taking action

and there is the fact that i dont go out as much anymore. no dinner parties in carrol gardens or after hour office gatherings in Chelsea. no longer strolling along first avenue in the east village heading towards the lower east side and peeking in the windows of shops ive never entered and never will (staring at mannequins the shape of heroin addicts wearing torn wedding dresses or flimsy scarves or hats and jeans with no logos but shocking price tags) on the way to a record store to dig through the new releases on the wall. no dodging tourist in midtown and avoiding eye contact with the street vendors.

its not like i dont have the time but when you work in a bar and you dj in a bar you tend to find being social a slight burden; another task. you find that your jokes are stale and all your stories already told. you dont like to force your laughter and you dont like to feel polite. the idea that others want to be entertained by you manifest itself into an anxiety and the womb that is your office becomes the only place you feel safe.

there is also the notion that whenever you are out you are not doing what youre supposed to. you are not writing or reading or tying up all the ends you left loose. you are being social but not with the right people and this worries you because time has a way of leaving a sting when it passes, especially when it is not spent correctly. so your time must be spent with people who share your clock. time and the time you spend must always be incorporated into your focus and goals. other than that there is no time, there is no hours, there is just those moments you have wasted until the seconds become measured again.

so i woke up this morning and all this was in my head. the idea that i dont go out much anymore unless it involves work. the idea that my routine was becoming heavy and would soon crush me. the idea that i had trapped myself with fear and burden and that i was too busy for my own good. that i needed to liberate myself from these suffocating habits. i needed to get out again. i needed to see the world, the country, the city, the neighborhood. that i had erased the color from my canvas. that i was lost in absolutes [and absolutes, my friend, are the tiny prisons that trap a man's intellect]. i woke up and i had the feeling that somewhere along the line i had made a wrong turn. that i was at a dead end. that there was no inspiration in my future.

but i found a loophole. i will again mine my past. i will again dig into my history. im not sure what shape it will take, but if im going to lead a life where no new stories are made, then i should at least unearth the ones that already exist. bear with me while i experiment with this blog. sure, i will still write about the things that happen to me. and write about music and movies and the news and the strange things i hear about on the internet. but im going to focus more on the events that have molded me into who i am today. a guy that doesnt go out. a guy that only works. a guy that has reached a dead end and has decided to turn around.

headlines

the world has been turning even though i havent posted in a few days. while ive been busying myself with all manner of unnecessary distractions, sports teams have played games and lost, others have won. celebrities have gotten pregnant and frolicked topless in the Mediterranean sea. policemen have murdered innocents and been found not guilty. politicians have lied and received awards for it. here are some stories of note i heard in the last few days:

Prince played the Coachella festival. This itself is reason enough to gasp and hold your hand to your mouth. from everything i have heard, the Purple Ones performances are mind blowing, nothing less than a religious experience. i had a friend that saw him a few years ago at the Fillmore in San Francisco and he said that by the end of the show strangers were hugging each other with tears in their eyes. thats no exaggeration [well, not on my part at least]. the little man's shows are legendary. this i can conclude as fact. there was no doubt in my mind he would be the talk of Coachella this year, no up-and-coming hipster band or reunited grunge has-beens could top a show by one mr. roger nelson. and dont even get me started on the fact that he brought out Morris Day to do "Jungle Love" and Sheila E to do "Glamorous Life." but there was one more aspect of the show even i didnt expect. something that, on paper, sounds like it could be the greatest sonic experience -- i'll go ahead and say it -- EVER. Prince doing a Radiohead cover.

some austrian guy kept his daughter locked up in a dungeon for 24 years. during this time he raped and fathered seven of her kids [which he also kept locked up in the dungeon]. i dont understand this for many reasons. most notably, that the father was already married to his wife [the girls mother, no less] and she was oblivious to this torture the entire time. how do you go blind to a family of prisoners trapped somewhere in your home for 24 years? at some point there must have been a baby crying or something? speaking of, how did they deliver the babies? how did he bring them food without the wife knowing? and dont even get me started on the fact that he was having sex with his daughter. disturbingly enough, this little tidbit has taken a back seat to the rest of the story. this is a horror i cant even wrap my head around. i think i'll pass on visiting Austria. between this sicko, arnold schwarzenegger, and hitler, nothing much good comes out of it.

a record company paid for and produced a music video for a song titled, "Let Me Smell Your Dick." its not a joke either, from what i can tell. that young lady has the soul of a poet. she also has pretty unorthodox tactics when it comes to finding out if her man cheated on her with a stripper.

ive been addicted to Scrabulous. i love it. if anyone wants to get a game going with me, just hit me up.

there is plenty more to write, but i dont have the time. ill try again tonight. maybe. we'll see. probably not.

oh, its just a plane.

yesterday someone asked me what super hero power i would choose to have if granted. i had to think about this. what super power would i want? what special ability would i find is most beneficial in my every day life? what superpower provides a function i could actually use? the question, even though it seems cliche and typical, was sort of tough to answer. i found myself perplexed. lets go over a few of the standard powers and evaluate their practicality:

X-Ray vision - this is dumb. why would i need x-ray vision? looking beneath clothes to see someone in their underwear or naked would get boring rather quickly. I'm already bored with it and i havent even done it. plus, I've got the internet. i suppose you could see inside buildings and houses and apartments and such, but unless you're a peeping tom, what fun would that be? the only way you could make money from it is to look for the numbers on scratch off lottery tickets. which i suppose could lead you to some serious dough, but how pathetic is that? winning the lottery does not a hero make. X-ray vision fails.

Flying - i guess flying is pretty cool, if with the ability there came some sort of heating system. i mean, it gets cold up there. and who wants a superpower they cant use in the snow? so barring you get some sort of built in temperature conditioner with your flying capabilities, flying is kinda bunk. but lets say you do. ok, so you can fly. yay! I'm sure flying is "magical," and "amazing," and chasing a rainbow or joining a flock of gulls would be "an experience like no other," but honestly, is it going to wash the dishes? is it even going to be convenient? say I'm late for a meeting or need to be at a ball or some shit, will i really fly there? would i strap on my backpack and soar through the heavens to an office in midtown to save 15 minutes in commute time? wouldnt that wrinkle my clothes? wouldnt the condensation in the sky leave me damp? and forget about going to a ball. and ruin my suit? balderdash! i would be able to fly to other countries, but i imagine the flight, even though i break the divide between me and the sky, which in and of itself must feel magnificent, would get tedious. and again, it would be wet. i also wouldnt be able to take any luggage with me, which would be a bummer. no. forget it. flying sucks.

Super Speed - now super speed i think would come in handy. this wouldnt just be limited to running, of course. any movement i made would be lightening fast. imagine how quick i could clean the house! or run to the store to pick up beer. or masturbate. well, the masturbating part probably comes with risk. but still, super speed would be pretty sweet.

Indestructibility (to an extent) - so being indestructible would entail things like: not breaking bones, being bullet proof, healing of cuts and bruises, shit like that. it wouldnt mean you could beat old age, but ill go ahead and say that diseases couldnt affect you. this would be a pretty good ability, in that you would be pretty fearless towards any physical danger. (not like im ever in situation where being bulletproof would come in handy.) but of course, this doesnt mean you would be emotionally strong as well. its quite possible you'd still have to run to your mom when your heart got broken. chump. it would open up a lot of opportunities to be an actual hero though. more so than any other power Ive listed. still, i dont really have much interest in being a hero, so i only get so much satisfaction from this benefit. i guess I'd take it. and yes, if i saw you in some sort of distress id probably help out if i could. unless it involved borrowing money. then you're on your own.

Controlling the Weather - this is dumb. why would i want to control the weather? ok, make it sunny and warm. ok, now make it snow. ok, I'm bored. fail.

Being able to talk to fish - here tuna! jump into my mouth! ugh, bones! yuck! shit, do i have to de-bone and then cook you? this is too much work. fail.

jesus, i could go on and on listing stupid superpowers that i would never find usable. Walking through walls (unless I'm in jail this makes no sense), Reading minds (this would be useful, but haunting), Can produce fire with hands (when would i ever need this?), and plenty of others. what would be a good superpower?

when i was a kid i had a weird idea of what would be my super ability. and the strange thing was, it wasnt anything necessarily extraordinary about me personally, but i would be the only one that knew about it.

what i thought would be the coolest thing in the world to have was a super computer that could show me exactly what some person or some thing was looking at. i know, its strange. i didnt want the computer to tell me exactly where it was, but i wanted it to tell me what it would be seeing were i it. and wanted to figure it out from there. for example, if i lost my house keys (which i did a lot as a kid), i would punch the words "my house keys" into the computer and on the screen would be whatever my house keys were looking at (were they to have eyes). from there, i would have to determine what it was i was seeing and find where it was. of course, were this computer real, if my keys were shoved between the cushions of a couch, all i would see was dark black. but this was just one of the design flaws of my super computer, and i was willing to deal with it.

so i guess in the end i want an inherently flawed superpower that ultimately just challenges me. man, i need to work on my fantasies.

facing the consequences

im wanted by the law.

they sent me a letter. it was official, the kind that comes folded into itself, with perforations along the edges that you must tear off in order to open and read. there was no signature or greeting. there was no salutation either. there were just instructions in big red letters explaining that they were at the end of their rope and that i must report to the courthouse within a particular time frame. they said it was urgent. mandatory. that their would be consequences if i didnt comply.

see, i missed jury duty. a few times.

the thing is, they send a letter to report for jury duty a month before youre supposed to be there. the letter gets lost in the piles of other letters i ignore. then it gets recycled with all the junk, all the bills and catalogs and take out menus and solicitations, that sit on the dresser near the door. so i read the letter, i consider it for a second, then i throw it in a pile and forget it ever came.

then the date comes and goes and i dont even recognize it. this happened twice. or maybe three times, im not sure.

the letters, as far as i know, are at the bottom of a bag that is filled with other letters. and the bag is at the bottom of a bin filled with other bags that are filled with other letters. possibly, by now, these bags are now at the bottom of a pile, crushed beneath a thousand other bags filled with other letters, waiting to be sorted and processed and used again for more letters or more bags. this is somewhere far from park slope. possibly a landfill or dump site in long island. im not sure. im not an expert on these things.

the letter with the big red font does not say what the consequences will be were i to miss this date at the courthouse. it could be a fine. it could be jail time. it could be community service. picking up trash along the highway for 8 hours a day, every weekend for three to six months. wearing an orange jumpsuit. maneuvering a long rod with a sharp point at the tip along the busy expressway, stabbing at discarded fast food wrappers and ripped up cardboard ends and empty soda cans. same ol thing every weekend the entire summer.

so today i will go to the courthouse. there is no way out of it this time. cant recycle this letter. cant miss this show.

im not sure what will happen there. its not your usual jury duty date. they told me to be there in between the hours of 9am and 4pm. i have a feeling i will be sitting in a waiting room for a few hours, waiting for my scolding. there will be others there. law breakers that also ignored their jury duty letters. they will be annoyed, silent. pissed off they had to take a day from work.

ill bring some school work with me. my ipod. a book. ill try to keep myself busy, i have a lot of work to get done. it shouldnt be hard.

tee vee

i always feel silly writing about television. im not a television critic, and the aim of this blog isnt to ponder or analyze the wonderful world of boob tube programming, but i find myself, when unable to find anything else inside to write, falling back on television as the subject at hand.

funny thing is, i dont even watch that much television. i have a select amount of shows i tivo, some are must see's and some are just there to waste time or help me wind down at 3am. but i dont immediately turn on the tv when i get home. i dont rely on it as my sole source of entertainment. in many ways, i do feel it is a mostly a complete waste of time. an imagination suffocating poison designed for stealing away precious hours one could spend doing something productive. and also, almost to a fault, i fear that if i write about television too much ill come across as a lazy ass american.

which, of course, i am.

that being said, yesterday i watched a couple hours of television and was thoroughly happy with them. as usual i didnt really start watching until 2am, but i find watching tv at night helps me downshift my brain, otherwise im up for hours "thinking." sometimes thinking is for chumps.

before that i watched the newest Harry Potter movie [on dvd], while eating take out chinese food. it was pretty good. Harry was a little edgy in this one. not in a telling racist jokes and wearing eyeliner way, but in a dont say the wrong thing or he'll turn you into a frog using his freaky magic wand kind of way. there wasnt much exposition in the movie, i guess the filmmakers assume that if youre watching the fifth installment of the franchise, you already know whats going on and dont need to be caught up. and this was nice, i appreciate when fims arent dumbed down for my benefit, but i found myself many times throughout the movie wondering what the hell was going on and why no one was asking questions.

the thing about the Harry Potter movies is that they dont stick with me. i watch them and have a relatively pleasant experience. the special effects are decent and the world that is created is imaginative and fun, but not long after i see it, i forget what the hell happened. honestly, i probably could not tell you the plot to any one HP movie, and ive seen them all. some more than once. im sure the books are much more engaging, but the movies, for some reason, ring hollow for me. they are just frames for spectacle; there isnt really much there other than that.

anyway, the movie was pretty good i suppose. there wasnt any specific character or special effect that blew me away, but the pacing was competent and the sets were cool. you know what i realized though? i dont really understand the relationship between Harry, Hermoine, and the red headed kid. there were moments where they would sit there talking to each other, and the dialog would be light and casual, banter between friends, and then they would all giggle and look at each other slyly or some shit. i would be like, "what just happened? did i miss something?" half the time i would just ignore what they were saying and hope some freaky CG monster would bust through the wall and Harry would have to use some rare spell to defeat it. i mean, thats what you watch the movie for, right? at the end of the day, i dont give a fuck which british kid has a crush on another british kid, just get to the god damn sorcery already.

after that was over i watched tv, which is what i was getting too when i started this post. i hadnt really watched the tube in a few days, what with being busy and all the porno on the internets to peruse. it was getting late and i was in my wind down phase, so i went to my tivo list and saw what i had missed.

apparently, it wasnt much. but what was there was good enough to keep me from throwing my tivo box out the window. first up was How I Met Your Mother, in my opinion, the secret weapon of network sitcoms. i wont go into how clever the various time lapses are, or the witty set up and execution of jokes the writers come up with, but i will say that i laughed a lot and at the end of the episode was pleasantly shocked at the twist they introduced.

but the money shot was Battle Star Galactica. BSG might be the best show on tv since The Wire ended [not including LOST, which is like the holy grail of network programming]. The writing and tone of the show are clearly defined, and the fact is, they have made a sci-fi show the absolute best drama there is these days. the last episode was one of the most riveting episodes of television ive seen [outside of lost] this year. i swear, i never thought i would get into this show, and the only reason i watched it was because one of my best friends is a total geek for any and all things cyborg, and he convinced me that i wouldnt lose my hipster pass if i tuned in every week. i have to thank him for that, because shit, that show is AWESOME.

usually, if i were a real tv blog, i would go into what developments the characters went through, or what plot points were pushed forward, or some analytical shit like that. but this aint a tv blog. i just wanted to say i like BSG. that is all for now.

[note: blogger image is acting weird. sup with that shit?]

workin on a six pack

i went to the dentist today. i went to the dentist and i went to the bar. but first i went to the dentist.

the dentist told me my teeth were janky. she said i would need a lot of work. a few sessions. there are procedures that needed to be done. i nodded my head and tried not to smile. she showed me x-rays of my teeth and said, See, this is where the bone is dying. well, she didnt say it like that. all dramatic and morbid and shit. but she did say that if i didnt make some serious changes, my teeth just might erode away someday.

i was like, Thats harsh doc. she said, Hey, you wanted it straight. and i hung my head and nodded again. she was right. i didnt want any sugar coating. i specifically said so.

so i made an appointment for next tuesday and i put back on my hat and jacket and i said, I'll see you then! and i went right out the door. i left the fine folk of Garden City Dental or whatever it is they're called. i went on my way.

i went to the bar. my ipod was stranded there and i was stranded without it. (what can i do without my choons? where would my rhythm be at?) i sat down on a stool and ordered my ipod with a Blue Moon back. my man T came through and slipped me some painkillers below the table and i gestured to the bartender to back him up on me. we had a few beers and i threw a couple whiskeys in for good measure. some hours later i had to leave and it was easy.

at home shes in the shower and in the steam in the bathroom i can smell her. clean. she is saying Hi and her voice echoes off all the tiles on the wall. the water is roaring down on her skin and she's soaping her arms and her neck and breast. i can see her through the clear plastic curtain. she looks at me and smiles. she says, What are you going to eat for dinner? and it sounds as if shes saying it in an amphitheater. i say, Give me a wet kiss, and she runs her face under water then pulls the curtain back just a smidge and leans her head out and kisses me with parted lips. we stare at each other for a moment after and then i say, Pizza. I bought a few slices on the way home.

and i bought a six pack of beer too.

writing while my white wine chills.

ive been some what of a dilettante lately. it suits me. i wear it well. in many ways im always a dilettante; dabbling in everything but remaining green, never getting my hands too dirty. but these days im extra careful not to find myself to involved. ive just spread myself to thin. ive got too many deadlines. im always running late. it gets to be that any one thing becomes just too much. everything else is always more important.

but thats neither here nor there.

tv is back on. my tivo list is backing up. every episode a must see. 30 Rock, The Office, CSI (the original, not the nyc crap or the miami puke douche), The Simpsons, South Park, and Battlestar Galactica. all new! every week! and those are just the standards. there is also the B-team. the late night cheeseburger programming. that includes Top Chef, How I Met Your Mother, Family Guy, and other good reasons to stop thinking for a half hour or so. Plus, when LOST comes back, ill have to wear diapers because ill be shitting myself in anticipation of every episode. ew. thats gross. why'd i even say that?

moving on.

so what i was getting at, is that tv has entered into the equation and its started demanding hours of my time. hours i cant really spare, but have to squeeze out some how. its the only way i can remain sane. or will it drive me to insanity? jesus, i gotta stop posting stoned.

in any case.

i just watched the movie Across the Universe. Its the musical that came out last year which features all beatles songs. the movie itself wasnt bad. it was a decent framework i guess. but the songs are really what makes the movie. im pretty sure almost any movie would stand up if it prominently featured only Beatles music. i mean, they were pretty good, or so ive read on the internet. the filmmakers rearranged the songs a bit, but they were pretty well done. the Eddie Izzard number was just fucking stupid thoough, and ruined one of my favorite Beatles songs. fucking asshole.

wasting time

ive been wasting a lot of time lately. well, for a guy that holds eighteen jobs and is getting three PHd's, actually having any time to waste is a feat unto itself, but the little time i do have lately, has definitely gone to waste. see, i got a new video game.

let me say, i dont play many video games anymore. i used to when i was a kid, a lot. and there were short periods throughout my early adulthood where i obsessed over a new video game or platform, but they were, as i said, short, and usually involved a concurrent obsession with a new method of intoxication. these days i usually get excited for a game, play it once, and never touch it again. i had a PS2 that i gave away, and currently have a dusty X-box that never gets plugged in, and a Ninetendo Wii, which i got for christmas, played christmas day, and immediately got bored with.

until recently.

a few days ago, as i was getting ready for work, i told my girlfriend that i was thinking of trading in my once played copy of Madden '08, for the new Super Mario Galaxy game. She never played Madden, even though she is a football fan, and had fond memories of playing Nintendo's revolutionary Super Mario Bros. when she was a kid, so thought it was a great idea. And being the awesome gal she is, she remembered that she had promised to buy me Super Mario Galaxy for christmas and offered to pay whatever the difference was in the trade. a deal was made, and while i was on the way to work she went to the video game store and picked it up for me.

this was at 3pm. at 3.30 she text me: this game is fun!

and so it began.

she texted me throughout the night. updating me on her progress. every time she got a star. every time she opened a new galaxy. each planet she conquered. all the wacky apparatuses she had to jump over, slingshot from, or ride on. this went on and on until my shift was almost over, at midnight. she'd been playing the game for nine solid hours. finally she text me and says her hands are cramped up, that she needs to take a shower. she was putting down the joystick, but she didnt want to.

this amazed me. my girlfriend is, by no means whatsoever, the type of person to play video games. she teaches pilates. she jogs around the park. she goes for bike rides to the harbor and back. takes yoga class. reads exercise magazines. for fun she zips on her vespa to bars on the far west side for margaritas with friends. or puts in a few good hours of cadio at the gym. she does not play video games. ever. so when i got home at 3 that morning i decided to see what all the hub bub was about.

i was up playing until 6am.

this game is awesome. and we have been OBSESSING over it. every second of our free time is spent either playing the game or waiting for our turn to play the game. its all i can do just to break myself away from it only to type this. because this is considered free time. and free time, these days, gets wasted. if i could, i would marry this game and have freaky half video game half human babies with pixilated sexual organs and weird gloved hands with only 3 huge fingers on them. if this game smacked me i would know it was only because it loved me and that i probably deserved it. if i got AIDS from this game i'd be all, "its ok, i love you baby," and petting it and shit.

jesus christ i love this game. its a great time waster.

here is some bonus crap for you.

the best font ever
old school advertising

the trio

im slipping. i didnt write yesterday. not one single word. it wasnt that i had nothing to write about, its because i was simply too hungover.

on sunday night we had a band play at the bar. we've been booking a lot of music this year, with me coordinating the DJ nights and another guy handling all the live bands, and so far things have been going ok with it. the DJ nights are going good, and the bands have been fun and entertaining.

well, that is, they were until sunday night.

first, the band was 45 minutes late. this isnt the biggest issue and none of us were put off about it in the least, but in the overall summery of performance, it should be mentioned that they started off on the wrong foot, because it went downhill from there. now, sundays arent the busiest night for us, but they arent as dismal as mondays by any stretch. the reason we book bands on sunday is because its one of those nights that, with a potential boost, could be consistently successful for all involved. barring, of course, that the band we book doesnt suck balls.

it was a three piece band even though it was supposed to be a four piece, with two guitarist and a bassist. they were all middle aged guys, in their 40's or so, sporting salt and pepper goatee's and funny hats. i was told they would be playing jazz but what i heard could be called many things, jazz not being one of them.

they immediately launch into what i thought was some sort of ethereal trantric meditation song, complete with floaty , harp-like guitar strumming and the singer moaning and wailing in the microphone for what seemed to be 45 minutes [but what i was later told was simply a five minute vocal warm up]. at this point there was a decent amount of people on the stools and all patrons seemed willing to indulge the band in their strange journey through "space jazz fusion" or whatever. my barback was not one of these people. she just kept walking back and forth behind the bar, a look of utter confusion attached to her face, and saying "i dont feel comfortable. whats going on?"

then they launch into a series of songs that sound like the kind of music that would be played during dream sequences in bad, dialog free, european movies that were filmed in all sepia tones and are about old ladies that makes cookies for the neighborhood cats or some shit. at first i was willing to go along with it, ive been known to like strange, obscure music and this, if nothing else, could probably fall into the category of strange and obscure. but after a while it devolved from strange and obscure to tragic and comical.

then they took a break.

most bands take about a 20 minute break between sets. but most bands arent almost an hour late and then show up wearing weird hats and do vocal warm ups on the microphone for five endless minutes. this band took nothing less than a 45 minute break, ensuring that most every single customer could escape from the bar without seeming rude for leaving in the middle of a set. by the time they got back up to play there were five people still there, and of those five i think three were band members significant others.

now, to say their music was bad would be somewhat misleading. they seemed like ok musicians, and the singers voice wasnt off key or grating. and to say it was boring would also be an inaccurate description, because boring is unmemorable, and this was anything but forgettable. no, their music was just plain bizarre. and not in a "wow, ive never heard anything like this before," way that could even remotely be considered praise. no, this was bizarre in that, "oh my god did that old lady just throw raw hamburger meat at me" way. you remember it, for sure, but you dont want to.

what was most annoying about this band was that they truly thought they were doing us a favor by gracing the bar with their unforgettable songwriting talents. obviously, the singer, at some point in his life, was told that he was a "genius" and needed to "share his wonderful voice with the world." im assuming it was by his mother. he was absolutely in love with his god awful lyrics and painfully mediocre vocal stylings. i could tell this from the way he kept warbling notes for much longer than he needed [think: christina aguilera] and from the tone of voice he used when he leaned into the microphone, cleared his throat, and asked "can someone get me a glass of water," as if his delicate vocal chords needed maximum lubrication in order for him to complete the next 10 minute tuneless epic. of course, his middle aged groupies then promptly stormed the bar and demanded our biggest glass of water and to be quick about it as he wouldnt start again until he had wet his parched lips.

by the time they were half hour into their second set i was completely blown away by how miserable they had made the bar. usually i can just ignore music in the background and occupy myself with thoughts of porno or bacon, but not this time. every few minutes i had to stop what i was doing and say 'wow.' it was that bad. so bad i was impressed by how bad it was. after a while i think the owner just sort of told them to wrap it up [and in response to this they all whispered to each other and then had a good laugh into the microphone, rudely explaining to their legions of fans that it was a "private joke," they were engaged in] and they played one last, god awful song.

of course they didnt immediately leave afterward. no. they stayed at the bar for AN HOUR past closing, drinking wine with their groupies and giggling in their stupid ass hats. so i had to stay and drink myself silly after they left, just to reach a state in which i could reflect on the night and maybe - just possibly - think i had dreamt it all. clearly this logic just lead to me being hungover in the morning. and there you have it, my excuse for not writing: the pure awesomeness of the four piece trio's unchallenged suck not only ruined my night, but the next day as well.

oh well.

shit, i planned on writing more but i have to do some actual work. until manana.

random mumblings while drunk

im coming up with nothing this morning, so i went to my blank page to see if i could find any inspiration. i couldnt. i just found a bunch of drunken mutters. its interesting to see just what comes out when i type with no reason. anyway, im gonna clear the canvas and decided id post the bit o' shit i'd written because at least its a little honest. ill try to decode what it is as i meant or where i was coming from as we go along. here goes:

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

Oh blank page,
Blank page waiting.
Such a clear head,
nothing’s bothering you.

clearly i was trying to write and nothing was coming out. sometimes its not that i dont have anything to write, its just that i dont WANT to write what i have to say.

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

The steep climbs and descents

Looking out over the marina from the top of a hill in pacific heights and pointing at the houses and oohing and ahhing

Walking into a walgreens and always looking at the candy and thinking of buying some but never doing it, until one day when you splurge and you buy everything you’ve ever wanted and you eat it greedily and you’re sick after.

Making up the poetry as you go along. attaching meaning to every moment, even the ones that have none; those meaning the most of all.

Tangled in the arms of a stranger, a whore, your best friend.

Punctuating every sensation with a period. Learning to feel dead inside.

Trolling through the tenderloin with your eyes exploding from their sockets and beads of sweat on the back of your neck and your chest and balls. Looking everyone in the eye or almost every one at least. Asking with your brows and your chin and your determined hunch. Asking for whatever it is they have because you want it almost anything. Drugs sex disease a story a secret something.

all this was written over the course of a few days when i got back from san francisco. i think i was just trying to capture whatever sensation i had when thinking of the city. most are half memories, half impulses. i think i was just letting my mind drift to a different age and seeing what brief snatches of feeling i could gather. it reads like an instructional manual for being me at the age of 25. while writing all these i was actually writing full post as well. or at least attempts at full post.

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in any case, i will hopefully post again today because i missed yesterday. ive got to finish a paper and get together my records for a gig tomorrow, but i might be able to squeeze something in.

pajama party (aka: behold the naked clothes)

have i already titled a post 'pajama party?' it seems like something id do, seeing as how i entirely approve of one laying around in their pajamas all day. hey, if you've earned it, do that shit.

the weather is getting nicer in brooklyn. people have put away their big coats and are parading around in their thinner, more fashionable jackets. some wary citizens have scarves wrapped around their neck, but even those look to be of the more stylish rather than functional variety.
i, myself, havent really enjoyed the weather today, save maybe a few jaunts to my stoop for a cigarette. and its already late enough in the evening that im sipping on whiskey and rolling up my second spliff. i didnt get out much this fine wednesday afternoon. see, i still havent taken off my pajamas.

now when i say, "pajamas," i don't mean the clothes i sleep in, for i dont really sleep in any clothes. no- what im referring to are the clothes i wear around the house. the dirty sweats and t-shirts from high school. the slippers and mustard stained pullover. the clothes that, when guest suddenly come by, you change out of, embarrassed, as if you were naked. that is what they are: they are my naked clothes.

dont get it twisted, its not as if i didnt do anything today. just because i pranced around metaphorically naked doesn't mean nothing was accomplished. quite the opposite, really. i achieved a ton of shit today. why, let me go over a few things:

i wrote a character letter for a friend of mine in jail. hopefully it will help encourage the judge to be lenient on his sentence. it was a genuine letter, with no flowery language or fancy words [well, maybe a few fancy words], and without getting to maudlin or resorting to sentimental manipulations. i truly believe my friend has served his time and should be set free. he committed a crime, yes, but he is not a criminal. i printed out this letter, signed it, and faxed it to his lawyer. all while wearing my naked clothes.

i summarized a marketing plan and updated all my sales reps on the major publicity campaign that is launching for an album one of my labels is releasing in may. i included tour dates, press clippings, retail marketing opportunities, and my phone number in case their were any questions or concerns. while composing this presentation i let my bare feet play with the wires on the floor under my desk.

i fixed the monitor on my PC so that it plays sound. this does wonders for youtube, but the effect is hit or miss with porno clips. sometimes you really don't want to hear what they're saying. of course, i had to test this theory out a few times. naked. for science reasons.

i gave my friend a pep talk. it's amazing that they keep coming out of me. i really thought that after a while, i wouldnt have anything inspiring to say to this guy, but whenever he needs one, i come through. now i know what a high school football coach feels like. a high school football coach wearing his naked clothes, that is.

i downloaded some new music for a DJ gig i have this saturday. and i smoked a spliff. and i fed my cats and i cleaned up some poetry. now im contemplating whether or not i should go to a job interview for a small but really cool record label tomorrow. the dilemma is that im overqualified and i really dont have the time, but i like this label and think it would be fun working for them. i guess i already know the answer, but when in your naked clothes, you like to entertain rhetorical decisions like this. just because you can.

bonus shit for the day:

Akon gives t-pain a call.
Prince thinks you're cute.
The charts and graphs of rap.