indeed.

yes, The Dark Knight was awesome.

no reason to go on about it here, you can read about it on every other blog in the universe.

yes, this video is weird and disturbing and i couldnt stop watching.

i cant tell if its a joke or what, but there are loads of videos of this lil lady on youtube. im less curious about her than i am the camera man.

yes, the Dali exhibit at Moma is good.

but they didnt have the one painting i like with the elephants walking on long, creepy, stilt like legs. i remember the first time i saw that painting someone, i forget who, told me it made them uncomfortable to look at. it was then that i realized dali was working in uncharted realms of imagination. ive never been particularly moved by his painting, but i do appreciate him a lot. seeing his pieces as they were done, the oil on canvas way, is something to savor. i can hardly draw a straight line, so im in no position to criticize.

yes, August: Osage county is a brilliant play and the best thing to hit Broadway in years.

at least thats what i read in the NY Times after i saw it, and although im no expert, and dont really no what has been on Broadway the past few years, i will go ahead and agree because Osage County was the most moving theater production ive ever seen. of course, i havent seen many. it was the writing that got me. and the acting too. the only problem i have with it, is now i will hold up every play i see to that benchmark, and i know its gonna make all others pale in comparison. i suppose the tony award and Pulitzer prize separates it from most plays, but what you should really take note of is my recommendation to see it. i mean, how often to i recommend Broadway shows?

yes, getting caught in a summer rain storm is romantic.

even if you arent with someone you love, there grows inside you, with every warm drop of rain, something poetic, and that is very rare. i have stood in one and walked in one and every second of the moment had a lyrical quality to it. you let it soak you to the bone. you dont mind. you let a peace unfold inside.

yes, ive been trying to write every day.

but its been hit or miss. i took a week off because i had friends in town. so i gotta get back to it today. i decided to post this crap before hand. just to loosen up the keys.

more later.

drugstore cowboy

ive been not writing. i havent even been bullshitting on this bullshit blog. ive just simply not been writing. ive been somewhat stunted. unable to make phrase. unsure about the words i would use if i could make phrase. and uninspired with the feeble amount of words that i have come up with that i might have maybe been able to use if i could ever possibly make phrase.*

ive been doing almost everything but writing. well, everything on the small scale that i measure my life with. this includes a lot of drinking and thinking and being sorta charming. meeting people. ignoring people. sleeping on the couch. smoking cigarettes in the thick summer heat, enclosed in my office, not writing.

riding my bike and cutting through the still heaviness of traffic on Flatbush and turning down Pacific street to avoid the plague of Atlantic ave.. the street vendors selling bottles of water and oils and incense and weed and hot dogs and necklaces. gypsy cabs idling on every corner, sometimes in the middle of the street, talking on their cell phone headsets in another language, one i can never place but i know and im familiar with it.

ive been going out and letting the old shrew of temptation buy my drinks and pay for my taxi. wait, no that was too vague. what i mean is ive been going out buying my own drinks, and letting the old shrew of temptation give me a lapdance. i guess that was vague too. whatever, i wrote it so read it, chump. thats how this whole thing is done.

i met a couple that was here on holiday from dubai. my age. they were canadian but they came off like they were from california. he was wearing a tie-dye t-shirt and she was wearing a long flowy skirt thing with old acid wash looking jeans and cowboy boots. they both had long hair. he was a photographer and she designed clothes and after a shoot of the arabian hip hop scene for Mtv, the special clothes she had designed became somewhat of a style in the middle east. they are a mix of traditional middle eastern burka robes and western bling. they go for ten thousand dollars each and she was in a bar and a guy came up to her and asked her if she could make ten each for he and his twenty six brothers. his surname was bin laden and she said they have a loose verbal agreement.

i met them, the couple, in a room at the chelsea hotel. they had been staying there for a month and a half. it was a decent sized room with a bed and a refrigerator and a sink and a mirror and a piece of art on the wall. there was a balcony that over looked 23rd street and we smoked cigarettes and watched the city under the glow of a large neon sign that climbed up almost four stories of the building. it was a cocktail party. there was me and my girlfriend and our friend john (a money making flaming queen that does a lot of cocaine and calls everybody bitch. he's pretty cool. we like him), the couple from dubai and a few of their friends, and this guy dennis, who was living in the room next door to them.

dennis looked a very weathered 50-some odd years old. he had stringy black hair [though there were some strands of grey in there] that collapsed down to his shoulders. he had large, drunken jowls that shook a little when he got excited while talking. his voice was the low growl of a two pack a day smoker. his accent was from all over the place. when i walked in he was telling a story about this middle eastern girl he used to date that made him keep a sword (a gift from her father) under the bed. he said he was always afraid she was going to kill him during sex. but the danger sort of turned him on.

he was born in LA. he was a director. he was visiting from paris, where he now lives and does a lot of commercial tv, every now and again dumping all of his savings into a small independent flicks (he told me one of his biggest achievements was a short, 50 minute film he made about a guy that was afraid to show his feet to people) then heading back into the european television industry with his tail between his legs asking for another gig. from what i gathered he spent his childhood in LA, then moved to paris when he was in his early teens.

in paris, as he told me, he met this guy. a kid a little older than him. this kid used to drive around paris at night and break into all the pharmacies. he would steal the morphine and cocaine. then they would drive back to this hotel, it was a very hip hotel in the center of paris. equivalent to what the chelsea was in new york. anyway, so they would go to this hotel and the guy would give these drugs to miles davis and chet baker and all manner of legendary musical geniuses of the time. dennis admitted he had no idea who these guys were then, only that they were all black and very intense and smart, and that they did a shit load of drugs.

after paris at some point he moved to new york, because he said in the year 1978, he was staying at the chelsea hotel. at the chelsea during this time, he said, things were stranger. a lot of artist would stay there for free, and just pay back rent after they sold a painting or threw a big party or got published or made a record. i guess this was right around the time that sid vicious killed nancy. he said it was a dump filled with artists. man, it was way different then, he said, way different. he told us that on this particular visit, not three days into it old friends that had heard he was in town were knocking on his door asking to borrow money. some things never change i guess.

after i left the cocktail party i went to the bar but i really wanted to be home and not writing. i drank until 4am. i kissed a hot bartender. i came home and crashed. end of story.

*(the term, "make phrase," though, i just kinda came up with on the fly. its only so so. worked when i was typing it. [shrugs])

all the hoopla

people are freaking out over the dark knight. its already on pace to break the opening weekend record and its not even out until friday. publicist that have seen it say it lives up to the hype. and with the success of the first movie and the fact that one of its stars died after giving what is being called an oscar caliber performance, thats a lot of hype to live up to.

im suspect but im also aching to see it. actually, i have what you would call an epic cinematic boner for it.

there havent been that many movies that have lived up to the hype for me. most of them are good, but not life changing by the time i see them. the most notable cases of this are Borat, which was being called the funniest movie ever made when it came out (it was funny but i didnt shit my pants laughing. what a waste of adult diapers), Superbad (another one that was kinda funny but hardly as funny as the hype led me to believe), Iron Man (sure, it was good. but i didnt HAVE to see it), and, to stay on topic, Batman Begins.

Batman Begins was good, i will not deny that. I'm a big fan of Christopher Nolan and have grown to appreciate Christian Bale, but the movie was a little too ... i dont know, boring for me. when it was over i was pleased, but not impressed. if you are going to build up a movie as the greatest piece of pop art in years, it better blow me a fucking way. and Batman Begins didnt.

some movies have lived up to the hype in the past. i remember the frenzy over Pulp Fiction when it came out, and after i saw that movie in the theater i had to admit that everything said about it seemed justified. it was easily the freshest, most entertaining piece of cinema i'd seen in years, and most surprisingly, i couldnt wait to see it again. Another movie that lived up to the hype was Citizen Kane. by the time i saw that it was sitting atop the list of AFI's best movies of all time, and thats quite a title to live up to. but when i saw it i was admittedly mesmerized, not just by the perfection in which everything was executed, but that it was done in like, the 17th century or some shit. a few other notables that lived up to the hype include No Country for Old Men, The Usual Suspects, Boogie Nights, and Hedwig and the Angry Inch. all movies that were suggested to me with unbelievable hype attached to them and all movies that completely lived up to it.

but thats rare, and as i get older and more jaded, its becoming increasingly rarer. this dark knight hoopla is spinning out of control, but you know what? its working. im frothing at the mouth to see this movie. ive already decided im going to pre-purchase imax tickets for early next week. big ass movie on a big ass screen. USA! USA! USA!

it better be good

asking for it

im all busted up. my skin is torn and my bones are aching. my pockets are skint. my turntable's broken. my ipod came up missing today. my big toe on my right foot has a fat blister on it. my nose is all stuffy. and there aint shit i can do about any of it. damn it feels good to be a gangsta.

before the night in question exploded in a spectacular unraveling of logic and common sense, it was an innocent time, full of wonder and merriment. we were at a bar and our glasses were full and there were pills that took the edge off circulating in my belly. i was already in rare form, convinced that every pore in my body bled thundering charm. we took a break into the busy street for cigarettes. my man FM had is fixed gear bike with him.* i decided i needed to ride.

if you know what a fixed gear bicycle is, then i bet you would be hard pressed to tell me why it is. the fixed gear bicycle has one gear, and its fixed. and im assuming by "fixed," they mean, "broken," because its not a gear at all. there should not be the word "Gear," in the title of what bike, because there isnt one. its just a pedal and a crank and a chain. thats it. there arent even any breaks. the only thing you can do on a fixed gear bike is pedal. you can not coast. you can not break. you can pedal. thats it. thats, "fixed."

and if you dont know what a fixed gear bicycle is, and you are 7 pints and four pills into a cozy clonazepam slur of an evening, you beg your friend to let you ride his. if for nothing less than you are on a busy city street and you just HAVE to be involved with the traffic. its more dangerous that way.

include me into the latter category.

my friend FM, bless his sinful little heart, pleaded with me not to ride his bike. he specifically said to me, "you will hurt yourself,"and with genuine concerne, not just being protective. he said it in the sort of voice that says, "i've been hurt doing this, dont be like me." the kind of voice that might be the last one you hear. but did i listen?

one thing about riding a fixed gear bike as opposed to another, completely sane and logically designed bike, is that from the looks of it, and even its description on paper, it sounds easy to ride. i mean, if you try to tell me how to ride a regular, say, ten speed bike, id be confused. switching gears? both front and back ones? two different sets of breaks? what the fuck? but fixed gear bikes, hey, they seem pretty simple.

you just keep pedalling, right? no big deal.

yeah well. after years of riding decent and normal bicycles, i had gotten a little too comfortable with coasting. i guess im pretty lazy too, and the pedalling had gotten to be a bit much. either way, i stopped my feet and the bike stopped under my body and the only thing that didnt stop was me. bam crash. chin, knees, and a huge chunk of forearm, all scraping against the pavement. it was such a bad spill that cars were stopping and asking if i was ok. another cyclist pulled to the side and helped me up. id only ridden maybe fifty feet.

success.

i limped the bike back to the bar. my forearm was shredded, blood was spilling onto the ground from under my arm cuff. my chin had a huge spot of blood the rubbed from the bottom of my lip. i was dizzy with glee though, and high as hell. i hardly even noticed at the time.

i do now though. ouch.

add that to the fact that im completely and utterly penniless, and that i dont have an ATM nor credit card (double ouch) and that my ipod, which has become something of a muse to me, is suddenly missing (ouch ouch ouch!) and now one of my turntables is broken?

jesus christ, just fuckin buy me a lottery ticket already.

*i have no idea why he had his bike with him at the bar, but he did. and he took it out with us for a cigarette.

it got out of hand

we make mistakes. thats what we do. we make mistakes and we learn from them and we live with them or at least this is how we cope. ive made mistakes in the past, sure. my history is filled with with errors and regrets. but there is no reason to look back upon them now in some stupid poetic reflection. and i wouldnt have the guts to even if i wanted.

but when youre having a meltdown on the corner of 7th street and Market in downtown san francisco and the warm afternoon light has trapped you in the real world and youre sweaty and anxious and horny and penniless and not feeling one single ounce of mercy upon you, you know the mistake youve made will leave a scar, a wound.

this was a big mistake.

a mistake so big that if i spoke of it now the history of it would be dented and uneven. every sentence would be pored over and edited and then erased and considered and then justified and trashed out of shame.

a mistake that takes place at a bar and then a house and then after the easy conversation with friends we took the mistake to the SUV and then looked for mistakes on the street. when the streets got to safe from behind the dark blue metal of the jeep decided to get out and look for mistakes on foot.

i wanted to get my hands dirty.

i found a few mistakes but none that couldnt be condoned. eventually, after finding myself in a series of exciting, yuet unsatifactory mistakes culminating with a mistake i had made in the gay guys hotel room with the thick latina hooker that kept passing me the crack pipe. i decided to look for mistakes elsewhere. i wanted edgier mistakes. more dangerous mistakes. unforgivable mistakes.

and i found it.

a mistake that will stain and color my legend. a mistake that we will get by and maybe over but a mistake we will never forget.

and i still havent figured out if it was worth it. there is a good chance it very well may have been.

but i cant even speak of it now. i can hardly type this sentence.

im just glad im home.

american dreaming

Holy shit lets see how this works out.
Will, my brother, the white one, is in the family room watching Lonesome Dove. I've never seen the movie and don’t really care to ever see it, but chances are I will eventually. Just not this time.

See, Will is tight.

I'm not mad at will. But will is mad. And he likes Lonesome Dove and he is watching it and there really isn’t any reason for me to argue about it.

So I'm in here writing this. In another room.

I'm pretty drunk. I'm also stoned. I also took a bunch of colonozopan or colonipins or oxycottens or whatever earlier. Will bought em up with us. some meds he copped from a laid up friend of ours. Whatever.

It makes it easy to just lay down this story with out editing. But I'm still editing a bit. That’s just how I do.

Anyhoo, Gary, the step dad, is like a smoldering stick of dynamite. There is always something, ONE THING, that we do here while visiting that just makes him fly off the handle. For a while it was leaving the garage refrigerator slightly open all night after we had grabbed our last can of Budweiser. Admittedly, we were guilty of the crime a few times, but eventually we broke the habit, so that’s no longer n issue. But then it was leaving the beer cans uncrushed, half empty, on a pile on the garage bench. We would try not to do this, but every now and again we would be too close to unconsciousness to consider crushing all those canes, * and leave them for the morning sun to wash away. Still, we try.

But this time it was about something new. The TV. The brand new 42” wall mounted hi-definition flat screen TV with every available digital satellite channel beaming straight into their box.

The thing about the TV is it has a lot of different settings. And Gary likes his settings to stay the same. Will, having the exact same system at his house feels that he can change the settings to fit the best picture, HIS definition of the best picture.

Of course, this didn’t go over well. And Gary wasn’t happy.

He watched as we adjusted the screen. He seethed when we tried adjusting it back, but only succeeded in adjusting it more. larger, thinner, tinted differently.

First there were some grumblings. A few curses said under the breath. A glass of scotch downed too quickly. Then there was a trip to the kitchen and there were pots banging.

Will turned the tv off then on, hoping maybe that will correct things.

The whole time I'm screaming at him to change the picture from zoom to hi zoom, and then stretch, to see the difference.

Gary poured himself another scotch and slammed the cabinet door. He had had enough. He scolded us about the settings to the television picture. He went into how the satellite picks up if it is in HD our not, and if we change the settings, it won’t. We nodded and said uh huh. We said cool. Don’t worry. We won’t change nuthin. We figured that would be it. Those comments would suffice. Well, at least I did.

Will didn’t.

He said, “That’s not the end of it man. Trust me.” and he threw down the remote in disgust.

The picture screen was in full zoom and stretch. You could hardly see the earlobes of any face in close up.

And Gary slammed out the garage door and before he shut it he said, “I'm sorry if I'm being petty but that’s how I feel.” Then he shut the door.

And will said, “You wait.”

And Gary opened back up the door and said, “apparently I'm wrong for saying those things and I apologize.” And I heard my mother grumble behind him, and he said, “and if you want to sleep on the brand new, forty five hundred dollar couch than that’s fine by me. Its ok,” and he shut the door.

And will said, “see?”

And I thought of how happy I was to be part of a family.

*They have a wall mount can crusher; it makes it a little easier but still exerts energy