Annie spent $365 on a pair of Diesel jeans for me. Annually I take them to an Asian person for repairs.
Today Laia was over and the first thing she said to me in months was, "You're not skinny anymore!" The tone of her voice made it seem like I had achieved something. But, no. I just got fat.
Some people mention it in passing, asking if I've been working out. Some people watch the buttons on my nice shirts in terror as if they might pop off.
Right after that Ben called, saying he was in the neighborhood. By some great twist of planned obsolescence Ben's regular camera had to be replaced by the same model from the same company because they don't make a waterproof shell for the one he had. This was the same camera that I had to buy Ben last year because I sat on his camera when we were filming Caveminers. At the Beauty Bar Christmas party last week I lost (track of) my same version of that camera. So there we were in that wonderful parity of our lives where we sometimes call each other after not speaking for months and it turns out we're both dating Annies or looking into moving to chicago. I needed to replace my Canon SD1000 and Ben needed to unload one. Wonderful!
I should add that this is my third of this camera. If you ever need any Canon camera accessories please call me. The first one I lost--along with a fantastic motorcycle jacket that probably wouldn't fit me anymore--after I stayed up all night to get Romeo & Juliet tickets and met up with the boys for iPhone day. It was hot and I took my jacket off and left it with them where they camped out at the Apple store on Prince. Caleb and I walked over to visit a friend of his at Jack Spade and that guy gave me the staff discount on a new backpack. I completely forgot about my jacket and when the Apple store opened its doors Ben picked it up, "Anybody's jacket? No? Hello any--oh shit they're letting people in!"
We went to B&H, which is a santa's workshopesque store on 34th owned by the Society for the Perpetuation of Jewbag Stereotypes. On the way into the store I bent over to tie my shoe and I split my other pair of pants.
I have been a skinny kid my whole life up until I went on tour last spring. The backup dancers used to comment on how they loved my skinny physique. "Are you a dancer too?"
"No." I ran out of money and got fired from all my good jobs two months before that and for a couple of months the best night of my week was Fridays when I got fed at that jazz club uptown. A friend of mine noted that my diet at that time appeared to be cigarettes, budweiser and coffee. "Not true!" I cried. "You forgot whiskey!"
I've always been the kind of person that could eat anything and never gain weight. Somehow last winter I scared my body into thinking we lived under famine conditions, when in fact some asshole at interscope just kept pushing our tour dates back.
Now I am going to have to adjust to being a very boring body type. Now that I am no longer drag-queen skinny I have to learn to enjoy being just vaguely Jerry-Seinfeld thin and hope my face doesn't develop whatever sadness fills Adrian Brody's heart. I will have to learn to grunt for no apparent reason when I pick things up off the floor.
Very soon I will probably be the kind of person who alternates between having cheese or sour cream on the burrito.
By next year I can imagine myself making pretend dieting choices like getting thin-crust pizza or, gasp, drinking lite beer. I can't fathom going back to the tailors and having them let out the shirts that I had darted over the past years. Tonight I did laundry and I checked the temperature. After 15 years of basically boiling my clothing into shrinking down to my size I now find myself hanging things to dry before the dryer replaces my tailor.
I'd hate to go to my closet one day and discover that nothing fits other than pajama pants and towels. But at the rate I'm going now I'm running out of pants.
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December 25, 2008
Every year at Alicia's Christmas party we exchange "Secret Shitty Santa." Usually I end up with homemade porn and someone has to get on the train at the end of the night with an eight-hundred page copy of my first novel.
This year Alicia and I just went to someone else's party and played a raucous game of Apples to Apples. We did not exchange SSS's this year, however.
And so I give you all a Secret Shitty chapter from my first novel, Breakfast Any Time. Our hero, Liam Boycott, has finished his Christmas shopping and has heard that his girlfriend will find out if she got accepted to her fancy-pants Massachusetts college!
(For the twenty-five people who bought For Here or to Go: Life in the Service Industry [currently onsale at Amazon for $0.84!] you might want to know that Liam is the Pizza Delivery boy from the story of mine first published there.)
(AND for those of you who read Too Much Coffee Man's The War Issue, Liam is the narrator from my story in there called "Bomb Day.")
Chapter 25
Like a department store, Sherry’s family started decorating for Christmas right after Halloween. Half the leaves are down and the jackolanterns haven’t even rotted through yet. Yet they’ve already sprayed the windows with fake snow. Through the white border on every pane you could see the Mr. and Ms. looking at something down the hall. Why do people do that to their windows? It looks like they tried to touch up their trim with spraypaint.
A plush reindeer head hangs from the doorknocker with a sign that says, Jingle my bell, in big cartoon letters.
Kasling-kasling-kaslink.
They had a table on the porch and it was already full of Christmas crap. It’s a little village covered in snow, only it’s not really snow it’s like long sheets of cotton balls. It looks like our town did before they got here. A train runs to the center and comes out at a depot. And it’s a real depot, not an old train station remade into a restaurant like we got now. The little ceramic townspeople walk around with their mouths frozen into a whistle or wrapped in glass scarves. The village windows all have fake snow painted on them. Even then they smile and none of them have cars to honk at each other. Beautiful glass racehorses plow the fields. We haven’t had horses working here in years, but I guess you can’t just find little Jamaican farmer figurines. On the edge their little town is a big white wooden building with a crucifix staplegunned to the front. It’s much bigger than the rest and it’s not made at all like them. It actually looks a lot like our house. No, make that exactly like our house. Like someone shrunk it or something. Through the snow-sprayed roof I could just see Dad’s address.
“Well hello!” the ole actress herself stepped into the spotlight, she copped a big, bright, sugar-free gum smile, flipped a big blonde swoop off her forehead and turned to the living room. “Guess who’s here?” Someday she’ll get a talk show on daytime TV and she’ll make sense to the rest of the world. “Well why don’t you come in out of the cold.” Seriously, it’s not even scarf season yet. She must be huffing the snow cans.Merry Christmas too all!
“Thanks, well, I just thought I’d drop by and see if…uh, if you…”
You ever feel like you can smell your own wake?
Ms. L. stood at the doorway with her robot head cocked to the side, smiling. Mr.L. hasn’t moved the look on his face. He just stares at me. “…Is this a bad time? I could come back later. Or tomorrow. I mean, I could just see her in school tomorrow.”
“No. Why don’t you come on in here,” her dad keeps his feet planted and his voice booms through his grey highway patrol mustache. “We’re having a discussion that concerns you.”
“Oh yeah?” I’ve seen enough movies to know that this is how the guilty get yanked. I ran a check on myself. Am I doing everything right? Fly? Up. Shoes? Tied. Shoes! I leaned over to take off my shoes. “Where’s—” A scream ran though the hall. Sounded like a cat stuck in a mousetrap.
Mr. L. stood with his arms folded across his reindeer sweater. Ms. L. just kept smiling. The room felt damp and cool like a tent in the morning, saturated with breath and sweat and voices. The stale funk of a cold chicken soup hung in the air. My socks wouldn’t move from the plastic rug. I looked around the living room and nothing changed when I heard the scream. Did I imagine it?
“Is, uh…” There it went again, louder this time. Ms. L’s eyes glance down the hallway, then back at me. Wanna know a trick mom taught me? When you can’t tell if someone is really smiling or fake smiling in a photo, cover their mouth with your finger and see if their eyes smile too. I tried to imagine Ms. L wrapped up to her nose in a ceramic scarf like their Christmas action figure set.
No one moved. Did I imagine both?
“I could come back, you know? Later on. Tomorrow, like I said. I’ll just see her in school.”
“No. Step in here.” His rough, puppet voice rolled through the carpet and up my pant legs to my chest.
This summer I’m gonna find Mom, I thought. And when I get back I’mma get my own apartment in Northampton and she can come visit me and Sherry and we can have a normal life.
My hands started to shake. I could feel my pulse pumping to the end of my jittery fingers. They trembled and then flinched with every beat, faster and faster until I could almost hear it.
Gagunga…gagunga…gagunga…
My arteries widened.
Ms. L. glanced away when I looked at her the next time. Mr. L. kept staring straight at me. I was a deer separated from the herd and whatever he was, he doesn’t want to scare me away yet. “Sit down if you like.”
Gagunga…gagunga…gagunga…
“No, that’s a’right,” my heart rate pulled the puberty out of my voice. “It’s getting late, huh?”
“Oh, no trouble at all,” Ms. L. smiles through the bottom half of her face.
Mr. L. leaks out half a tire, “Wouldn’t be the first time you kept us up at night.” In ancient times, you tipped your executioner so that he would kill you with the first chop of the ax. “You fucken…”
“You know what? I’ll just…” I stepped back in my socks. “I’ll just come by another time. I can see you’re—“
“I said sit down.”
Gagunga…gagunga…gagu—
“Ghah Daahd!” My heart stopped. Sherry’s voice came out of the cat in the mousetrap. “Dad, let him go!”
Without thinking, I stepped through the living room and into the hallway. The sweat dripping down my back made my ass cheeks slide against each other. I found Sherry, bright red, in pieces on the floor. She looked up at me with her big swimming pool eyes, her cheap makeup rained down onto the braless front of her t-shirt. The whole hallway reeked of morning breath and the humidity of sobbing. She hugged her knees and rocked back and forth on the floor, hiding her face (slash) shame.
“Baby?” I turned my back on Mr. L. and immediately regretted it. I can imagine him killing me, commando-style and pinning one of his medals through my face. “What is it? Are you okay? Did they…did something…”
She cried again, the sobs came from further in her stomach this time. She choked each one out and couldn’t bring the air back into her lungs. I wanted to do something, anything. CPR, mostly. And for the first time I didn’t want to leave. I haven’t cried hard enough to change my shirt since I was eleven.
Two twangs of hair popped out of her ponytail as she grabbed her head, squeezing her face between her elbows. The frays of hair cling to the sweat on her forehead. I couldn’t even think to do any of the things I probably wanted to do. Scream, run, hide, get in the car and drive until no one speaks English.
Mr. L. gripped the gray ends of his mustache in between his lips. The Ms. put on a blank expression and now I’m completely lost. Her smile disappeared. And then we all looked at the wet mess on the floor.
Ms. L. looked down upon her creation, “Sherry, honey? Do you want to tell Liam your good news?”
Sherry squeezed her eyelids and wiped the navy blue tears onto her pajama pants. She stopped crying, and looked at all three of us.
“Baby?” I couldn’t think of anything to say.
Her mom gave a real firm, but supportive smile, like I’ve just been denied a loan.
Sherry coughs and that morning breath stink floats up my nose. She collapsed onto her kneecaps again, imploding, shivering silent and curling into a ball. I went to check her elbows for scrapes and bruises.
My body walked down the hall toward her and creaked the floorboards beneath. The sound echoed through the empty silence.
“What is it, honey?” I whispered. My wobbly knees bend down in front of her.
A wet piece of meat slapped me from behind. “You get the hell away from her.” He gripped me in the neck and my skin tightened around my throat in front, catching my Adams apple in mid swallow, making my choking noises sound like his leaky, high-pitched blare. In one handful he pulled me away and held on. My mouth hung open and I looked in the only direction I could. At the wall, wide eyed.
“Dahhd, Daddy let him go,” the cat climbed back in the mousetrap.
He pulled me onto my feet and I tried to steady them on the floor. Ms. L. lowered her chin and looked away to antique (slash) virgin china set.
“Get away from him, ghaad,” Sherry pounded the floor with both fists.
My knees buckled and he swung me in a half moon. The room flashed by until I faced the clean plastic path to the doorway.
“How about this,” he gripped me hard and harder and I started to swallow my Adams apple. The education fell out of his voice and he sounded like a Boston firefighter. Or a puppet of one. “You get ya ass out of my house, and don’t you ever come back again.” He let go and I gasped the stale air into my lungs. My knees gave out entirely and I slammed into an antique table. My left hand slipped on a knitted cloth and my chest caught the edge. A brass picture frame of her and Elizabeth snapped down on my knuckles and I caught a wooden Santa statue on my shoulder before it hit the floor. Sherry wailed and wailed from the hallway.
“What are you doing? What are you doing to him?” the gravel in her voice scattered up the landing on the staircase.
I fell to my knees and grabbed my shoes off the mat. Her parents stood silent. My shoulder leaned on the doorframe for support. I went for the door and another knitted reindeer puppet slid over the doorknob in my hands (“Don’t forget the carrots!” it said). I squeezed harder but my fingers didn’t respond. It slipped around three times as I tried again.
The floorboards behind me groaned and a footstep boomed for the door. I yanked the goddam puppet off, and focused all my energy on making the doorknob work. Sherry’s voice gasped for air somewhere behind me and my arm hairs stood up. The chain lock popped off the screen door and I landed on the porch.
My knees shook on pedals in the car and the gears ground as the clutch slipped into reverse. Her house disappeared as I rewound all the way down the street, past the mailbox, past everyone’s garden and mulch. At the next bend I flipped the wheel around and the car tires screech on the sleepy street.
I kept it in first all the way to the factory and burst most of the fresh muffler patch. The floor heated up under my left sock. In Montana they have no speed limit, I heard. You just gotta drive, Safe and Prudent. Whatever that means.
And then I stopped. The car stalled as I jam on the brakes, jolting me into the steering wheel as the tires locked. With the car stopped in first gear everything but the stereo shut down. The dashboard lit up. Brake. Check Engine. Oil. Gas. My faces peeled off the steering wheel and my eyes opened at the shipping and receiving gate in front of the factory.
What the fuck was that about?
1:31 AM | [permalink] |
1 comments
December 24, 2008
Success! Leila was right! I completely made up a song in my head!
From: 71 North BoysTo: Brendan
Subject:RE: can you explain the different version of cleveland
shuffle?
Body:
Whats good Brendan! The song you are looking for is not the Cleveland Shuffle. Your looking for the Casper Slide a.k.a The Cha Cha Slide by Mr. C or some say Casper C.
----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Brendan
Date: Dec 19, 2008 4:06 PM
I've been searching hard for the other version of TCS. There's one that doesnt have the word "Crunk" in it. Do you know what I'm talking about? The one with the part "Everybody clap your hands!"
What appears to have actually happened is that somebody made a remix of "The Cleveland Shuffle" with "The Cha Cha Slide" and it turns out that these songs are like planeteers.
Labels: The Cleveland Shuffle
10:23 PM | [permalink] |
1 comments
The girl in this photo? All the way on the right? I fucking hate her. We met in a Lower East Side long, long ago in 2006. Annie and I had just broken up and at the same time I began an unnamed quest in Manhattan. She would just materialize wherever Conrad and I were drinking for the night. We all spent Thanksgiving together a million years ago, drinking wild turkey in the den of 151. Immediately she would text me about shows, call me about bands she heard and always want to know where I was DJ'ing.
This is fine. And wonderful. I've always believed that you're never famous until your supporters are outnumbered by your hangers-on. She was neither.
I used to listen to her and care for her and let her tell me about her problems. She was from Portland and you would never, apparently, understand how depressing it is to never see the sun because it rains so goddam much. She had just broken up with a boy and she was a kind of Dickon from The Secret Garden character. I wanted her to know that she didn't need the crutch of a boyfriend. And, for once, I wanted to prove this to a person not by having indiscriminate sex with them.
Suddenly at one point she disappeared. She stopped coming to parties. She stopped texting all of us. I emailed her and called her, I invited her to new things. Then I got worried.
She was a young girl in a new city with a history of depression. I remembered that she said that she had just broken up with a boy back home. I felt for her. I was worried about her. I called a mutual friend just to see if she was okay. Conscious. Eating meals. Breathing.
"Is Al-- okay? I haven't heard from her and I'm starting to get worried."
He responded, "Get over it, weirdo."
About a week ago she was in the Times some dipshit had photographed her on Bedford Ave. I was at Leigh's house reading the Sunday paper and I said, Look at that! There's Alex. She is alive after all.
On the way to the G train that very same day I looked up the stairs and this mysterious force materialized. I hadn't seen her in two years and my first words to her were, "You looked great in the paper today."
"Hey," she said instead of mentioning where she's been since 2006. "I was in the paper today? Oh, well."
And, first of all, fuck that. When I'm in the New York Times my aunties go to the special gas station that services that Zionist rag and they cut out the article and it's still on their fridge the following Easter. Of-fucking-course you know you are in the paper.
The very next day I ran into her on Ludlow. I have no idea what she was doing there but we said hi like you would say hi to a person whom you may have seen the last twelve thursdays (but whose last name always escapes you).
Then last Thursday I saw her at Lit. She gave me the same awkward smile (it says: "Hi. I'm new to the city, but you were a phase I went through when I was even newer to the city."). She then did the opposite-territoriality that girls so which is she went behind the bar with her purse, walked up to the guy bartender, talked to him and then walked away.
The question is: what the hell did I do to her (and forget) that makes this girl that I once cared for into a fucking bitch?
This is fine. And wonderful. I've always believed that you're never famous until your supporters are outnumbered by your hangers-on. She was neither.
I used to listen to her and care for her and let her tell me about her problems. She was from Portland and you would never, apparently, understand how depressing it is to never see the sun because it rains so goddam much. She had just broken up with a boy and she was a kind of Dickon from The Secret Garden character. I wanted her to know that she didn't need the crutch of a boyfriend. And, for once, I wanted to prove this to a person not by having indiscriminate sex with them.
Suddenly at one point she disappeared. She stopped coming to parties. She stopped texting all of us. I emailed her and called her, I invited her to new things. Then I got worried.
She was a young girl in a new city with a history of depression. I remembered that she said that she had just broken up with a boy back home. I felt for her. I was worried about her. I called a mutual friend just to see if she was okay. Conscious. Eating meals. Breathing.
"Is Al-- okay? I haven't heard from her and I'm starting to get worried."
He responded, "Get over it, weirdo."
About a week ago she was in the Times some dipshit had photographed her on Bedford Ave. I was at Leigh's house reading the Sunday paper and I said, Look at that! There's Alex. She is alive after all.
On the way to the G train that very same day I looked up the stairs and this mysterious force materialized. I hadn't seen her in two years and my first words to her were, "You looked great in the paper today."
"Hey," she said instead of mentioning where she's been since 2006. "I was in the paper today? Oh, well."
And, first of all, fuck that. When I'm in the New York Times my aunties go to the special gas station that services that Zionist rag and they cut out the article and it's still on their fridge the following Easter. Of-fucking-course you know you are in the paper.
The very next day I ran into her on Ludlow. I have no idea what she was doing there but we said hi like you would say hi to a person whom you may have seen the last twelve thursdays (but whose last name always escapes you).
Then last Thursday I saw her at Lit. She gave me the same awkward smile (it says: "Hi. I'm new to the city, but you were a phase I went through when I was even newer to the city."). She then did the opposite-territoriality that girls so which is she went behind the bar with her purse, walked up to the guy bartender, talked to him and then walked away.
The question is: what the hell did I do to her (and forget) that makes this girl that I once cared for into a fucking bitch?
3:20 AM | [permalink] |
0 comments
I got to leave Beauty Bar a little early tonight and I took the last train to Connecticut to come home for Christmas. The Beauty Bar Christmas Party last last night was wonderful. I lost my camera and all of the local faces showed up. But tonight the only party I want to be at is with my Dah. He picked me up from the train station in New Haven at 1:11AM and as soon as we got home he said, "I think it's time we go to church."
He poured two glasses of Jameson (in the Jameson glasses I bought him last Christmas) and I knew what to do. I said, "Father?"
He said "Son?"
We clinked glasses and both said, in unison, "Holy Ghost!"
2:37 AM | [permalink] |
0 comments
December 23, 2008
My regular gogo dancer has decided that since she has the #2 single in the country that she is too busy to dance in her underpants on New Years Eve. If you or anyone you know is looking to dance in your underpants please contact me. It was a good career move for her.
8:46 PM | [permalink] |
0 comments
When I was 19 I worked for a human rights group in Chinatown. One day I got a copy of a book called Bomb the Suburbs. I then discovered that the author was, like, 20 when he wrote it and had it printed himself. I thought suddenly, "Wow, write your own book? I would like to do that."
Being so young, of course, meant that I did things in the complete ass backwards way. I had published a short story by then and figured that I would include it. Then I had a series of other stories that I planned on including. One of which I thought was a classic tale of my brother standing up for the rights of working class people. Now that I'm older I realize it's just a story of my brother being a dick in a car dealership.
I decided that I needed an illustrator and so I sent letters to a friend I had made the summer before. She was a graffiti writer named Karen from Pawcatuck, Connecticut. We had worked together in Philadelphia trying, unsuccessfully, to free Mumia Abu Jamal.
I was so sure that this plan would work that I mailed her a copy of the story "Management V. Labor" and a check for $50. Over winter break I drove down to her house. Her parents were fisherman and they lived in skinny house. Her dad had a long, white Gordon's fisherman beard. He spent most of the days sitting by the Franklin stove in the living room.
Karen had cashed my check but said she was having trouble designing the cover. Upon arrival I discovered that her biggest problem seemed to be that she had not read the story. After twenty minutes of her sketching out a really bad cover she said that we had to get out of the house.
Her friend's birthday was coming up and we had to go under the train bridge to paint her birthday card mural.
It's been maybe eight years since then. Mumia is still in prison. I don't have a book out. But that's what I think of when I hear this song:
The Hold Steady- Constructive Summer.
These are all people that I have lost to the pre-gmail/facebook world of communication.
3:34 PM | [permalink] |
0 comments
Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) - Beyonce
Man, fuck interscope. Maybe a year and a half ago I was evangelical about the need for more schoolyard songs. People love to dance to anything in double-dutch or patty-cake. Malcom McLaren tried to do this in the eighties and it didn't work (as usual he missed the point and sampled the sound of the rope cutting through the air rather than the rhythm of the beads.
Double Dutch - Malcolm McLaren I used, as example, this:
The Clapping Song - Shirley Ellis
And the meeting never went anywhere. After stomping around my apartment doing the demos. Now this fucking Beyonce song is everywhere. Punk assholes are clapping too it, it was all over the place at the Beauty Bar christmas party. If they liked it so much, they shoulda put a ring on it.
1:43 PM | [permalink] |
0 comments
Secret to Happiness