Here's my bottom line for all my financial troubles this year. People hire me to make money for them because it's something I can usually do. Then I make them lots of it because it's a simple thing. Everyone smiles when I fill their bank accounts. But then it's like the stock market and everyone bails on me because it rains and they want to protect the money they wouldn't've had in the first place.
Earlier today I got a call from a friend who reminded me that last night when we were wasted I told him that I would submit his offer to one of the bands I'm working with.
I presented it to the label and everyone was happy with me until the deal fell though. Then for no reason everyone was angry with Brendan because a deal they never had in the first place didn't work out. And yet everyone would be happy with me if I just said no last night and never told them. We'd all still have the night off, in fact.
I am writing to ask that you let the goddam public see this image. It is of my Grandmother, known in her day as "Mrs. Jordan." She went by that name because somehow she got it in her head that her success on the stage would be hindered by her Irish surname. She taught you idiots how to use your ridiculously inane language. She was so great that they began using her in male roles.
Curiously enough she wouldn't have an Irish surname if her lover and the father of her 10 children had simply married her. He is related to you because he was the Duke of Clarence and later King William IV. As you can probably see from this invasive look at my desktop, my financial state is less than stellar. I am not looking for a handout or even to get the painting back.
In fact, I sincerely hope that I am not related to your ridiculous family in any way. I'm repressed enough as it is. Furthermore, you're more inbred than dalmations. Keep the painting, just give me the goddam image in high resolution so I can use it for an album cover.
About ten years ago I was on tour with some band and I ended up in Chuck D's hotel room. It was weird because we'd met before and now I had to reintroduce myself.
He had a two-way pager in his bag and the state-of-the-art mac laptop in his bag. It wasn't really that long ago. But yet an iPhone clearly replaced his assistant's job.
Things I would do If I just had a little more time on my hands:
Come up with a "sexy" graphic to replace the faceless image in GMail. Infact, if anyone out there knows how to make this seemingly androgynous image a little awkward, please let me know. I'd really love it if my aunties and business clients moused over my emails (while ignoring them) and were confronted with a blue ghost sporting side-cleavage. Especially since this slut is obviously nude.
1) About halfway through a date on Saturday night the girl said she wanted to read something to me. This was a shock, of course, because most girls I meet don't own book cases.
1. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse A persona che mai tornasse al mondo, Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero, Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.
LET us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherised upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question … Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo...
It's a fantastic poem that you never get to read in public school. I had confessed earlier that day to this girl that I had never read To The Lighthouse. By some miracle in college I placed out of freshmen English class and instead I sat in Modernism 238 with Theo, Sophomores, and Juniors--utterly terrified that I would mispronounce something in my funny accent with all the private school kids in the room. I can't remember a single word or page and when I picked up her copy yesterday I thought, "This takes place in Scotland??"
"Is that in Italian?" she asked before she read it to me.
"Close enough. It's in Dante. A man he meets in hell agrees to tell him his story only because he knows that no one in hell has ever escaped. It means his secret will never lead to infamy. A sealed confession."
"If I thought my answer were given to anyone who would ever return to the world, this flame would stand still without moving any further. But since never from this abyss has anyone ever returned alive, if what I hear is true, without fear of infamy I answer you."
Her reading was so wonderful and enjoyable. And--since no one was looking--I got up to read her some Yeats
Since reading poetry--contrary to what I though in 12th grade--has never gotten anyone laid I figured that I had nothing to lose by reading her a part of my second novel. It's the one I wrote about returning to Hartford.
I absolutely never should have done this.
In fact, it would be in my best interest to leave Brooklyn all together. It's not her fault at all, but I am incapable of reading my shit aloud because for some reason when you finish it people feel the need to fill the wake of silence you leave by complimenting you. And for some fucking reason everyone I know seems to think that the best way to compliment you is to tell you how what you've done is so good that it could be better. I fucking hate that.
"Why don't you write this as a screenplay?" I think she was expecting me to smile and thank her for telling me how this novel I had written would make a wonderful outline for set designers and how the dialogue would make wonderful lines for Rosario Dawson to butcher.
When I read Mercutio to St. F. last month she smiled with glee and said something very similar, "Why don't you make this prologue a one-act play and read it before underground theater productions?"
These are probably the two sweetest people I know and if I had a razor blade under my tongue I would have sliced each of them once in the face to remind them never to say shit like that to me again. Just for the sake of parity I would cut one on the left cheek and the other on the right so that when they meet up one day they will feel like mirror images. "You...uh...you didn't try to give Brendan some constructive criticism once, did you?"
"You should! It would be great!"
I took a deep breath and decided not to freak out like I usually do. I decided to take it as a translating exercise (exorcise?). "Should" comes from the King James "shalt" which is a perversion of the second person "shall" which is verb form older than Beowulf. People often say "should" when they mean something closer to "could" than "shalt."
"Would" should be another second person of this strange language, but it often isn't. In this case it is likely a subjunctive, meaning basically that the word "if" is implied. So if I were translating her dialect for Dante I would rewrite that sentence as, "I think that if in the future you rewrote this as a screenplay it shall have been fantastic and may continue to be."
"Thank you! How thoughtful of you to read my future! You can adapt it as a screenplay if you'd like to."
2) A moment ago I was standing in my livingroom in my underwear pouring over the O.E.D. to double check my translation when a 6'3" Jamaican woman peered in my window. "Hi Branden!"
It was Stacey, my homeless girl. I think I've mentioned this before but she got picked up for selling drugs and spent the last year in Prison. She's in a transitional program now where she lives in the Women's Prison on 20th & 10th and during the day they turn her loose into the city to find a job.
Earlier this week I gave her $50 to get her prescriptions, a metro card, and some yarn so she could start knitting scarves for a project she and I are going to do together. Right now we're like the band that can't settle on a name. We're either going to call it "Idle Hands", "Li'l Devil's Playthings", or "Camel Eye Needlework." I also just like the idea of calling it "Needleshank."
The next day she came to me and said she "forgot" to buy knitting needles and that she needed $25 to get the last pair of knitting needles in the city--I can only assume that New York City is undergoing a chop-stick shortage as part of the fallout of this crisis.
She came by today and brought me a hat that she made for me. I love it. I love it so much and I love her for turning her life around. I love her so much that I don't have the heart to tell her that this ugly-ass hat still has the "Made in China" sticker on the inside.
Before she left she asked for two-dollars to get some loosies at the corner store.
Before Ben and I moved to New York we stayed with a friend of ours who was dating a funny man who made famous people say funny things for a career. This was right after the Paris Hilton sex tape came out and he got to make Jimmy Fallon ask Paris Hilton if the Paris Hilton could hold his balls.
I honestly don't remember meeting him or what he looks like. But I do remember that he hadn't called in a while when she brought us to McManus for the first time and we ran into him. He was with another girl.
The biggest reason I remember this night is because after a long pause where Ben and I didn't know what to say he turned to me and said, "You ever get a new computer and you have to get some files off your old computer so you boot them both up at the same time and you have to stand there waiting for your old computer to get going. Goddamit the new computer is ready to go and this old bag of wires is barely done with its unnecessary disc defrag."
Last night I went to go see one of the bands I used to book back when I actually still ran parties and worked for a living. It had been a while since I had seen some of these people. One of my favorite things in the world is seeing old friends. Then Nikki walked in.
To say I didn't recognize her would be a linguisitic injustice. She said hello and I didn't even recognize her voice. When I stood up to say hello I had already forgotten how tall she was. It was real awkward, of course for a half dozen reason. First of all her new boyfriend was there too and he's a guy I know.
In general--and maybe this comes from being an English major--I hate when everyone is saying something and no one is talking. I've read too much Freud to not end every hand shake with, "Hm...I wonder what he meant by 'Hello.'"
The only thing I had on my mind was my gigantic debt and my where-the-sidewalk-ends-esque future. Which meant saying, "Hey, if I had known you and Nikki were dating and serious about eachother I never would have flown to Minneapolis. I feel like kind of an ass, too, because the ticket and the cabs and the food and everything amounted to more than the cost of putting out my new record. I had to sell my couch just to buy Protools."
"What?"
"I said, 'Where you working now?'"
Part of my dementia is that I don't think of myself as good enough for anything. It's probably the biggest problem I'll always have. It means I can never enjoy anything because whenever I tell someone I'm happy they treat me like I'm bragging and really I just want to have a conversation about how nothing's perfect.
What was really strange, though was how little I felt for her. The person I was completely insane over is gone and someone else lives in her body. I guess I'm probably someone else too now. It would be like going back to my old loft in Williamsburg and expecting to sleep there.
There was lots of staring. When I stood in the front row I had eyes looking at me. If I stood behind her I couldn't stop looking over everytime she and new boyfriend had something to share. Pretty much after that no one would look me in the eye or talk to me for more than a second, which was weird because the last time I had seen these people we were pulling up the gate from some bar or another in broad daylight. And alot has happened since then.
My doorbell rang early today. I had been up somewhat mysteriously since 7:30 anyway, arguing with my creditors and unsuccessfully begging them to let me keep my belongings. Ever since that day when the electric company came at 8AM (while I may or may not have been on ecstasy) I've been a little wary of visitors.
When someone rings my doorbell I usually slam my hand on the intercom, put on a wifebeater, grab the Louisville slugger that I keep in the back of my mind and shout, "WHO is it??" in my thickest Brooklyn accent. The first problem is that a) this isn't polite and b) my doorbell doesn't actually work that well so sometimes my insanity tells me that it has rung when it hasn't. This means that some afternoons I'm awakened from my work, shivering in my underpants and crouched, wide-eyed in fear, listening to nothing but the people passing on the streets.
"Brandon!" It was my homeless girl. It turns out she is not quite out of prison but she is in a program where she is in lock up at night and she goes job hunting during the day. Today she got a job at Quiznos near Beauty Bar. The first thing I notice is that after years of knowing this woman she finally smells clean. Too clean. Truck stop bathroom clean.
We took a walk and it was like walking around with the Mayor. All the junkies on my street smile as they pass. The crackheads wave. The traffic cops all stop her to give her big hugs for making it out. The MTA officials tip their ridiculous hats. My neighborhood is a wasteland of blighted buildings, empty train tunnels and construction sites.
Homeless heaven. I was so proud of her.
Then she stopped and said she had to get two cigarettes. I thought she meant from the store but apparently she meant from the homeless guy who stands in front of the bodega. She handed over the money I had given her before and he handed her two menthol cigarettes with the ends folded down.
1) Right now I'm in this weird age where my friends and I are all older than our parents were when they had us. It's only noticeable when doing some kind of project where everyone treats each other like their parent's treated them.
It goes something like this, "You want help refinishing the banister? Great! My dad taught me how to show someone how to do that. First you become very stern, next you complain about small amounts of filth on your precious tools. After ten minutes you screw something up and become upset with the other person for no reason. Then you glue it and hold it together with one nail."
"And we don't talk again until monday?"
"Right. You know how it goes."
2) Now that myspace is trying to be like facebook--i.e. exactly like friendster became when myspace got big--I am subjected constantly to a series of Stepfordian emoticons from ex girlfriends. One is from the fan-dancer and it says, ":( S---- Desire wishes someone would cheer her up."
And it just makes me want to duct-tape a reply, "You know what would probably cheer you up? GIVING ME MY FUCKING RECORDS BACK!"
3) With my laptop in the snack-shop I've been given a little vacation from dealing with the record label or comforting Mercutio as he falls in love. I'm also out of work until April. It should be heaven, but it's more like purgatory. For the week, anyway, I'm catching up with my new best friend, Anthony Burgess as he learns that he only has one year to live:
I got on with the task of turning myself into a brief professional writer. The term professional is not meant to imply a high standard of commitment and attainment: it meant then, as it still does, the pursuit of a trade or calling to the end of paying the rent and buying liquor. I leave the myth of inspiration and agonised creative inaction to the amateurs. The practice of a profession entails discipline, which for me meant the production of two thousand words of fair copy every day, weekend included. I discovered that, if I started early enough, I could complete the day's stint before the pubs opened. Or, if I could not, there was an elated period of the night after closing time, with neighbors banging on the walls to protest at the industrious clacking. Two thousand words a day means a yearly total of 730,000. Step up the rate and, without undue effort, you can reach a million. This ought to mean ten novels of 100,000 words each. This quantitative approach to writing is not, naturally, to be approved. And because of hangovers, marital quarrels, creative deadness induced by the weather, shopping trips, summonses to meet state officials, and sheer torpid gloom, I was not able to achieve more than five and a half novels of very moderate size in that whole pseudo-terminal year. Still, it was very nearly E.M. Forster's whole long life's output.
It's easy to pretend that you would have finished a novel if it weren't for the emails in your inbox or your job. But sometimes I just like to imagine Tony Burgess with his false-diagnosis of brain cancer, clacking away and still bothering with his daily life. I also like to imagine Nabokov, boozing away after a full day in the field, spending his nights writing about little girls while his wife nails butterflies to posterboard.
4) Conrad is in paradise.
thailand update. just got back from Lanti Yai, in the Ko Lanta island chain. Plans changed on the way, as they usually do. After five days of living in a bamboo bungalow, lounging on a variety of sandy beaches breaching the warm Indian Ocean, drinking and eating on the likes of tall Chang beers, fresh daiquiris, som sam whiskey (half rum, half whiskey...), fresh baracudu, squid and prawn, oceanside, we headed further out to the small islang of Ko Jum. Consisting of about 2, 000 locals who subsist mainly off fishing, cashew gathering, and rubber collecting (from trees),. Before our quaint huts (costing 400B a night, about 12 USD) sat a nearly deserted beach. Monkeys proved a worthwhile alarm clock, as the bungalows sat directly in the path of their food and lounging trees. Bouncing from roof to tree you could only curse, then smile at their great wit and general middle finger towards the whole establishment. Koh Jum has no government electricity (in order to keep a government they percieve as corrupt, viscious sellouts to their way of life) and runs mostly on generators, lanterns, candles, and motorbike lights. Lights are usually out by 9pm, 11 at the latest if the owner stays up later into the night with his or her guests, as Phil our scottish ex-pat frequently did. Along with no electricity, the roads are unpaved, and fun as hell to rip through on a motorbike/moped.
5) Pete's company is doing a reprint of the James Bond series with neo-retro covers. I think its exciting when any book whatsoever gets published but this one in particular is exciting. I bought my first Ian Fleming novel at a bar in New London for 50 cents in 1998. It was called The Spy Who Loved Me it is the only Bond novel told from the woman's perspective. When I brought it home my father recognized it as the same edition of the Bond books that his father kept hidden in his closet with the rest of his Catholic guilt.
The new cover model is my friend! I can't wait for her to sign the copies that my dirtbag uncles are going to get for their birthdays! She waitresses every night up the street.
6) Jay's band is on tour for the rest of his life. Go see him (he's the drummer) and tell him I said hi!
Feb 14 2008 11:00P BEACHLAND BAR Cleveland, Ohio Feb 15 2008 9:00P MAGIC STICK Detroit, Michigan Feb 16 2008 11:30P LOCALS ONLY w/Johnnytwentythree/Beta Male Indianapolis, Indiana Feb 17 2008 8:00P SCHUBAS TAVERN w/Holy Fuck/Airiel Chicago, Illinois Feb 18 2008 8:00P TRIPLE ROCK CLUB Minneapolis, Minnesota Feb 19 2008 8:00P THE AQUARIUM w/ Holy Fuck Fargo, North Dakota Feb 20 2008 8:00P PARKWAY THEATRE w/Holy Fuck Winnepeg, Manitoba Feb 21 2008 9:00P THE EXCHANGE w/Holy Fuck Regina, Saskatchewan Feb 22 2008 10:00P THE STARLITE ROOM w/Holy Fuck Edmonton, Alberta Feb 23 2008 10:00P THE HI FI CLUB w/Holy Fuck Calgary, Alberta Feb 25 2008 9:00P RICHARDS ON RICHARDS w/Holy Fuck Vancouver, British Columbia Feb 26 2008 8:00P CHOP SUEY w/ Holy Fuck Seattle, Washington Feb 27 2008 9:00P DOUG FIR LOUNGE Portland, Oregon Feb 29 2008 10:30P BOTTOM OF THE HILL w/Holy Fuck San Francisco, California Mar 1 2008 10:00P SPACELAND Los Angeles, California Mar 3 2008 10:00P CASBAH San Diego, California Mar 4 2008 10:00P PLUSH Tuscon, Arizona Mar 6 2008 11:00P URBAN LOUNGE w/Holy Fuck Salt Lake City, Utah Mar 7 2008 10:30P LARIMER LOUNGE w/Holy Fuck Denver, Colorado Mar 8 2008 10:00P THE RECORD BAR w/Holy Fuck Kansas City, Missouri Mar 9 2008 9:30P WAITING ROOM w/Holy Fuck/Flowers Forever Omaha, Nebraska Mar 10 2008 8:00P THE BLUEBIRD w/Holy Fuck St. Louis, Missouri Mar 11 2008 8:00P THE CONSERVATORY w/Holy Fuck Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Mar 16 2008 10:00P ONE EYED JACKS New Orleans, Louisiana Mar 17 2008 10:00P DRUNKIN UNICORN w/Holy Fuck Atlanta, Georgia Mar 18 2008 10:00P LOCAL 506 Chapel Hill, North Carolina Mar 19 2008 8:00P ROCK N ROLL HOTEL w/Sons and Daughters Washington DC, Washington DC Mar 20 2008 10:00P JOHNNY BRENDAS Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Mar 21 2008 10:00P MIDDLE EAST w/Holy Fuck Cambridge, Massachusetts Mar 22 2008 9:00P MUSIC HALL OF WILLIAMSBURG w/ Holy Fuck Brooklyn, New York
7) Stef and Theo are performing together. Feb. 23, 2008 at 10 PM at The Annex. This will be the night where my spirit goddess and my intellectual chocolate perform together. I might die. But the two will become fused in my mind to become something like Captain Planet.
8) REMIX
A Place to Bury Strangers - The Ocean (The Clapp remix) MP3 - WAV
A Place to Bury Strangers - I Know I'll See You (The Clapp remix) MP3 - WAV
A Place to Bury Strangers - To Fix a Gash In Your Head (The Clapp remix) MP3 - WAV
Yesterday I taught a journalism class in a public high school in Brooklyn. Of course that was the most wonderful few hours of my year so far. But I had DJ'd the night before and woken up in a strange part of Brooklyn with my record bag and a guitar amp (???).
Anyway, I've run myself down this week and I really, really want to call batgirl and be like, "Hey, remember the five times I brought you Theraflu when you were sick? Can you just mail me some and never talk to me again? I've got a friend who's a bike messenger."
In the middle of an already shitty day the girl I told my mother I was going to marry broke up with me at fucking Whole Foods in 14th. It's difficult enough for me to go to whole foods because the children I DJ with and all the clubs I've worked in are right around there and people stare. I know. I stare at them too.
One time I was there and one of the tranies I work with was there and I remember thinking, "She eats food? I thought they just injected her with collagen."
Girl and I had a big fight where I said one of those sentences which you never plan on shouting through what is basically a cafeteria. It was probably more sensitve and carefully constructed but part of it was, "I'm not your father, I'm not your fucking brother. I'm a human fucking being and with needs and fears. Don't fucking treat me like that." I really hope I left out the part that goes: "When She moved out I promised myself I wouldn't fall for another ex-model just because she reads books. It's like living with a fucking junkie waiting for you to come out of the bathroom for half an hour after we eat, never knowing if you're passed out on the fucking floor."
I definately didn't skip the part that goes, "I'm late for the only fucking job I have left so leave me the fuck alone. I'm too fucking old to be clowning around and wasting my time on this bullshit."
I went to Beauty Bar and I got a text from my singer that our band is on the cover of Spin.com. Now I don't have anyone to share it with except total strangers.
1) English is my third language. I speak seven languages now. Each one somewhat shittier than I enunciate the one before it.
Harold Blooms calls my native dialect "Ahtphauxdisch."
If you have already learned the phonemes "Aitch" "Ahr", "Shgeah" and "Teigh" you might be able to pronounce it as an Englishperson can. I cannot.
2) I got my Scholarship on March 17, Y2K. My father just calls it St. Patrick's day. Irish men are incapable of forgeting that their sons used to shit their nice pants from Bradlee's on family car-rides.
On St. Patrick's day Y2K I turned on CNN and taught myself how to talk like Walter Kronkite.
Uncle Walt showed me how the BBC pronounces my hometown as "Heart-phohrd. Italians have Italics. The Irish often use what Bloom calls "reverse italics" but Java forbids such a translation. In college I learned to say Hahfah, Hodfuhd, Hahdfahd, and eventually squeezed it into the un-iambic bastardization known as Hahforte. Realestate assholes spelling it "H-A-R-T-F-O-R-D."
It's weird/worshipful how linguistics turned itselves into my false idol. Although, I guess King James never needed Hellen Keller's tutor* to tell him that "Thou shalt not.." can also be pronounced "You shouldn't.."
3) On that St. Patrick's Day I never again wanted to be treated like I was from gun-waivin', crack-cravin' New Haven [where they don't have the Welsh phoneme "djeah"!] or like some moron from Hard Hittin' New Brittain. (When Ben moved to Hartford from California he had to teach me that a Double-Cross --which an Englishman reads as "TT"--is not pronounced as an apostrophe.) To this day I refer to your cat's numerous progeney as a four syllable plural which might be spelt "Ki-i-en-s."
But like Hartford, the native dialect is a Pidgeon of Cork, Vieques, Napoli and Swedisch.
My auntie has a twin-bed in her garage which she calls Marla's bed. It's named after the Swedish cook the family had back when we had an estate in Hartford. Before there was an Irishman boning the first lady and/or the first super-model in the White-House. Marla has this peculiar Protestant disorder which she only discussed with Grammy. Marla was "diworscht" which to me sounds worse than being divorced.
4) Maybe you've seen an episode of Who's the Boss? and assume that you know what it was like where I grew up. That's fine. In first-grade all the black girls wanted to be my cousin and see our sister dance. I prefer that you assume I spent my weekends with her at the Hartford Ballet and saw her dance in The Nutcracker Sweet when I was too young to know that she wasn't really my sister.
Mark Twain drove me to North West Catholic High School in his Bentley and I did not learn English from a Post-Apocalyptic Public School where all of the Jews--(Ben and his brother)--were Zionistically allergic to the mold that grew in the Guano infestation of the decrepit ventillation system. I was definately never fourteen-years-old and running spotlight on Puck during S.L.O.Co's production of A Mid-Winter's Night's Dream. I was never asked to dim the lights from the catwalk if a bat flew into my beam.
5) This week I lost my job because another asshole from my dialect broke the biggest rule we ever learned: You do not use anyone else's name in vain.
Last week I met a Brooklyn boy who accidentally got into the Hartford Ecstasy scene in the nineties. He told me things I never wanted to believe about my hometown. It was violent, ruthless, impolite and full of assholes. I knew this before he told me.
The Lower East Side has always been full of immigrants and runaways. I know. I was a saline solution in my great grandmother's ovaries at the time--when slavery was still called "good business" in our nation's capital. But my family lived on Clinton Street.
Boston and Brooklyn have everything to lose. But for a few years in Hartford you could park your car on a crack-house lawn, walk into the West Indian Social Club and dance to obscure Vatican Commandoes records until Wallace Stevens came back from the grave.
6) Hartford is sexist, racist and more homophobic than Boston. According to the boys who taught me how to shave: everyone I knew is a fuckin' faggot-ass niggah whose Ma' is still a Junkie. And we all know that Herione is so passé.
That doesn't change the fact that my grandfathers were nice boys with nice haircuts who wanted to have nice boys for grandsons. They left Brooklyn and tore away from the L.E.S.--like Jim Carroll quit Echo--because they missed Bland Castle after it was burned down during "The Troubles." [If Kabul were run by the R.I.C. this war wouldn't have theme-music on CNN--it would be called "Syphlytic Possum" and it would disappear in March, like cold sores].
The point is that Vh1 is not a tattle-tale who picked corn on Tobacco Road for Culbros. Whatever he is to you: he know knows that the human being who put himself before the scene has a surprise ending that has yet to be written.
Hartford's history is written by its losers. People like me. People like Mark Twain [who lost his apartment after investing in some crazy machine called "linotype."] People like Wallace Stevens [who sold insurance with Big Pete Sullivan] who wrote the greatest poem I've ever read.
I will never say a word about the DJ who went behind my back and spoke ill of me to the owners because he and I were just childred when we saw Earth Crisis at the New Brittain Sports Pallace. It was a Hartforican bar where 17-year-old muchachos brought their 4-year-old sons and gambled on pre-Pequot poker machines.
The doorguy had a kevlar vest and we knew that paying to see 25 ta' Life meant not knowing if some asshole would pull a gun and wail one off in the parkinglot just to be a big man.
Everyday that I'm in Brooklyn I miss parking my '89 Toyota in the barbed-wire vacant-lot on Flower Street and buzzing into the Hartford Courant building. Each day I had to walk past the Union office and see the skilled workers as they commandeered Mark Twain's four-story linotype machine.
They stamped the newsprint that my Aunties would read to their friends at the gas station before work.
*It's still weird how she has my first fiance's propose'd name.
I'm reluctant to be the typical guy. But sometimes I can think of no other explantion for my strange problems other than "bitches be crazy." Eazy-E was a man of talent because he made things simple. Easy. Eazy comes. Easy goes.
1) Scenario: A girl invited me to see The National on my only night off and I accepted. I even downloaded the fucking record on Itunes. Then she cancelled after I had already introduced her to my friends at Johnsons when Conrad first started working there.
Six months later she tells me: "Remember after we saw The National and you didn't give me a ride home and you just left me at the F train and went back to your friends at Johnsons'?"
"That is so not how it happened. You believed the bullshit gossip on me and cancelled twice. And I wasn't about to drive you all the way to 8th Ave in Brooklyn just because--"
"I stopped off at the bodega on the way home and bought a pack of razor blades and cut the shit out of my arm when I got home."
2) Scenario Dating an obscenely young waitress. She's the kind of girl who is as proud of her facebook pictures as Claude's mother is of the waterlillies. It seemed to me that nothing of value mattered to this girl. I was still obsessed with someone else and so I decided to actually break up with her. I've never once broken up with anyone.
Six months later she tells me: "Heard you have some kind Shakespeare thing going on. I moved to Florida when you dumped me. I'm sick of guys like you." The second-worst part is that we're still friends on facebook and she had a comedy-routine online about the difference between scenesters and hipsters and how they are in bed.
3) Scenario Dating an older woman. She was a producer for the television equivalent of a women's magazine. This meant she had a black belt in "How to Please Your Man" and that she was incapable of shutting up for five seconds. Many women I've met who work in gender-exlusive environments are incapable of fostering an internal monologue. Either they get beaten down by the men in their firehouse (true story) or they get beaten down by the women at their job who can't pass your desk without a comment like, "You should do a segment on puffy eyes. Y'know. Since you're the expert."
When we would come home at night she would insist on keeping every light off in the apartment. This is terrible for me because I am obscenely myopic and my mind tends to wander with the lack of stimuli. The only compromise was to light a candle and hide it behind the kneeler of the church pews in my bedroom.
Remember a couple months ago when I went insane? She texted me while I was DJ'ing and maybe crying: "What ever happened to my sweet little storyteller?"
I wrote her back, "Why don't you do yourself a favor and delete my number from your phone? Pretend I don't exist and meet someone else.
4) Scenario Teetering on the point of maybe losing a roommate and maybe moving in with anothe girl. She's an actress on a completely separate women's show on cable. Until Katrina she was a burlesque dancer in New Orleans.
I was nuts about this girl. She would have me over just to read her sections of my new novel. Her mother was Irish and her father was an Italian man that she had rarely met in her life. I couldn't wait to trap her in my apartment.
The trouble with being horrible Rainman-ish like me is that I cannot see something until I see the entire picture. It's completely impossible for me to bring a girl home unless I can see where it's going. Sometimes this means I can bring someone back because I'll say, "Luckily this is going straight to hell, so it's obviously going to be in one of my stories some day."
One day I ran into Leila and she said, "I saw your ex girlfriend's up for an award. But it got me thinking: Don't you think you might be much happier if you stopped dating semi-famous girls?"
But mystery girl, who later became Batgirl, got sick while we were recording together. I brought her Theraflu everyday for a week. I went to Beauty Bar and had them make her hot toddies. The virus had attacked the throat of that beautiful voice that I needed for my record.
When she got worse I made her a care package of Theraflu, "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not."--which is the same film as Amelie and has the same star but it's about a psychotic stalker--like Amelie--but it has a sad ending.
I never fucking heard from her again. And I had already decided which closet in my house would be for her costumes.
1) Leila came to Beauty Bar on tuesday and made a fantastic point which I wish I had figured out on my own. "That post from last week about your university being ashamed of you: that may be. But do you have any idea how many emails I get from people looking for books for pre-school libraries?"
"No."
"Alot, and it takes me months to get back to them because I don't know how to tell them that I don't know anyone in children's publishing or I hold out until I can get back to them."
"Really?"
"It's actually quite annoying."
"Oh my god."
"What?"
"Nothing, I just though about how many band's demo tapes I've taken over the years. I'll listen for five seconds and realize I can't promote it. So I don't."
2) This time I got fired was just another misinterpretation. When you own a bar and you're not a bartender, you walk in and you don't care about how the drinks are poured. You don't care about how many people come in the door. You're not even remotely concerned with how many bands got their start there. You see money coming out the door. Positive?
And what's worse: the more money an employee makes for you the more money you have to lose. When I started the Sunday Night Rock Show they were ringing just enough to pay the bouncer and keep the lights on dim. We came in an started ringing literally ten times that much.
But no business person can just sit down and be glad that they have people to take care of them. Everybody looks at Sampson and says, "What if we cut his hair? What kind of power would he have then?" What I do for a living is an obscenely easy formula:
Take a venue and let people feel like it's theirs.
If you play music, play their music. If you have a projector, play their films. If you took pictures last week: put the pictures up. It's so stupidly easy that I'm almost upset when they keep paying me for it every week.
The reason I got fired is because a non-bartending owner said I "rely too much on the people I work with." If you were a bartender you would simply see that I'm training my barback how to pour drinks and he's training the porter how to clean glasses. Then we're all helping eachother out and we all have fun and we all make more money.
The problem, of course, is that I'm at home all week chosing bands and DJs when I should be writing.
I can't tell if it's time to come back with an even bigger party or if this is going to be my Lester Bangs burnout era when I go work in a video store and sit in my rent-controlled apartment, talking to the mice.
i am not in a position to help you since new york is an employment at will state which means that the employer can fire you without any reason as long as it doesnt break the law. i also am paid by the hour so i dont think you are in a position to spend good money after paid. who referred you to me. best, -Some fucking Labor Lawyer Who Can't Capitalize.
The discomfort and embarassment of having lost another job turns me acqueous. I have no possible source of income left. I cannot even imagine where I'm supposed to go from here.
For reasons significant enough for the writer, and for reasons that would be more than meaningless to you, I would like to make some apologies.
Chris Herbet- in high school my friends picked on you every day. I had fifth period free and we didn't have money for study hall then and the cafeteria was over crowded so we had three lunch periods during fifth. This meant that if you had fifth you could eat lunch for an hour and a half. At the same time every single day you would walk around the corner, where I ate lunch with my asshole friends for an hour and a half. You have to keep in mind that these kids felt like the trashiest, poorest, shittiest kids in town. We weren't ashamed of ourselves, but we wanted it to be okay that we did the things we did. You were the new kid and you had the same style as our close friend. You were a bizarro-land version of him and we felt duped. In Civilization and its Discontents Freud calls it "the narcissism of minor difference."
Anyway, we knew our friend for so long and we knew how hard he worked to buy his '74 Chevy Nova off that lady for $1800. We knew how many hours he was in the grocery store each night, rearranging the boxes of cereal on the shelf so that he could buy clothes and how we would drive to Sal's barbershop by the Boeing factory with him in it. And then you showed up and somehow you already knew how to do all that shit.
Plus, I think you had a better paint job. I really hope you didn't end up with a complex just because your nickname was "Eatshit." I hope you weren't offended when we recorded a song on our first record called "Eat Shit." And although this is kind of the thing your mother should say, I want you to know it's true: you should take it as a compliment that the thirty lamest kids in school counted the second until 11:45 when you walked out the door. Graham would even smile when you came out the door and start the chant, which went: "Eat."
There really are no words to describe what I went through this week. I could tell you funny things I saw or how people talk. But it just would never make any sense to you. If for some odd reason you would like to be as happy and content as I am right now: think of all the bullshit your family talks about. Think of every time your sister called you fat or your cousin called you a queer. Think of how your Aunties tell you when you have a rip in your new jacket as if you aren't ashamed of it enough as it is.
And then imagine the thing you could always do--which no one--even yourself--ever thought they could do. And then imagine the surprise on their face. Imagine how the people you might even vaguely hate might be proud of themselves for being related to the same long-dead person as you.
I will say this from now on I am never, ever going to ask anyone for help with my stories. Often in class I wished I could poke James Joyce on the shoulder and say, "'Scuse me, lad. But did you mean to say 'immanent' or 'imminent' in that sentence?" But he's stone deaf anyway.
If you don't get my work, that doesn't really matter. I barely speak English anyway. And to be honest: nothing is for everyone. I don't see what the big deal is about David Bowie. And while we're at it: I fell asleep during Borat. Is it some brilliant person's own shortcomings that fed me one beer after a long day when I went to the midnight screening? Maybe.
I've got one neice and one nephew. One of them looks like me and the other looks too much like me. The latter and I spend all of our time together staring in each other's eyes. What if Narcisus lived in fear of dropping his own child off the dock?
Again that shouldn't mean much to you. We come from different dysfunctional families. My uptown friends say that in her house you'll find her mother screaming things like, "Sorry you had to marry a millionaire and not a billionaire. I hate you!" I've alway thought of myself as the family outcast. But the more I talk to the others, the more I realize that none of us feel good enough to be in the clan. And that's what sent us over here in the frist place.
So the only thing I can say is that if I'm from a family whose land was stolen by famine and Englishmen, whose castle was burned in "the troubles" whose castles in Brooklyn were destroyed by the civil war, and who now live hand to mouth--at least they gave me their stories.
Here is the earliest surviving family story. It is written in a bizare, freakish dialect that turns joy into magic and discomfort into desruction. It's the only heirloom they have left to give me.
There is another gentleman of the name of Mr. O'Doharty living at Fairmount, I think a liquor merchant and grocer ; and many others also who are entitled to the most exalted panegyrics and extravagant encomiums for the patriotic and sterling feelings they cherished, which is the natural inheritance of genuine Irishmen. Speaking of my countrymen and women, in Brooklyn and Williamsburgh, I found them in both places in their original element, facetious, witty, generous, full of indigenous habits and undimini.shed hospitality. Mr. McClean, who keeps a large establishment, comprising boots and shoes, in Fulton street, Brooklyn, is a generous and noble son of the Island of Saints ; he reflects honor on the land of his birth, and is very popular in the land of his adoption. Messrs. Quirk & Smallfield, Williamsburg.—These are unquestionably two young patriots of extraordinary promise, who would sacrifice anything and everything for the restoration of the land of their nativity to its primitive elevation; both boarded in Second street, Williamsburg.
I forget the names of the two young gentlemen, tailors professionally, who worked for Mr. James Quinn, Myrtle avenue, Brooklyn; they emigrated from the parish of Kilabeg, northwest extremity of Donegal, which is also Mr. Quinn's native place; however, these two gentlemen possess indelible patriotism and regard for the land of their nativity. Cornelius Dever, Esquire, a native of the town of Straban, parish of Camus, County Tyrone, Ireland, and is now thirty years of age; his residence is in 42 Wychoff street, Brooklyn.
Now my reader, before I bid adieu to Brookyn, I will make a few remarks : it is my intention, if providence spare me, to write my travels over again in epic verse, in order to signalize those who distinguished themselves in my behalf during my travels. The two hinges on which it will rest will be made manifest in the work, one of the hinges will be the late and much lamented Roger Brown, Esquire, who resided in Market street, Philadelphia, and the other will be Cornelius Dever, Esquire, of Brooklyn, New York, and of course others will receive their share of applause with as much attention and fidelity as my limited and superficial abilities will allow. Claudius Bradley, Esquire, No. 165 Myrtle avenue, Brooklyn, Eugene O'Sullivan, Esquire, hereditary prince of Barrec Haven, though being deprived by the irresistible force of godless tyrants and strangers, of the vast possessions of his ancestors, he is still justly entitled to the appellation.
Mr. O'Sullivan cordially invited me to take tea with him at his residence some evening before 1 would take my departure for Boston, Massachusetts, and said that he would give me a note of introduction to James O'Sullivan, Esquire, a resident of Boston, and a descendant of the same illustrious family with himself; with much alacrity I acquiesced with his invitation ; and one evening afterwards I proceeded to his residence, which is in Atlantic street, a magnificent mansion in which an oriental potentate could revel. Mr. Eugene O'Sul- livan is quite a young man, and his mother a widow lady. On my arrival I had been affectionately introduced by Mr. O'Sullivan to his mother, to his sisters, and also to his brother, who received me with disciplined experience, and inimitable hospitality, which is only known to the natives of the Emerald Isle.
Oh, what happiness I felt that evening in company with that brilliant, artless and distinguished family, whose innocence and friendship increased my admiration! Early in the night I departed with a letter of introduction from Mr. O'Sullivan to his revered friend in Boston, and was escorted by Mr. Eugene O'Sullivan, by his brother, and also by Doctor O'Sullivan, of the same illustrious house, to the far distant termination of Atlantic street, where, after giving and receiving benedictions, I crossed the South Ferry, got into an omnibus, and soon found myself in No. 62 Montgomery street, under the friendly roof of Mr. Cornelius O'Sullivan's residence. On the following day I took my departure for Boston, on board the Bold Commodore, a fast sailing steamboat of incredible strength, and every object receded with the incomprehensible velocity of electricity, which made us leave behind Blackwell's Island, Hellgate, and every other point of annihilation, torture, and destruction. After some time her course lay due north, and sometimes north-by-east; this I ascertained by the north star. The Commodore kept majestically on her course until sometime in the night, which I cannot exactly determine. The cry Stonington reverberated from the approximation of some invisible solid, which aroused every individual from a balmy and refreshing repose, and from the imaginary bliss that is felt while ranging through Elysian fields and enamelled meadows ; and after some little delay and confusion.we were all comfortably seated in the cars for Boston, and in a few hours the flying horse carried us safely to that city. -Uncle Jerry O'Donovan, 1854
So yes, like March of the Penguins my other outcast cousin and I ended up returning to mysterious places where our family had once spawned. Because we're Irish and we don't talk about things, I never knew than we lived anywhere but Hartford. They moved to Brooklyn during a war in Ireland. Then six years later America's civil war came right up to the actual Fort Greene, three blocks from their new homes. They went to Hartford and then fled in terror to West Hartford. No wonder we're all fucking neurotic.
Thank you for your message. I apologize for the delay in responding. I'm afraid I can't be of much assistance in terms of finding an agent. I work in the contracts department and am not really in a position to make referrals to agents. If you need assistance with a contract, however, that's much more up my alley.
Best of luck with your latest novel, and finding the right agent to represent your work.
Some Girl from School Who Works in Publishing
I asked her for help in September and today was the first I heard.
I am at a point now where having a scholarship to study at a prestigious academy turns out to be worthless. I have literally asked every single person I know in publishing to help me out, to give me the name of one person. To say, "One night I studied for finals late, late, late and you were the one who made me the coffee in the shittiest coffee shop in the midwest and now I'm in publishing in New York! Thanks for the three minutes on the espresso machine! Here: I spent five seconds racking my brain for the greatest young agent I know!"
When you see me DJ, I'm the only one in the bar not staring at my GOGO dancers. I'm the only one in the bar not thinking about the song playing or the next song after.
I'm the guy trying not to cry because apparently there's only two people from school who aren't fucking ashamed of him.
My bullshit label wants me to produce an "underground nyc" record.
But now I just want to make another one for my cousin to play in his car. More fun than hearing it in the clubs--where no one's fucking listening anyway--was to watch someone I used to fight over G.I. Joe's with and whose thought I was a faggot my whole life call his brother, "You gotta hear our faggot cousin's record!"
He hung up the phone and he explained something that should be taught in health class. "You're still talking about me. I have tiny little feelings inside of me. They're made out of rock candy and they drip and crackle when you spit on me."
"You know why we call you a faggot?"
"Because you think I suck cock."
"No. You come home for Easter every year with another beautiful girl each time and my cousin and I don't see a DJ walk in the door on her arm. You're still pussy ass Brendo who wore his Batman costume under his clothes to school."
"You're my baby cousin who spit up on car rides. And now you can drive a tank. I didn't think you could do it because I didn't want you to do it. But I was fucking wrong. I didn't want my baby cousin to die over there. My baby cousin isn't a marine...but I guess you're not my baby cousin."
"I guess you're not my baby cousin either anymore."
"No." There was a long pause and before he started my song over again he said, "But when my baby brother has every sports record in our high school he comes home and doesn't think he matters because everyone's looking at you. So to make my brother not feel so shitty: I'll tell him that she's doing you a favor so the family doesn't find out the secret: that you're a faggot."
Things I would do If I just had a little more time on my hands:
