Inside Pocket

I was handcuffed to a bar bolted above a bench that was leaned against the wall; one hand was free. Across from me were a couple of winos. Both of them had a hand in cuffs too. One said something I couldn’t quite make out and then the other burst into fits of laughter then collapsed into coughing then spit on the floor. They seemed relaxed and comfortable, as if they had came on their own. It was still afternoon and from the high up windows beams from the sun spilled into the room, washing it with light. Even so every light bulb in the station still sizzled. I guess the police aren’t too concerned with conserving energy.

Marcos, who was with me when the cops caught us [and in my opinion, the sole reason we were nabbed. who stops in the middle of a police chase to smoke a fucking cigarette?], had been taken to a room for questioning, leaving me in the holding area, handcuffed to a bar. There wasn’t much to look at in the room. One wall had the bench I sat on and the door to the room Marcos was being questioned behind, the opposite wall had the bench the two winos sat on and a door from the entrance hall, one wall was bare save two windows high up near the ceiling, and there wasn’t really another wall, at least not one symmetric to the others. What was instead there was a counter with bulletproof glass in front of it. At least I think it was bulletproof. It looked it. There were square windows in the glass, so someone could take your personal effects from the booking officers. Behind the glass was a huge office with many desks, behind most of these desk sat cops.

One of the winos hissed at me but I ignored it. Then he hissed again and I looked up. He was old and his face was puffy and when he smiled it cracked and wrinkled like someone was trying to squeeze it closed. When he spoke I could smell his warm breath, it was so sweet I almost choked. –Hey young buck, he wheezed, do me a favor. I thought for a second, staring at him. But ultimately I was drunk and my adrenaline was still growling so I shrugged my shoulders and said, –What?

-You see that bag there behind the counter? I looked and saw it, sitting on the other side of the glass. It was a canvass duffle bag, so dirty and black it looked like they had dug it up from coal. I nodded. –Reach in that bag and get the beers in there. There are three, keep one for yourself. I sat back and stared at him then looked at the bag and then looked at the door on the wall. –You want me to reach behind that glass in front of all these cops? You’re crazy. I leaned back, dismissive. The winos started laughing, just then the door opened and two cops came in with another guy.

He was probably in his mid 20’s, which meant he was about ten years older than me at the time. He had dark brown hair slicked all the way back and wore a baggy leather jacket and jeans. He looked at all of us for a second, then stared at the floor. They sat him next to me but kept both of his hands cuffed, then they passed an envelope with his personal effects to a lady cop behind the glass. Once they left he turned to me. –Whatchu in here for? He had a Spanish accent. He looked nervous and scared, like he was about to cry. –We started a riot on the train, I said, and it was the truth too, -what are you here for? He nodded towards the door the cops had just left from, -They caught me dealing in the park. I shrugged my shoulders and smiled as if to say, looks like we’re stuck in the same boat buddy, but he didn’t smile back.

-So you gonna do that for me kid? They aint gonna find out, they aint even lookin! The wino gestured towards the rows of desk behind the glass. All the cops were hunched over them, not paying attention to us or anybody else. Some were on the phone, some were typing, some just sat staring at the pieces of paper in front of them. The Spanish guy next to me said something I didn’t catch so I turned back around. –I need you to do something for me, he said. He was serious, so I didn’t smile; I just looked at him and waited. –I need you to reach into my inside pocket and take out what’s in there. Then put it in the rip that’s at the bottom. He stood up and I looked at his coat. –Unzip it, he said, then he looked at the door and back to me nervously then he looked at the door again. I unzipped his coat and pulled out what was in the inside pocket, a huge stack of money, a few thousand dollars at least, folded into a rubber band. Then a small baggy of white powder. I put it into the rip at the bottom of his coat. -Push it all the way in, he urged. I pushed it deeper, till it was lost in the lining. –Thanks. He sat back down.

-Come on man! Aint nobody gonna see you! The winos still wanted their beers. I sighed and shrugged my shoulders. –All right, watch the door for me. I was being insane, it was a moment of madness, and the sunlight and the florescent bulbs burned the room into white blur. I leaned from the bench and stretched my arm behind the glass. A police officer walked from his desk to another. I reached into the bag and felt clothes and plastic and maybe a handheld radio. Another police officer turned his chair to talk to someone across the room. My hands felt the bottles; I slid the necks between my fingers and pulled them cautiously from behind the counter. An officer hung up the phone and continued looking down at his desk. I rolled the bottles one by one along the floor to the winos and they made a tinny clicking sound the whole way but no one noticed.

-Hot damn! one of them said, you alright boy! I sat back feeling pleased. The Spanish guy just looked at the floor as if we weren’t even there and seeing him made me stop smiling and sit back against the wall. I thought about what I would say to the cops when they questioned me. I wondered what Marcos was saying. One of the winos opened their beer and lifted it up in salute before taking a swig and then sliding it into his pocket. The other threw his head back and chugged it all at once. The sun must have sunk somewhere behind the hills because by the time the cops opened the door there were shadows all over the walls around us. True story.

Jamie Lidell will drop your jaw

I have seen a lot of shows in my time, of every genre and capacity. From the New York philharmonic to East Oakland gangsta rappers. There have been some really memorable ones, and some easily forgettable ones. The ones that never stick out though, the ones that always fade away as the drugs wear off, are the electronic acts.

Now I don’t mean when I see a DJ, because I have seen a billion DJ’s and I will see a billion more and some were phenomenal and some were horrific but mostly, usually, they are just meh. It is very rare that a DJ makes a serious difference to the crowd they are playing for, what usually sets one DJ apart from the next is the actual party they play at. The crowd, the venue, the drugs. It’s a combination of things. Only the very special DJ can make him or herself stand out, and without the proper environment to encourage them, even they have trouble shining. No, I’m not talking about DJ’s. DJ's are a different type of performance. No, I’m talking about actual Electronic acts.

Last night I saw Jamie Lidell and I will go on record as saying that he is the singular best electronic artist I have ever seen live. In fact, I will go so far as to say that his shows are in the top 10 of all shows I have ever seen.

This includes Run DMC at a small club in 1996, where the entire place almost crumbled under the weight of a bouncing crowds sheer enthusiasm. Or PJ Harvey at the Warfield during her ‘Is this desire’ tour, where I stood silent still and felt my heartbreak so many times I swore I would never see her again for fear I would never get over her [she still haunts me]. Or A Tribe Called Quest/De La Soul in 1993, where the crowd got so excited a riot stopped the show and when the house lights went on and a voice bellowed from the overhead SHOWS OVER, we all licked blood from our teeth and sighed with relief because it could get no better than that anyway. Yes, Jamie Lidell is up there with the great shows of my lifetime.

His usual set involves some songs from his album [Multiply, which is a great record, but really doesn’t do his live show any justice], and then just sort of jamming with his hardware. He has a great voice, soulful and genuine, and an almost criminal sense of rhythm. Last night it seemed he broke up his set to alternate between one song from his latest record and then a somewhat improvised jam with his many bleep bloop boxes and a laptop. I wont describe the performance of his album cuts, because it’s the bleep bloop jammy jams that left my jaw dropped.

He has a sampler up on stage with a mic hooked into it. That is only one of the many boxes he uses, but it’s the pillar of all his joints. He beat boxes a rhythm into the sampler then loops it. He’s dancing and smiling and sometimes his eyes are closed and sometimes he’s staring right at you. Then he’ll hum or sing a little over the loop, then he'll loop that and start tweaking it with some effects. He even grunts the bass lines and spits the funk claps. It’s all built up into a fine rhythm and from there he takes it wherever he wants. And the crowd, in turn, has to go with him. It’s an exciting journey to say the least.

At one point he took this simple soul groove and started feeding it into a synthesizer, crunching up all the rhythms into a cacophony of alien sounds, then he let it all fall into each other and the beats were fighting and his voice was fighting and the air was choking with such foul dissonance I didn’t know if I could take it anymore. But right when I thought it could be too much he twisted it all back and then dropped what it had become, techno. It was fucking brutal how amazing it was. I couldn’t help but smile.

A friend of mine wanted to leave but as we agreed, we just had to see what would happen next. Luckily we did as he invited half the crowd on stage and sampled their voices, building another stunning tune before the nights end.

Shit, I’ve put a time limit on my post, I wont write for more than 20 minutes or so [I stole the idea from Tony], so I have to cut this short. Ill just say that you, whoever you are, should see Mr. Lidell next time he is in your city.

couch surfing

We've got a friend crashing at the house for a bit, one of the hot black chicks that visited a while back. She's assigned to the couch in our “reading room,” which means that every morning she’s going to catch a glimpse of my hunkering frame, naked save my boxer briefs, stumbling to the bathroom to drain the alcohol consumption from the night before. She has a very casual attitude, so I don’t think she’ll mind. Plus, I’m pretty fucking hot, if I don’t say so myself, so the only real problem will be her holding back the overwhelming desire to start furiously fisting herself the moment I’m in view. She will have to wait for that until I’m out the room. We only go elbow deep when the cameras are on around here.

I don’t know how long she’ll be staying. It seems pretty open ended. When I posed the question of what time frame we were looking at the only answer L-science could muster was –uh. I don’t know. ‘Till she finds a job or a boyfriend I guess. Fair enough, I thought. She is a whip smart gal and, like I said, a stunning beauty. So a job or a boyfriend will actually be the easy parts of the equation. But I don’t expect her to just move in with any old guy all willy nilly like a toothless truck stop whore you meet at a bar one night while in the middle of an 8 week amphetamine bender and wind up giving all your t shirts to just so she will get the hell out of your place 2 weeks later - oh sorry, I kind of went off on a tangent there. Back to the topic, like I was saying, I doubt she’ll just move in with the first guy she dates. So as far as her moving out when she gets a boyfriend, I say the chances are slim to nil.

And if she finds a job soon, which is very likely, she will still have to look, find, and save up the money to move into a place of her own. That’s no easy feat in New York City. Let me tell you, just finding a place that is relatively comfortable and at the same time affordable is a task unto itself. Sure, you found a nice Studio or 1 Bedroom but wait; it’s all the way in queens or, better yet, jersey. But hold on here is one listed in a nice area in Brooklyn but awww, too bad, its 8 billion dollars a month. Oh this guys looking for a roommate, he’s got a spacious room on the Upper West Side. What was that? Oh he wants to trade sex for rent. Well, I gotta see a picture of him first. Oh wait, here is a perfect one! Its big, it gets sunlight, the rent is affordable, what’s the catch? Oh I see, the neighborhood is kind of “rapey.” No, I’ll pass; I like my sex consensual, thanks.

So we are looking at a good 3 months, at least. Not that I mind. It’ll be good to have a friend here for L-vino, and she’ll chip in on rent so that’ll give me more money for cocaine and strippers. Plus, I can recycle all the jokes I've been making since the last time she visited. She’s also hot, did I mention that?

in other news. this is the third day in a row ive posted. im wondering if i should continue. the actual post leave much to be desired when i post every day as opposed to when i just feel "the urge." but maybe if i keep writing they will get better? we'll see. i dont really have more than 3 readers anyhow. and one of them is me. its not like that matters though, because i barely read anybody's blog anymore [save maybe ms. bees knees, snooze, and hermes]. so you get what you give, right? its just, i feel like i will be writing about the same fucking shit every entry if i continue this daily output. its like ive run out of words. im going to push forward and see if thats the case, or if i eventually will unlock something inside that makes writing daily less of a chore. i hope i get to see Jamie Lidell at southpaw tonight. if i do, maybe that will be the inspiration that fuels me for the rest of the week. if i dont, expect more of the same crap tomorrow.

Waiting

All the trees that line my block have tiny leaves sprouting from their branches. It makes them sway when the city gets breezy and I can hear them rustling from outside the window. Strangely enough, the street is silent. I guess traffic takes a breather when it gets past midnight. Every now and again a car brushes past, but those are few and far between. Other than that it’s just the red eye in the sky taking Harry, Dick and Sally on their dream vacation.

The television is all repeats of syndicated shows I didn’t care for while on the air. And commercials and reality tv. And commercials and talk shows. And commercials and that one cooking show you love. Lucky I have tivo, I can fast forward through most of the crap. I don’t though. Fuck it. It’s all the same anyway.

This was my day.

Nu Choons

I’ve been anxious lately. My nerves have been on edge. This waiting. This waiting. Its starting to get to me.

I was supposed to be interviewed by Urb magazine. They wanted to do a piece on the downfall of my old company and the rising of my new one. But the questions they sent were out of line. They were fishing for a dish, trying to get the gossip out of me. The fact that things fell apart wasn’t enough, they wanted details of the war. The juicy bits. I couldn’t be bothered to dig into that mess. I wasn’t the only casualty, there were many. So I sent him an email telling him a little about my new company, then politely added that some things should be kept internal. I wished him luck on his article and was done with it.

A label that was supposed to sign to us signed to another company. Ironically enough, the company that we are in talks with to become our domestic partner.

See, we are starting a label group. A label group is just what it sounds like, a group of labels under the same umbrella of distribution. Most big distributors wont sign a label that doesn’t ship a certain number of cd’s per release. So the smaller, more cutting edge labels don’t really have a way to get their cd’s properly released (i.e. in chain record stores and most major one stops). But if we bring a bunch of these smaller labels to the big distributors table, it makes it worth their while to sign them all collectively, through our label group. But if our labels keep signing to the bigger distributors, we aren’t going to have enough labels to make up a “group,” are we?

But we have a few tricks up our sleeves, and once this domestic deal is signed, I don’t think getting or having labels will be much of a problem. Still, this waiting, its making me anxious. My nerves are a wreck.

I got some records coming in the mail. Nu choons. The spice of life. I spend most of my days listening to records. Sometimes the same one over and over again. I copped that “Crazy” single by Gnarles Barkely. Put it on spin and the shits been riding ever since. I got that Ghostface LP too, just to catch up with the kids.

I plan on updating everyday. Im going to go ahead and say it now. but if any of you read me on a somewhat regular basis, you’ll know my word aint good.

5 Failed Attempts at Posting and the Mess That They Have Left.

For a while I wanted to be a fisherman. I read somewhere that the Alaskan fisherman only had to work for three months out of the year and were paid sixty thousand dollars for their troubles. Shit, that was rich people money to me. My mother never made more than 24k a year, and those were days of comfort. This was almost three times that, and only a fourth of the work. It surprised me that more people didn’t do it. I didn’t care about the all red flags; the ferocious storms, the all fish diet, the potential fate that waited on the seas. I just knew it was a full time job and that, from the criteria I gathered of the position, I was definitely qualified for it.

**********************

The idea to become a DJ came to me in one great rush on a warm Wednesday night in the summer of 1995. I was at the inaugural celebration of a party called Chemistry that ultimately would last the remainder of the season and then die, along with the rest of San Francisco’s rave scene, at a warehouse in the mission district some months later. I had been up for two nights on trailer trash crank and had not one hour earlier chased two hits of Felix the Cat acid tabs with my third tallboy of Budweiser. Don’t get the wrong impression though, this wasn’t a decision that only held up as long as the chemicals lasted, only to slowly fade away like so many other sensations do while high. This was a genuine moment of clarity. An authentic epiphany of the sort that makes you run up to each of your friends and grip their shoulders and shake them to attention and declare that you have seen the light and everything makes sense to you now. The clouds of doubt had parted; I was suddenly man with purpose. That is exactly what I finally felt that night: purpose. Right there in the middle of a dance floor, with acid and alcohol and adventure surging through me, with weed and more alcohol and exhaustion to be the nights demise, I realized what I was going to do with my life: I was going to be a DJ.

***********************

There is a post-it stuck on my wall and on it I have written: I think I find comfort in my past haunting me, but she has no past at all. I wrote it about 3 years ago but cant really remember so cant be sure. It’s in plain view, but no one has ever asked me what it means, and I’d be hard pressed to answer anyway. Not because I don’t know, but because if I could untangle that thought into anything longer than two sentences, I would have done so when I wrote it.

**********************

Someone posted an unsolicited compliment about my blog recently. A guy named Scotty Quest from Springfield, Illinois. He said he liked my writing. Thanks Scotty. Unfortunately, the word hasn’t been kind to me as of late. One week I’m filled with lyric and the next I’m a fog of nonsense. Sometimes I just can’t get anything out, not with words anyhow. So I’ve gotten back on the decks and I’m trying to find a space in music that can easily be slipped into. Maybe there is a rhythm that I can discover, a sound that can define these times, something to unlock the nature of my age and the innocence of all our trials. Either way, it hasn’t been happening with ye ol metaphorical paper and ink. But keep checking back. I’ll regal you with more tales of adventure yet.

***************************************

Bah. I need some weed

The Unemployed Mind: Day Forty Nine

Damn I'm bored. Whats on television? Commercials. Commercials. Commercials. I've gotta pay my cable bill. shit, that reminds me. i have to pay my cell phone bill too. thats another $150 i can hardly afford. fucking hell. oh well. i thought Seinfeld was on, what the fuck is this Married With Children crap? whatever happened to that show Herman's Head, or Parker Lewis Cant Lose? they were around during the Married With Children days, how come they didnt survive? who picks the shows that are syndicated anyway? how do you score that gig? i wonder how much it pays. Damn, i would totally bone Peg.
i need to buy some records. i should set aside $40 or so and go down to turntable lab tomorrow. can i even afford to do that? can i afford not to? i wonder whats come out in the last few weeks. i bet Jesse Rose has put together some monsters, that guy is killing it these days. or maybe his partner Dave Taylor has released some heat. hes dope. apparently the Dirty Bird boys are pressing up some must haves. and the Candenza crew is building up serious hysteria in certain circles. but do i even want jackin' dance tracks? maybe i should just cop that record by The Earlies instead.

whats going on in cyberspace? oh look at this, a ebonics translation book. It aint bout shit, now gimme some dap. that didnt even make sense. damn, i suck at being black.

i gotta reply to that email. i gotta call that fool back. i need that guys address. how can i get that guys address? i should check my email before i start writing one. nah. i dont want to right now. fuck it.

im going through a dumb swing. im slower than usual. i dont have anything to say, not like there is much to say anyway. just some unfinished sentences. a few jokes that dont make sense. im in a funk, i guess now is the time to be in one. whatever. i'll be feeling smart and witty and confident soon. still, you ever get the feeling there is nothing left inside you but the ashes of a person you used to be?

its blizzarding jibby jobs!

When I woke up this morning it was snowing outside. –It’s blizzarding, L-innocence squealed! She was giddy like a schoolgirl, dancing to the kitchen for cups of homemade joe and dancing back to the living room to attend to her laptop. Not that she is particularly fond of the snow, but the novelty of it always tickles her kind, Hawaiian roots. She was right too; it did have a blizzard like force to it. The flakes were large and heavy; the wind pushed them slanted with a virile gusto. In the end it didn’t matter though, because they didn’t stick, and the streets were a charcoal slush by the time I left for the subway.

I had a work seminar at the Department of Labor this afternoon. Got a letter in the mail about it a week or so ago. I would have skipped it, but they said they would cut my benefits if I did. Way to play the upper hand, assholes. So at half past noon I slid into their downtown office to get myself educated on how to find a jibby job.

First thing I clocked was how most everyone there looked almost twice my age. Geezers of all creeds and colors, some dressed in suits, as if they were going to an interview, some in jeans and a t-shirt, like me. Most were in the middle, sporting nice, creased slacks and a casual knit sweater. One dude was an Orthodox Jew [or is that Hassidic?], and he wore the standard uniform [black pants, shoes, and hat, white shirt, black vest]. He looked beyond elderly, slumping exhausted over his cane as he slowly shuffled around. I couldn’t imagine what he was doing there, surely he was too old to work, at least legally, and wouldn’t qualify for a job, let alone be given job placement. There was another gal of senior citizen status, I could be remembering this wrong, but I believe she carried behind her a respirator.

We were seated in what looked like a classroom, though it could have just been any old room, but filled with those chair/desk combinations that you find in most grade schools. One by one our names were called and one by one we trudged to the big [teachers] desk to collect our next assignment, which turned out to be to sit back down in our tiny school chair thingy’s and wait until our names were called again. We had filled out a questionnaire, and after a quick glance and a few grunts the headmaster [?] would just wave us back to our seats, anxious to find out what magical money making schemes the New York Dept. of Labor has in store for us.

Turns out it was a movie. A movie about how to search on the internet for jobs. And within that movie, another movie that told us how to learn how to search the internet so that we may in turn exercise its modern capabilities, utilizing it for finding ourselves a job. Also it told how to write a resume, or more accurately, how to find sites on the internet that would help us learn how to write a resume. We also learned how the internet can allow us to send cover letters and our resume to prospective employers, and how we can post said resume on job listing sites, and the work will just flood in. I got the feeling that the DOL hadn’t had much experience with the internet since 1998. Oh yeah, and we also learned that mayor Bloomberg is rooting for us and supports our quest for work. That Bloomberg, he’s a stand up guy.

Then we took a tour to the Resource room [room C for those in the know]. There was a bunch of computers in there and on the wall hung various job openings ranging from cashier at a low end shoe store [$8/hour] to options trader at an investment firm [$112k/year]. There were a bunch of security positions [averaging $24k/year] and a lot of construction jobs [averaging $45k/year]. I looked over all of them briefly, but hardly qualified for any.

We eventually got to leave, and when I stepped out onto the street the sun was shining high overhead. There was still a lot of dark, muddy puddles in the gutters, and the air was still crisp and restless, but I could feel the day begin again, and everything before just fell away, forgiven. Deeper into Brooklyn was my empty house, sandwich fixings, and the internet, here to save us all.

Lesbo Party!

Today I took it sort of easy. There was no rush or hurry to any of my actions, just a languid meandering with very little meaning or purpose. I watched some TV [Strangers with Candy], read some of my book [In Cold Blood], drank some coffee [Pete’s mocha drip at home], and smoked some cigarettes [Bally Shag Lights]. L-smiles left for work at around noon, I just gave her an air kiss from across the room and stretched out on the couch after.

And my utter unenthusiam to do anything else is well deserved [note: unenthusiam is here by a word. Write it down]. See, this weekend we had a party at our house, or at least the third floor of our house, which is the one we occupy. It was our first party, well, the first one we had actually planned, and it was all L-hosty’s design. She wanted to have a party, a pilates people party.

From what I understood there were to be a handful of lesbians [suffice to say my idea for party flyers exclaiming “COME SEE THE LESBIANS: lesbo’s so lesbo they make lesbo’s from lesboville look like cock hungry tween sluts!” was shot down. No body appreciates my art!], a few theater folks, and the rest simply tight abbed instructors from the city. I invited some of my friends over to enjoy the free booze and made an itunes party shuffle for my contribution, bought some chips and cheese to sweeten the deal.

The night went off pretty well if we do say so ourselves. At around 8 people started milling in, by 10 everyone was drunk. 11 came around and I was spinning hip hop in the living room and by 12 the gloves were off and my man Larry was putting the moves on whatever heterosexual females still stood. At about 3.30 it was just three of us and Larry and I decided we were going to hit an after hours party in Williamsburg. L-slurry decided to stay home, so we called a car and just Larry and me slid into the backseat when it arrived.

Turns out the Get Physical boys, DJ T, M.A.N.D.Y., and Booka Shade were Djing at a friends loft. When we got there it was 4am and no one had arrived yet. The lights were set to “party,” and after a few awkward and silent minutes, Stephen started to play some records. It was a big deal that these particular Berliners were coming to play, Get Physical is one of the hottest labels on the planet, and they are the anchors that make up its roster. The fact they were playing the Loft for free was an incredible stroke of luck that would put the space on the radar for all the underground promoters to see. It also raises the cache of the place, which in turn, raises the awareness of the resident DJ’s that run the spot, which is the purpose behind everything anyway.

By 5am people started filling in and mumblings and grumblings of amphetamine ambitions started picking at my ears. It is true that I had been awake longer than anyone should after drinking so much alcohol, but I was prepared for more exhaustion, so wasn’t too hard pressed for drugs. Larry, on the other hand, was on the verge of a meltdown lest he score some cocaine like, yesterday. Eventually he did, and I got a few bumps out of it, so everyone was sorted by 6am, when the place got crowded.

I saw another friend of mine. an industry hipster I actually quite like. He was on ecstasy and in a puddle with another guy and another girl, both of whom I didn’t recognize, but gave hugs to nonetheless. I stood on the podium and danced and didn’t feel like an idiot for a minute. The place was packed with hysteria for every record dropped. The windows were covered with a heavy curtain but still morning peaked in from its edges. Eventually I decided to leave, having been there and did that, I smoked the last of my cigarettes and hopped in the back of a car. Larry stayed, I think he smelled sex, the cocaine had made him too lurky to hang around anyhow.

When I got home I drank one more beer and lay on the couch for a while. It felt like someone was strumming my intestines and the music reverberated throughout every millisecond of my bones. I waited for the vibrations to steady into a hum. When they did I fell asleep and the sun from the creeping afternoon planted beads of sweat on my face and neck.