vague updates

And I’m superstitious as well, but not the run of the mill kind. I don’t give a shit about white lighters and salt. I don’t care what floor the elevator stops on. I ignore black cats and cracks in the sidewalk. I could care less about broken mirrors. It’s the subtle shifts in routine I take notice of. And the days that begin after.

You change your brand of cigarettes; you change your brand of luck. You take a different train and have a different day than you would have had otherwise. You wake up earlier. You answer your phone more often. You go to the same café and stick to the same formula. You take less. You do a little more. You smile when you wake up, and figure that’s the key.

I’m sitting there and I’m in a meeting and I’m explaining to this guy that I know exactly what I’m doing but have no way to do it. Then I’m saying to this other guy that everything is fine. Then I got a meeting with this lawyer because I don’t really know if everything is fine and want to get a better handle on what’s true and what’s not true and what’s words that evaporate into another story of the city. Then I’m at a club in another meeting with a record label and I'm trying to make things calm. Then I’m checking my email and making calls that I need to make and then when it gets to where time has escaped completely I pack my bag and try to catch it. Then I’m on the train on the way home and I’m punching meetings into the calendar of my phone and text messaging when I get reception.

When I get to the house I unload myself and kiss my girlfriend goodnight and remind her that I love her then go into my office and reply to some emails. I smoke a spliff then drink a beer and i'm sitting in my comfy chair and watching commercials and letting all the blood settle inside me. I’m letting my face and my arms feel heavy. I’m letting the hum of traffic from 7th avenue hypnotize me. I’m thinking of records and which ones always sound the best. The television grows into a comfortable drone. Then i start to feel the sad and spare silence of these times and the weight of lifes trials rushes through me slowly like a wave that has crept and fell instead of crashed and all the madness begins to soak in. Then my mind begins to panic. Everything begins to collapse and the burden of circumstance starts its uneasy slumber. Things are getting maudlin, I've got to make a move. In any minute I will cry. At any minute I will begin to cry. So I pack my record bag and wait until fifteen minutes after midnight then head out the door to the Lower East Side.

On the train I stare at the advertisements and read every legal line and disclaimer. When I get to the club its packed and dark and the headlining act is in the middle of landing its electro rock spaceship and the crowd is thick and sloppy. When the band takes a break I play African funk music and clear half the dance floor. I push forward into some deep tribal rhythms and onto some pop, then techno. Some drunk dude shakes my hand after my set and tells me thanks like as if I saved his life. I get another free drink from the bar and smoke a cigarette on the patio and the security guard tells me to stomp it out or I have to leave. I don’t feel like saying I’m the DJ. It just seems like more than needs to be done. So I just step on the butt and go back to the bar.

On the way home as I'm standing on the corner waiting for the light to change, I decide not to write anything about this, because it would be a bad move, cosmically. Its that superstition coming back to haunt me.

But because I have so much inside me I feel I have to write something, even if it’s cagey. Even if its wrapped in red tape. I have to write something, because what else can I do?

I’ve got to keep on moving.