My lawyer is hot. Nerd-hot. When she was in law-school--which was clearly sometime last semester--she totally worked at the campus coffee shop with a pencil in her long, dark hair. I met her for the first time today, but I know for sure that she has all the NPR podcasts on her third-generation iPod on the way to work and probably still listens to "Toxic" when she's needs to cheer up.
We've talked on the phone a few times before the court date. She did start to annoy me at one point because it turns out I am a horribly sexist person and I don't like having a whiney voice on the phone nagging me, "You have to come to court." "You can't skip court dates." "Why didn't you show up yesterday?" "If you get pulled over you could have to wait in jail for ten straight days." "Clean your room." "Take out the papers and the trash."
She found out I was on my way to DJ'ing the night I was put in jail. I half expected her to say, "Put it this way: if you don't scrub that kitchen floor: you ain't gonna rock & roll no more."
"Yakety-yak."
"Don't talk back."
But instead she said--entirely out of curiosity--"Where do you DJ?" As if she were meeting up with the girls somewhere later and might drop in.
I really avoid, at all costs, telling people that I play records for a living. First of all they expect you to be either black like Jazzy Jeff or to be like Diplo or DJ Break and wear ridiculous sneakers and trim your hair and beard to the same length and wear Kangol hats. Or you look like DJ AM and everyone accosts you as a homosexual, despite the number of attractive rich women you surround yourself with.
It occured to me that I wanted Perry Mason on my team and instead I had the young, slightly-naive Laura from High Fidelity who we never see much of, but who later laments:
"...I'm not who I wanted to be when I grew up."
"Who did you want to be?"
"Not some woman in a suit, with a secretary and half an eye on a partnership. I wanted to be a legal-aid lawyer with a DJ boyfriend and it's all gone wrong."
Young Laura was my lawyer. I don't know what the American equivalent of the British chain store Top-Shop is but I would have sworn--under oath--that she and all the other girls at Legal Aid went shopping for cheap polyester suits together when they were studying abroad in London.
I would also like to add that court in Brooklyn is exactly as it is on TV. Daytime TV. There is lots of yelling and the bailiffs warned us many times that we could not talk, read or answer cell phones. Of the 75 people in line for the metal detector only one was white. Me. The man whose case was right before mine was so fucking huge that he was wearing two pairs of interlocked handcuffs because his arms wouldn't meet behind his back otherwise. He was charged with a failure to report to five days of community service. His lawyer argued that this was impossible because he was incarcerated in Pennsylvania at the time.
We looked like one of those obnoxious couples that dress alike by accident. She had on her polyester suit which may have come from Forever 21. We may have switched glasses and never known.
Normally the court-appointed attourneys don't even meet with you until you show up. They call your name vacantly into the room and meet you in the hallway. At my last court appearance they spread my files out on the trashcan in the hallway. (I hope I didn't just blow my attouney-client priveledge.)
She walked right up to me, confirmed my name and then added: "I'm not scheduled for this room today, but I will come back for you."
She left in an odd way, swishing her pantsuited ass through the doors where it is hand written "No miniskirts, shorts or tank tops."
What is most pleasing about the Brooklyn Courts is they are Brooklyn-run. All business is conducted in Brooklynese. In the warrant room is a poster that reads:
A warrant is not a notice. It's not an invitation. It's a court order to the police to find the defendant, arrest the defendant and bring the defendant back to court.
Men are not permitted to wear hats in the court room. But this is Brooklyn. The man who processed my paperwork was wearing a Yamikule. The black guy next to him--no joke--was wearing a twelve-inch high fez. The judge asked him repeatedly to take it off. When he did he had a skull cap beneath it. They argued and the judge dismissed him from the court room and three bailiffs had to take him away in hand cuffs grumbling, "Same shit every month. We gonna have to do this again in March?"
Everyone else but me had one of those straight-brim baseball hats with the tags still on.
I was working on a very difficult Mercutio scene at the time. Clacking away on my laptop when my attourney walked into the room. "You can't do that here!"
"I need you in my life," I said. (I also don't like telling people that I write novels.) She didn't even crack a smile.
She pulled me outside in the hall once again. "You're in alot of trouble. This is a serious matter. I told you yesterday that this judge is an asshole. He's going to see that you've missed two court dates and you've disrespected the court."
"But I'm not guilty."
"Yes you are." As a child I would never expect that the lawyer I had as an adult would finish a serious sentence like that by checking the label on my glasses* and then the one on my shoulder bag**.
"What?"
"You have two infractions on your record." She showed me my paperwork.
"So I'm guilty of not going to court for something I was not guilty of?"
"They're two separate things."
"No they're not. I got pulled over once when I was hurrying to meet Annie at the movies and I didn't have my insurance card on me. Then I got pulled over another time after she and I had a fight at some restaurant."
"Are you going to spend the rest of your life blaming all your problems on your ex girlfriend?"
"If it pleases the court."
"It's time for you to grow up."
"You sound just like her."
"She's right. You do need therapy?"
"What?"
"I said you'll plead guilty."
"Sorry. I've had alot on my mind this week."
*Prada. Bought them years ago when I was a humble waiter. **Jack Spade. Caleb's friend works at the Greene St. shop and got me a huge discount when we walked over there on iPhone day.
Slip on shoes (they take your laces otherwise and if you happen to be wearing Sperry Topsiders where the laces don't come out you will be standing in a jail cell in your socks. Jail cells are worse than public rest rooms.)
Things to keep on you:
ID, notebook. Anything else will get confiscated.
A song that sounds fantastic in the reverb of your lonely cell:
A hungry feeling, came o'er me stealing And the mice were squealing in my prison cell And the old triangle, went jingle jangle Along the banks of the Royal Canal.
To begin the morning, the warder bawling Get out of bed and clean up your cell And that old triangle went jingle jangle Along the banks of the Royal Canal.
The screw was peeping, the lag was sleeping While he lay there weeping for the girl Sal And the old triangle went jingle jangle Along the banks of the Royal Canal.
On a fine spring evening, the lag lay dreaming The seagulls wheeling high above the wall And that old triangle went jingle jangle Along the banks of the Royal Canal.
The day was dying and the wind was sighing As I lay crying in my prison cell And that old triangle, went jingle jangle Along the banks of the Royal Canal.
In the female prison there are seventy women I wish it was with them that I did dwell Then that old triangle could jingle jangle Along the banks of the Royal Canal.
Tomorrow morning I have to turn myself in to the Kings Kounty Kourthouse. I don't want to do this, of course, I believe that being not guilty of something 2 years ago should be enough. I'm older now than I was then. I lost a fantastic job over it. When I was a young Thoreauvian I believed in doing anything to damn the man. Now I understand that the man thinks he's damning me for damning him. It's already going to ruin my first day off in years. I just wish I had a co conspirator to hold on to my housekeys and laptop when they arrest me again so I can finish Mercutio while my tiny heart is thumping in court.
My homeless girl rang my bell today while I was in the middle of deciding what might be dangerous to bring to court. When I got arrested they lost the key to my Vespa and I ruined a good shirt just by sitting in my cell with the cave painting in feces on the wall.
"Come back tomorrow, Jack. I'm busy."
"I can't come tomorrow. I'm moving to South Carolina."
I took a deep breath and I felt bad for all the times I've been gone this week. Her ex boyfriend, Rayray, has been stopping by as well but I haven't been home for it. I had twenty eight dollars in my pocket and I hid the twenty dollar bill inside of my Shakespeare book.
Then as I was walking to the door I thought, what the fuck am I doing? Am I seriously hiding money in my own apartment just to keep it from a harmless old junkie? I went back to my closet where I keep the money I'm trying to save for Kentucky.
"I'm in trouble, Jackie. There's a warrent out for my arrest."
"Go to court."
"I don't want to go to court. I'll have to wear my nice suit and then they'll put me in a cell with cave paintings in feces on the wall."
"They're just going to give you another court date." I handed her forty dollars for the busride to South Carolina and we went down the street where I know this great place that has terrible pizza.
"I don't see why I have to keep going to court when I'm not guilty."
"Just show up. If you keep missing your court dates you will have to post bail and then if you miss your next date you forfeit bail and you might have to spend ten days in jail. You don't wanna go to jail. They pick people up off the streets after they've been up for three days and the drugs are still coming out of their system."
About halfway through her pizza she told me that she is being moved to a new house. This struck me as odd, since I'm under the impression that she is leaving town. "I'm not moving to South Carolina. I just said that to get you to the door."
"Then give me my forty dollars back."
"I need it."
"I need it."
"You just wait, Branden. I'mma get my new apartment and start my new job and I'll be showing up at your house with sacs of groceries for you."
One of the hardest scenes in Shakespeare is, to me, the original Sex & the City. It is so well done that I can only imagine that young 'Liam Shakespeare's girlfriend read over a scene that looked something like this:
Lady Capulet: Hey, Juliet, Paris's gonna be at the party tonight. Wanna marry him? Juliet: Sure, mum, he's rich, right? Lady Capulet: Of course, isn't that what all women want? Money and babies? Nurse: Shit, I can't hold on to neither. I probably used to be a whore, but I told your husband that my baby died in child birth.
To me she looks something like Annie only she's not a bitch. In college I was not permitted to have these thoughts because gender is a social construction and/or a product of upbringing. Men and women have the exact same thoughts and some invisible societal force has taught us how to hammer things and put on make up.
So the theory which I would put forth--if I had the balls to do so--is that Shakespeare's girlfriend read over the scene and said, "You know how when we go to a big party you always complain about how long it takes me to get ready? Maybe this scene should reflect the mystery of what we're saying behind the scenes."
"Wait. Wait. You've lost me. You mean women communicate when they talk?"
Smirking to herself at the depths of his idiocy, I imagine she said something like, "Why don't you take a break and I'll touch up this scene's eyemakeup?"
The Elizabethan said back, "Eyemakeup? You're good at eye makeup."
"I might powder its nose a bit."
"Great! I'll be at the tavern!"
"Look it over when you get home and I'll recopy the changes before we send it in tomorrow."
This theory of course assumes that Shakespeare's mechanically low self esteem is what makes him the greatest writer in the world because he is willing to let other people help him. I like the idea of Liam Shakespeare awakening, still drunk, the next afternoon with a script freshly re-copied by some minion at the theater with a note attached: "I don't really get this scene, but my wife loves it. Boss thinks it will keep the ladies coming back and will bore the men into getting up to buy the penny cushions."
And 'Liam smiles to himself--thinking how he can't believe that he completely forgot that he came home blind-drunk and wrote the whole scene at once. My drunk, moronic, sexist version of Shakespeare probably kissed his girlfriend once on the cheek and said, "Thanks for running the pages to the theater for me. I was in no state to do so myself."
It's the scene I'm working into Mercutio today. It's also the scene that bores me to tears because they either make the nurse into a hag or the mother into a bitch. They're just three people dicking around before a party.
Scene III. Capulet's house.
Enter Capulet's Wife, and Nurse.
Wife. Nurse, where's my daughter? Call her forth to me. Nurse. Now, by my maidenhead at twelve year old, I bade her come. What, lamb! what ladybird! God forbid! Where's this girl? What, Juliet!
Enter Juliet.
Jul. How now? Who calls? Nurse. Your mother. Jul. Madam, I am here. What is your will? Wife. This is the matter- Nurse, give leave awhile, We must talk in secret. Nurse, come back again; I have rememb'red me, thou's hear our counsel. Thou knowest my daughter's of a pretty age. Nurse. Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour. Wife. She's not fourteen. Nurse. I'll lay fourteen of my teeth- And yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but four- She is not fourteen. How long is it now To Lammastide? Wife. A fortnight and odd days. Nurse. Even or odd, of all days in the year, Come Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen. Susan and she (God rest all Christian souls!) Were of an age. Well, Susan is with God; She was too good for me. But, as I said, On Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen; That shall she, marry; I remember it well. 'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years; And she was wean'd (I never shall forget it), Of all the days of the year, upon that day; For I had then laid wormwood to my dug, Sitting in the sun under the dovehouse wall. My lord and you were then at Mantua. Nay, I do bear a brain. But, as I said, When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool, To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug! Shake, quoth the dovehouse! 'Twas no need, I trow, To bid me trudge. And since that time it is eleven years, For then she could stand high-lone; nay, by th' rood, She could have run and waddled all about; For even the day before, she broke her brow; And then my husband (God be with his soul! 'A was a merry man) took up the child. 'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face? Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit; Wilt thou not, Jule?' and, by my holidam, The pretty wretch left crying, and said 'Ay.' To see now how a jest shall come about! I warrant, an I should live a thousand yeas, I never should forget it. 'Wilt thou not, Jule?' quoth he, And, pretty fool, it stinted, and said 'Ay.' Wife. Enough of this. I pray thee hold thy peace. Nurse. Yes, madam. Yet I cannot choose but laugh To think it should leave crying and say 'Ay.' And yet, I warrant, it bad upon it brow A bump as big as a young cock'rel's stone; A perilous knock; and it cried bitterly. 'Yea,' quoth my husband, 'fall'st upon thy face? Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age; Wilt thou not, Jule?' It stinted, and said 'Ay.' Jul. And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I. Nurse. Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace! Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nurs'd. An I might live to see thee married once, I have my wish. Wife. Marry, that 'marry' is the very theme I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet, How stands your disposition to be married? Jul. It is an honour that I dream not of. Nurse. An honour? Were not I thine only nurse, I would say thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat. Wife. Well, think of marriage now. Younger than you, Here in Verona, ladies of esteem, Are made already mothers. By my count, I was your mother much upon these years That you are now a maid. Thus then in brief: The valiant Paris seeks you for his love. Nurse. A man, young lady! lady, such a man As all the world- why he's a man of wax. Wife. Verona's summer hath not such a flower. Nurse. Nay, he's a flower, in faith- a very flower. Wife. What say you? Can you love the gentleman? This night you shall behold him at our feast. Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face, And find delight writ there with beauty's pen; Examine every married lineament, And see how one another lends content; And what obscur'd in this fair volume lies Find written in the margent of his eyes, This precious book of love, this unbound lover, To beautify him only lacks a cover. The fish lives in the sea, and 'tis much pride For fair without the fair within to hide. That book in many's eyes doth share the glory, That in gold clasps locks in the golden story; So shall you share all that he doth possess, By having him making yourself no less. Nurse. No less? Nay, bigger! Women grow by men Wife. Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love? Jul. I'll look to like, if looking liking move; But no more deep will I endart mine eye Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.
Enter Servingman.
Serv. Madam, the guests are come, supper serv'd up, you call'd, my young lady ask'd for, the nurse curs'd in the pantry, and everything in extremity. I must hence to wait. I beseech you follow straight. Wife. We follow thee. Exit [Servingman]. Juliet, the County stays. Nurse. Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days. Exeunt.
And while I'm in the middle of this obscenely sexist post I think it's time to add that Annie isn't really a bitch. When I met her she was twenty years old and she was subjected to the pre-insanity of twenty-two year old me. I made a complete rewrite of my first novel at her kitchen table. Her demeanor toughened me up, probably.
One day when I was in an independantly good mood* it was raining. Annie made the idle comment, "You never carry an umbrella."
This was an observation I've never made of myself. I've also never thought, "I never wear Bermuda shorts." I'm from New England. I was twenty years old before I owned my first pair of non-waterproof shoes. I wore hiking boots to school because sometimes I hiked to school through the woods. When you have a girlfriend you must be prepared to receive observations that have never occured to you or anyone you've known before.
Thinking, moronically, that this unsolicited comment required a factual, reasoned argument I decided that--even though I carried an umbrella religiously through Paris and Ireland--I don't bother with one at home because I know that I will just lose it. I said, "I don't like being reminded of how forgetful I am."
She stopped on Bedford Avenue in the rain in front of the old Sound Fix cafe (the shitty one, not its attractive reincarnation) and rolled her pretty blue eyes into the back of her skull, groaning as though she might vomit, "Do you just sit around all day waiting for the chance to spew out one of your stupid one liners?"
The answer is yes.
*Horribly sexist tangent: Why on earth does this upset girls? Can't we just be happy sometimes because we heard a funny joke or even just remembered one?
After spending more than just a week being worthless I finally got back to work today. This was a big, fun busy week for me and I kind of wish that I had been writing the entire time so that I would feel better about it. Instead I wasted my time doing excercises of higher literature such as importing my contacts into my new iPhone, figuring out how to use my new protools devices to make skype phone calls.
One day I was an extra in a music video (Tough Guy #1) and the next day I was on Japanese Food Network. Like Buffalo Bill, I have given up on living my life and instead I've begun acting it.
Luckily I have characters to beat up and make fun of when I feel down. This includes Lady Capulet, whom Mercutio accidentally walks in on while she is in the bath tub:
Capulet’s house stands not far from the castle. It should be more than enough to please the public, but for some reason Capulet has put himself in a class above the rest, when he could merely be the greatest or second-greatest of the non-royalty. Instead he covers the front with mismatched marble statues and his servants cover everything in flowers. But I am not here today to talk about flowers. I am here talk to the Capulets and kill one of them if absolutely necessary. Normally in a house such as his pretends to be you must enter, wait, be announced and then sit there eating dusty cookies while his royal lowness hauls his worthless carcass downstairs. But today cannot wait for such civility. Not in the house of barbarians. A little houseboy, not much larger than Arlecchino himself comes running after me. “You can’t go in there!” Why do the idiots always blurt out the one secret I’ve been looking for? Now this little worm has saved me the trouble of asking him in the first place. “In where? Here?” I point to the door. “Thank you.” Triumphantly I open the door, with a sword ready drawn against any hidden intruders behind the doors. Although I wish that anything could have prepared me for what I was to see. No. In fact, I wish the house boy could have spared me that pain and the eye strain and the amount I will have to drink later to recover from what I walked in on. Lady Capulet bathing. The sight was hideous. I started to scream but luckily I threw up in my mouth instead. She lay there with a rag of herbs and oils tied around her eyes. Blind as Lady Victory—or perhaps Lady Justice. Her breasts hung down like chest jowls, sagging in unhealthy disproportion to one another. A scar from some minor surgery/marital strife slashed across her belly. It grows redder in the steaming bath water—as if with the right herbs in this witch’s brew it might expand and then explode and a new Lady Capulet would molt her hideous flesh and emerge as a less-hideous butterfly. She lifts a single milk-white, leisure-spotted thigh and drapes it on the side of the tub, tinkling bits of water back into the bowl. “Franchesca!” she hollers and I find myself staring into the void between her two quivering thighs. “Francesca is that you? How much longer do I have to keep this over my eyes? Can I take it off yet?” Choking back my breakfast I reach for the door and for no apparent reason—maybe out of self preservation or a desire not to want to induce the screams of the Lady of the house so soon after the big fight this morning—I answer in my puppet-show voice, “No!” “Then help me out of the bath, then. I am going to shrivel up and I’ll be even more wrinkly than I was before. Help me over to the bed. I fear that if I open my eyes this mask will sting them shut and I’ll miss the whole party. You sure this will work? I haven’t been able to sleep all week and my eyelids feel like pillows.” She reached her hand up to me and more than just water cascaded down from her as she stepped out of the cesspool. It was then that I realized she expected another answer from “Franchesca.” Lady Caplet looked up to me with her blindfold on and I answered again in my fake voice. “Yes.” “Then I will lie down. Please, nurse, go fetch my daughter for me.” She let go of my hands, “Please, Francesca. I’ve just gotten out of the bath and I don’t need your filthy hands to ruin me again. Now please go. I think I can find my way to the bed.” She teetered away and was about to slip on a drip of her own water on the floor. I nabbed a cloth with my left foot and quickly ran to swipe the puddle clean. She stepped directly on my poor, delicate foot. Again, I was about to scream but I didn’t want to vomit directly in her bathwater. “Out of the way Francesca. I can find my own way to the bed, thank you very much.” She turned to yell at me blindly, facing a third direction in the room where she expected this servant of hers to be standing at the time. I then realized she had poised herself to sit down on a bed that was not where she apparently thought it might be. I dove down the floor and grabbed the table leg just as she fell back on her haunches. I grabbed the leg of the daybed just in time to pull it under her as she fell. “No go and leave me be. I must rest for this silly party tonight.” I stepped out of the room, cooing like a servile little girl. The last words I heard from her mouth were steamed out in a heavy sigh, “This house would crumble to the ground if I weren’t around to keep it standing.” * “Why on earth didn’t you spare me that hideous sight?” I wrung the skinny servant’s neck. “I tried. I tried.” “Try harder next time.” “I’m sorry. I thought maybe you were hired. We’ve had a lot of visitors in today and it’s hard knowing who is supposed to do what.” “Why on earth don’t they just give you a list?” “They did,” his face collapsed and the boy began to whimper “But I can’t read it.” “Did it come out in Lady Capulet’s bathwater?” “No, sir. It is because I cannot read. Do you have to make such a big deal about it?” “Are you crying?” “No, I just have a lot on my mind. These parties don’t just fall out of a sack, you know?” “What party?” “If you don’t know you probably never will.” “I’m sorry I made the joke about the reading comment.” “It’s just not good manners to point out another’s shortcomings. That’s all.” “I apologized.” “It’s not easy.” “I didn’t say it was easy.” “You probably had your private tutors and—and your alphabet etched in gold on your cradle.” “Please don’t make these broad assumptions.” “Assumptions like what—assuming everyone can read?” “I really cannot continue this conversation any further.” “Then why don’t you write it down. Send me a letter about it. Won’t that be fun for everyone? Then I’ll have to give it to the royal children to have them read it to me and they’ll just play that goddam game that everyone does.” “What are you talking about?” “Dear Ugly, I’m just writing to say you’re ugly. Why don’t you just—” “Just tell me where Capulet is. I’m sorry about the reading thing. I’ve been very busy.” “Busy, eh? Busy what? Reading? Writing? Reading in other languages probably, too? How’s your Greek. I bet you speak Greek too on top of everything else.”
Today I had to wake up early to get to a Japanese film studio, which means I've officially made it. No one in my own country gives a shit about me: but I'm big in Japan!
I got the style but not the grace I got the clothes but not the face I got the bread but not the butter I got the winda but not the shutter But I'm big in Japan I'm big in Japan But heh I'm big in Japan I got the house but not the deed I got the horn but not the reed I got the cards but not the luck I got the wheel but not the truck But heh I'm big in Japan I'm big in Japan I'm big in Japan I got the moon I got the cheese I got the whole damn nation On its knees I got the rooster I got the crow I got the ebb I got the flow I got the powder but not the gun I got the dog but not the bun I got the clouds but not the sky I got the stripes but not the tie But heh I'm big in Japan I'm big in Japan I'm big in Japan Heh ho they love the way I do it Heh ho there's really nothing to it I got the moon I got the cheese I got the whole damn nation on their knees I got the rooster I got the crow I got the ebb I got the flow I got the sizzle but not the steak I got the boat but not the lake I got the sheets but not the bed I got the jam but not the bread But heh I'm big in Japan I'm big in Japan I'm big in Japan I'm big in Japan, I'm big in Japan
1) I got paid on Tuesday and you know what that means: groceries! My refrigerator has more carrots than the third cycle of the luhn check-digit alghorithm in scientific notation!
Don't even get me started on the salsa I made!
On the way home from the store and giant Jamaican woman screams down the street in Brooklyn, "Branden!" I turn around and it is my homeless girl. "Branden where you been all week? I stopped by every day."
"It was my niece's birthday. I was out of town."
"I need some help."
"How much?"
"Twenty dollars."
"I don't have it. You want my change?"
"Yes. But I been looking for you all week to give you this." She opens her bag and pulls a card out of the envelope. "Happy Valentine's day." I open the card and Beethoven's Second starts playing out of a tiny little speaker.
Dear Branden,
I just want to tell you how much I love you. Happy Valentine's day,
Jackie
2) Yesterday I was in the middle of one of those tasks that I would make me look insane. I needed to get props for a music video, so I went over to the bar I was fired from most recently because they agreed to set some aside for me. Of course, this means that the other drunk bartenders put bar trash into the trash. So I, glamorous major-label hotshot, was caught several times--by bewildered management--on my knees separating fancy vodka bottles from the trash as if doing it for the five-cent deposit. Mind you, I'm packing them into my turntable case.
That's when my phone rang. It was my brother's number.
"You got a sec?"
"Of course."
"You're in a bar, aren't you?"
"Of course."
"Someone wants to talk to you." He hands the phone off to my niece, who is the worlds most charming three-year old.
"Uncle Brendan, I'm scared of the dark."
"That's okay honey, Uncle Brendan is scared of the dark too. It's why I stay up all night until the sun comes out again."
"Will you tell the monsters to leave me alone?"
"You have monsters?"
"Uh-huh."
"They're probably not monsters. They might just be your body guards. Your Daddy and I would never let the monsters hurt you. Daddy was really good at getting the monsters out of my room when I was your age."
She sort of trailed off and I felt like the uncle in the non-existent sequel to the song "Cat's Cradle." I had left my assistant inside with a turntable case full of empty liquor bottles.
My brother grabs the phone. "Let me translate. She peed on the bathroom floor and then took a hot bath. We got her big girl bed back today. But then when it was time for bed she lost the bracelet you gave her and she can't sleep without it."
I'm standing on a corner in the Lower East Side in my basketball diaries jacket, smoking idly and speaking into my seven-hundred dollar phone saying, in earnest: "Of course she needs to sleep with her bracelet on! How are the faeries in dreamland supposed to know she's a princess if she doesn't have her jewels on??"
"We found it in the back of my truck and when she put it on again she stopped crying and said, 'I wanna call Uncle Brendan and thank him for my bwacelet.' And then she thought for a moment, 'But he's probably at work.' And I said, 'It's 11 o'clock at night of course he is... but I bet you if we call him he could pick up." And she said, 'Daddy I don't know how to work your new phone. It's broken." Here she is again."
He made some stage directions to her and she got back on the phone, talking loud and clear. I may have mentioned that she's a big girl now. "Uncle Brendan, thank you for my bracelet. I wanna put it on now and go nightnight but could you tell the jackets to leave me alone?"
"Are the jackets bothering you?"
"They're scary."
"Put the jackets on the phone!" My brother flips on the speaker phone and points it to the closet. "Attention Jacket Monsters! This is Uncle Brendan with an important message! You are to guard and protect the princess and if I ever hear otherwise you will not be happy to see me! GRRRR!"
Then I walked back inside and got my case of bar trash and went home.
It must be really sad at pathetic to be a writer. I could never be one. No matter how good you are: somebody always makes you feel like a moron. You're never smart enough.
From Anthony Burgess:
Nobody had yet solved teh mystery of why Psalm 46 has teh wod "shake" 46 words from the beginning and "speare" 46 words from the end...It is not a matter of interest to scholars. There is a short story by Kipling called 'Proofs of Holy Writ' which shows Shakespeare arguing with Ben Jonson about biblical mots justes, and from it I took the idea--not confirmed by any knon documentation--that the Jacobean poets had been brought in to polish the proofs of the poetic books of the Bible. In my story Shakespeare, weak in Latin and Greek and totally without Hebrew, is left out of the great work and, sensitive about his provincialism and lack of higher education, broods. He ends by inserting his name in Psalm 46, hoping for a rebuke that will at least show that the higher scholars have heard of him, but the "shake" and "speare" are merely blandly accepted as adequate amendments of "tremble" and "sword."
Nobody ever listens to me. My pitch to a big important magazine two years ago:
Dear Dear [Famous Editor],
[Famous writer] gave me your email when I sent him a short pitch about doing a story for Castro's 80th Birthday in august. He said it sounded interesting but that he does not assign articles anymore.
Cuba is an amazing place that will be turned upside down in just a few short years.
The aging ruler is barely holding on now and a big change is ahead, but no one knows what will happen. Under the Cuban Constition Article 94, the First Vice President of the Council of State (Fidel's youngest brother Raul) is first in line of succession. So little scholarship has gone to understanding Raul. He is the complete opposite of fidel is every way. Raul never finished college, he is not a gifted orator, and he has personally killed dozens of betrayers both civilians and soldiers within the regime.
I was hoping to do a story on modern Cuba. I have family contacts in Havana and a pretty good handle on how to get over there. It is very likely that these are the last few years where Cuba is closed to Americans. This would ideally be a few thousand word essay about the insular nation, the embargo, the way Cuba has learned to recycle everything from auto parts to home fixtures, the state of Fidel, and the future of Raul.
(My work has appeared in The New York Post, The Washington Post and The Moscow Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Calgary Herald and I covered the 2004 election for the Liverpool Daily Post). -5/24/06
The article idea went to more than a few meetings and then they said:
Thanks for the pitch and for your interest in writing for Esquire. It's an intriguing idea, but to be honest, foreign stories are a tough sell with us. Not that we never do them, but there really has to be a strong connection to American men in some way. I'm not sure that's the case here. I think this would feel too random. -Famous Editor -5/30/06
My heart is going to explode if I think any more about what's going on. I should probably start doing something useful like yoga or working on Mercutio. But I'm such a sensitive little pussy. Yesterday one of my favorite record producers dismissed the bitch I work for by saying, "Whatever. She, like, does Yoga."
The mail just came. According to the city of Brooklyn there is a warrant out for my arrest. Someday I hope to ghostwrite my own biography so I can make shit up out of the historical record. "...with a warrant out for his arrest, Brendan worked off the books at a Jazz club uptown in a disguise until he saved up enough money to hide in Kentucky."
So that when it comes out I can say, "Disguise?? I was wearing my contacts and I was supposed to go last month but the label wouldn't let me!"
Rick Rubin was waiting for me at soundcheck yesterday. I fell out of bed that morning with one single prayer for Saint Valentine: "in nomine patre please let this day be over as soon as possible."
When my cousins ask me about work and they hear the stories that I can only tell my cousins: they always interrupt (which is how Irish people tell you they are listening) and say shit like, "Man you know everybody." And the thing I always say back, without changing paragraphs, is: "I wish I didn't."
By this time my aunties have already stopped listening and they turn around and make fun of me because they, somewhat fondly, remember a time when I was prelingual and I would shit my pants because they were diapers. Every single person in my family goes to the same Irish funeral home in Hartford and the only thing our corpses can think on the way there is, "In nomine Patre thank God my family didn't have to see me in a nursing home where I was postlingual and shit my pants because they were diapers."
Gramma had a stroke one Easter morning. We stuffed her in a Miami-themed nursing home and my father kept her teeth in the glove compartment of his Acura. I went to see her one day with a copy of Little Women from the Hartford library and she was sitting in a wheelchair, all toothless and gums, wearing her diapers. I miss her everyday. I miss her even more on shitty days.
"Go away and get married,' she said, toothless.
"What?"
"Go back to Simsbury."
"Go back to Simsbury?"
"Please just go."
"I've never read it before. I used to think it was just one of Gramma's stupid romance novels. Someday I'll be twenty-five and my phone will ring and my insanity will wish it were you but instead it will be Rick Rubin and I'll still wish it were you. I'll press ignore and leave my phone at home and go find a copy of it. It's hard to think of your grandmother as a little woman growing up in Beverly Hills when her father would take the train to Detroit because that was how you bought a car back then."
"Go," she turned back to the television. They were playing an old Shirley Temple movie. My editor once told me that I use the word "turn" too much when trying to break up dialogue.
None of the clocks in my house tell the right time so by some miracle I was actually early for soundcheck and the rest of the band was waiting outside in the cold. One of the girls knocked on the door and I could hear Rick Rubin from inside groaning, "Alright, alright."
He opens the door and takes one look at everybody, "Who the hell are you?"
One of the girls goes, "We're the band."
"The band? Where are your instruments?"
She pulls a record out of the bag and points to it.
For no earthly reason, Rick snatches the record with his left hand (his right hand, you mind as well know, is grafted to an iPhone) and lets go of the door. The hinge snaps on the door like a rat trap, shattering the record.
This is not a good thing. My hearing is terrible because of inexpert sound technicians (i.e. being in bands) and it has come to my attention lately that I talk too loud. This means I rely heavily on expert sound technicians and trust them the way color-blind people believe in green lights.
The one thing that I always have to explain to the bands I work with is that everyone else is in a different band. The club owners are basically their own band and having you work there is like lending another band your microphones, knowing they're going to break them. I only work with people I believe in, which is a rule that haunts me on the twenty-first of every month when my bills come in the door.
The greatest joy in my life--in general--is when people that I told myself to believe in turn around and surprise me more than I ever believed in them in the first place. This means I have high expectations. This means that I spend an even greater percentage of my life drinking coffee and freaking out and wishing Gramma would call and tell me not to give a shit about other people, like she used to.
The van pulled up then and I was going to cancel so they all picked up guitars and knocked on the door again. Rick Rubin answered, and before he can say anything the guitarist screams "Rock'nRoll!"
Staring vacantly though giant sunglasses the drummer goes, "Yeah, dude, like I think we're the band."
"I've been waiting for you kids all day," he smiles. "Get on stage!"
After we shoot the video and before I give up on working for other people's record labels I would like to put together an anthology of all the brilliant, unsolicited poetry of 2008 that sneaks through my spam filter.
Viagdgra $1. 17 http://www.superjokeman.com
CHAPTER TWENTYTell me what? said a voice behind them.gave it to the Longbottom boy, dont you remember? Magical Water Plantspausing to think, he did the only thing that made sense he flung himsel
This is from an email from Bronques dated 7/3/05. It gets funnier as the years go by.
-- Don't look directly at the camera, look off to the side as if to indicate that something really cool is happening. But please, don't be excited that something cool is happening. -- If you MUST look at the camera, be sure to make a pouty/kissy face. And don't try to be ironic, it won't translate. -- Anybody can kiss a member of the opposite sex, only cool people can pull of same sex kisses. Caution: Ladies, don't look like you're into it, otherwise you might end up on Collegehumor instead... and you don't want that. -- Show your breasts. And don't forget be angry/disinterested while doing so. Once again, you don't want to come off like a drunken sorority girl who's doing it for attention. They're sluts, you're unique and artsy. -- Guys, show your breasts. More specifically, show your breast (singular). Try to go with the one-handed shirt lift for maximum effect. Oh, and if you look bored while doing so you'll appear to be making a social statement... or something. -- Stand next to James Iha. -- Look terrified, like you've never had your picture taken before. Channel the Amish for inspiration. -- If you have sunglasses... and you're inside... and it's nighttime... wear them. Totally. -- When in doubt, grab the nearest breast. -- If you're the DJ, make it look like you're actually doing something technical. Like pretend to adjust the tempo, or hold your headphones to one side to let people know that you're cueing up your next sick track.* -- Cigarettes : Hipsters :: Wheelchairs : Cripples. Don't leave home without them. -- If you're black, look angry. In order to pull this off you need to remember two things: 1) Keep a white girl nearby to show that everything is okay, and 2) Make sure you're not wearing something ghetto-y, otherwise you'll look like you walked into Luke & Leroy's on the wrong night.** -- Not sure what you're going to wear? Who needs a shirt when you can always just tape x's over your nipples? It's both practical and affordable. -- You know that little straw they give you to mix your drinks? Drink out of it. It gives you an excuse to suck in your cheeks. -- If you're ever 6-12 inches away from a vagina, make sure you stick your tongue out. (originally from this website
*There needs to be a flashing red light on every mixer that goes off every few minutes and says, "SMILE AND MAKE THIS LOOK COMPLICATED." I tell you how many goddam photos I've seen of me with my mouth agape, bored on the decks.
**This joke doesn't make sense anymore, which makes it funnier. When Annie worked there the owner once told me, "I'm having a good year. I've got the hottest black gay night on thursdays and the biggest hipster party on saturdays." He had to sell the place soon after and now it's called LeRoyale.
Being the preacher's son is a wonderful thing that I hope never happens to any of you. I love that my mother is a priest and that she makes everyone's life completely wonderful. Lots of people go to heaven because my mother sprinkles them with holy water.
I'm very proud of her and I love to hear her preach. It is very awkward, however, because everyone expects us to talk like Flander's kids and if you meet us in a different context it turns out we swear like Bridgeport dockworkers.
And there is a need to--how can I put this--not be a selfish little brat. With some of the music I'm working on I realized that I'm supposed to know how to play instruments.
SUBJ: Who did you give the piano to?
KISSES! -B
Feb 12 (12 hours ago) some people from church
Feb 12 (12 hours ago) Can I have it back in the name of St. Joan? I need it in my front hallway to learn piano to learn what the record company is talking about. -b - Show quoted text -
6:10 am (4 hours ago) No! I can't take it back from the people I gave it to. I gave it to their kids as a gift--they both play piano.
Get a lil keyboard and then you can pick out the tunes or whatever it is that you need.
xo - Show quoted text -
10:19 am (31 minutes ago) How about this?
Bring me over to the kids' house and we'll all start playing a duet. Heart and soul. Then you pretend you have an important gig to get to. After you leave I will "accidentally" slam the cover on their tiny little fingers and they'll give up piano for good. Deal? Then we can pull can pull the truck up and scoot it out the door?
Also, it turns out they should call it "toddler grand" since "baby" implies that it's less than one and it turns out they run for three grand. -b - Show quoted text -
I will take their name and address to my grave. In case you never noticed it was a big piece of crap piano. love, The Dalai Momma
I keep this as a reminder to myself that my parents still think I just wake up every day at eleven just so I can pour whiskey on chexmix and blog about the recipe.
I gave up on the argument when I realized my only possible recourse was the admittedly childish stomp, "All the other record producers have unnecessarily large pianos in their tiny apartments!"
Now I have to find out who these poor children are, con my brother into coming along with me and steal it from them in the middle of the night. Then I have to pay for deisel back to Brooklyn and we'll probably have to bring his kids, which means I'll have to ride in back with the keybox. I am looking forward to this, however, because "Mission Impossible Theme" is the only song I know on piano.
This morning I dreamt that an antique shop had moved into Ray's Barber shop. Across the street, where there used to just be a bunch of offices, some older guy opened another barber shop. The guy who ran the antique shop sold me two silver whales, but I didn't have the $30 on me. Then when I went back and the whales had turned into ten or so.
Then I kidnapped Joseph just so he could explain my dreams to me, as he had done for Pharoh. He said, "Yesterday you watched Mystic Pizza and ate Barbecue Potatoe chips before you drank yourself to sleep."
I was so happy that I even gave him back the coat of many colors.
2) At my church we were taught to believe that God created man in his image and likeness. I now believe that God intends for us to laugh with him when it may look like he's laughing at us.
I realize this means that my vision of God is Denis Leary.
3) Feel free to bring a picture of my ex to shred.
Sometimes I wonder about the people I've lost in the pre-gmail era. Helen Cole:you were an English nanny I met at Shakespeare & co. In 2002. we bought 99 centiliters of wine for €2 and drank them in the streets on the way to that art catalogue premier. You introduced me to the value of throwing up by force of will before it happens by force of nature.
Today I switched phone companies. And I feel about seven hundred years old because up until today I had trouble telling the difference between AT&T and the only phone company that serviced our neighborhood growing up. SNET. I can still remember the obscenely outdated jingle playing through payphones (in town calls were $0.10) "...S-N-E-T we go beyond the call!" as if Shirley Ellis and Aretha just wanted to give a shout out to their phone company.
Earlier this week I was out with a girl only I ended up being involved in a girl-time catch up session with her friend. We had lunch at one of those asian places near NYU where the food is surprisingly nice and cheap. The girl said, "I was just really looking forward to having him as a boyfriend that I could post on my facebook profile picture with me."
I threw up directly in her lap. It cost me $8.95 but it was worth it.
I love the sound of rain at night. In Dublin there used to be a thing called the Irish Writer's Museum and in it they have this picture of Yeats that I saw when I was 20-years-old. All it says is something about how he was the greatest writer of all time but getting bad reviews crippled him into thinking that he wasn't a good writer. I just wanted to smack him and shout, "Uncle Liam! Who gives a shit what they say in London? Sing me a song and pour me a drink for God's own sake! Fuck it if the Piano's out of tune!"
The Indian Upon God from Crossways by William Butler Yeats
I passed along the water's edge below the humid trees, My spirit rocked in evening light, the rushes round my knees, My spirit rocked in sleep and sighs; and saw the moor-fowl pace All dripping on a grassy slope, and saw them cease to chase Each other round in circles, and heard the eldest speak: Who holds the world between His bill and made us strong or weak Is an undying moorfowl, and He lives beyond the sky. The rains are from His dripping wing, the moonbeams from His eye. I passed a little further on and heard a lotus talk: Who made the world and ruleth it, He hangeth on a stalk, For I am in His image made, and all this tinkling tide Is but a sliding drop of rain between His petals wide. A little way within the gloom a roebuck raised his eyes Brimful of starlight, and he said: The Stamper of the Skies, He is a gentle roebuck; for how else, I pray, could He Conceive a thing so sad and soft, a gentle thing like me? I passed a little further on and heard a peacock say: Who made the grass and made the worms and made my feathers gay, He is a monstrous peacock, and He waveth all the night His languid tail above us, lit with myriad spots of light.
Amy said there'd be days like this and conveniently enough: tears dry on their own.
Tonight I met Julia and her boyfriend at Hank's. They're going to Paris and Berlin for the week and I can't wait for my postcard. But they had a little bit to drink before I got there and I told them about the latest rejection.
"It's okay. I know it's not the end of anything but everyone is being such assholes everywhere else. I wouldn't mind having one solid thing in my life."
"You take everything so hard. Lighten up."
"Since my baby left me I have found a new place to dwell. It's down at the end of lonely street. The heartbreak hotel. I"ll be so lonely baby. And I'm so lonely. I could be so lonely I could die."
"You're moving?"
"Just until I finish Mercutio. It's a shithole. Although it's always crowded. You still can find some room for broken hearted lovers to cry there in gloom."
"Why don't you keep your regular place?"
"The bellhops tears keep flowing and the desk clerks dress in black. They've been so long on Lonely St. they're never coming back. They get so lonely, baby. They get so lonely. They get so lonely they could die."
"From now on when you go to a show, instead of email me about it just send your review to the magazines you've worked for. They're good magazines. I loved seeing them and going to shows with you for free."
"Fine. But if your baby leaves you and you've got a tale to tell. Just take a walk down Lonely St. to Heartbreak hotel. We'll be so lonely we could die."
1) My assistant texted me out of grave concern, "I know how important your writing is to you. Are you completely heartbroken?"
She's quit three times and quite recently she's been laid off by me because I can't afford to pay her anymore.
2) My homeless girl rang the bell. "Was that your new girlfriend yesterday?"
"Jack, I'm not having a good day. I'm sorry."
"You broke?"
"Worse than usual. What's wrong?"
"Pressure pills."
"How much?"
"$10"
"Fuck."
"What?"
"I won't have it until tomorrow."
"Shit. If you broke then you come with me. It's pantry day."
She walked me across the street to the church full of the assholes I hate. I walked in the door and felt terrible inside. Here I am eating the food that's meant to poison the spawn of the junkies who sleep in my subway station. All the cans are dented and the oatmeal looks like the food on Lost.
Only this time I'm not some boy skipping school and clowning around the homeless shelters in Paris (which are fantastic Endives Au Gratin and a chilled eclair for desert!) now I'm actually completely fucking poor. In fact, I'm poorer than my fucking homeless girl because I gave her my last $75 and she got a job at a Sandwich place.
I tried to think about the record I'm trying to make and I was in the middle of wishing I understood drum-mics when the guy at the door shouts to me, "Do you have a drumset?"
I looked at him like Pharoh looked at Joseph when he interpretted his first dream, "No. How did you know?"
"I have a drumset! Potatoes or Pasta?"
"Pasta."
"I play drums. I have lots of drums. Tuna or Peanut butter?"
I was about to put on my big act and get this kid to show me his studio at home when it dawned on me. These are the kids from the short-bus who have to volunteer for shit.
Homeless Jack walked me home with my bag of illegally hydrogenated groceries, "I just want the juice they gave me, honey. The rest is for you."
In college I had a secret relationship with a teacher because I like anything that smiles at me. She lived on the street that we called "the gypsy road" and at night we played a game called "Scary Avenue" where we turned off all the car lights and tried to see how far we could make it driving without chickening out.
A friend of mine asked me one day if I were sleeping with her but the way he asked me was he said, "You showering in the afternoon?" I miss having a shared language.
Her house was on the road along the river where the government gave land grants to Vietnam Vets when they came home. On the first night I met her she came into my coffee shop out of the rain and the droplets stayed suspended on the wool of her peacoat and curley brown hair.
Shit didn't go down so well for her after that. Or for me, come to think of her. One day I ran into her and she was working in a grocery store coffee shop. I was upset about something that day and she said f I ever needed a place to stay I could stay with her.
Like a fucking idiot I actually got her number and took her up on the proposition. But when I called her I realized immediately that she was just trying to be polite in public.
It's the underlying emotion that I have always when I'm about to fuck something up. Don't email that agent more than once a month or she's gonna think you'll be staying on her couch and showing in the afternoon.
If there is a single thing in the world I hate more than rejection letters it is getting them via email from a person I've never met. I'm convinced that I come off looking like those gimpy DJs I know who swarm on older DJs like baby birds waiting to get fed. So instead I do what I have to do at Guitar Center and Target when I need someone's help. I pretend I'm crazy.
-----Original Message----- From: Brendan Sullivan Sent: 06 February 2008 16:26 To: Some Girl in London Subject: Re: Name of Office I Sent it To
Tell me now and I won't ask again:
Will you still mean it tomorrow? -Brendan
>I'd be happy to consider other samples of your >work if you'd like to send them to me...
This poor girl in London has probably been avoiding this email for weeks and already regrets sending it from a replyable address. She has no idea that i've just been sitting in my apartment all this time waiting listening to "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?"
I forgot to mention this when you were young and in college and still taking notes. No matter what happens the night before: do not ever check your email in the morning until you've already finished writing for the day. The email will still be awaiting you in your inbox and no matter what you will always look more important if you make them wait. It doesn't matter whose agent she is or what time it is in London:
Dear Brendan Sullivan,
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to see MERCUTIO (it is, you will notice, also my preference to capitalize titles*). I was excited to read this because I loved the hand-written taster** you posted to us before Christmas and indeed, felt that your writing in the opening pages of the novel evinced the personality and flair that the submission taster promised.
Clearly, you've taken the trouble to do a huge amount of research on your subject - as a 'satanically organized' person myself, the notion of your card index pleased me a LOT.
I am however sorry to say that my first response to the material I read was disorientation. While your love and great feel for the English language is amply demonstrated, I am simply confused by the writing, the toggling between a Shakespearean and quasi-modern voice, and the assumed knowledge of the reader. Perhaps this problem arises from the challenge of condensing and finding a tone by which to represent all your research but I was left longing for a clearer story, more narrative momentum.
That you can write is beyond question, and I'd be happy to consider other samples of your work if you'd like to send them to me. In the meantime, I do hope you find an agent who 'gets' MERCUTIO better than I do and wish you all the best.
Yours sincerely,
My Single Favorite British Author's Agent
*I told her that New York agents are all morons who confused Bridget Jones with Sex and the City and how you have to CAPITALIZE the title of your novel in your emails or they will ignore it and you because they cannot read.
**One night I came home wasted at about seven in the morning, tore out the middle 30 pages of Romeo & Juliet and wrote a cover letter to this woman in Sharpie.
Sometimes I imagine what novel I could have written during all the hours I've spent pawing around girls' apartments (after they've left for work) searching--mole-like--for my misplaced glasses.
1) My street is the same street in Brooklyn where Biggie went to high school. Which is weird because it's also the same place where I have to vote. It's always interesting to me to stand where someone else stood. It reminds me that truth and feelings are relative and irrelevent.
Everyday on the way to high school I remember listening to this fantastic record that was, to me, dedicated to all the teachers that told me I'd never amount to nothing. To all the people that lived above the buildings I was hustling infront of when I was just tryna make some money to feed the daughter I'd have some day.
Today I went in there and I knew that everyone in Brooklyn is somewhat retarded and that I am, as a resident, no exception. I walked down the street and walked in the first door. Leaving my house in Brooklyn is a fantastic time for Brendan to discover that he has this horribly racist cousin named "Brandon" who lives inside of him.
Obviously I'm not outward about this. But I do live in a busy nexus in Brooklyn where the DMV and the only large grocery store you can get to are located. It's not uncommon to be walking through target and hear someone's mother shout, "Unique!"
And have three little corn-rolled girls turn around.
"Euneek get your butt over here!" Meanwhile Uneak and Euneke go back to playing.
Anyway, today at Biggie's high school I walked in the wrong door for voting and I asked the school security guard a simple question. "Is voting here today?"
And she turned around to me, and with not a single ounce of levity in her voice she said, "I don't know, baby. Go to the office and they'll call her down."
1) Nikki and I had a joke about her former husband. After they broke up he saw a picture of her in a magazine and cut it out to show his friends when they asked what happened to his wife. "What is he--Costanza?"
Right after that Nikki started to appear in magazines on her own and when I wanted to tell her how proud I was of her I would say "You look great in _____. I'm being Costanza about it at work."
For some reason I find it comforting to be a neurotic as Larry David, but embarassing to act like George Costanza.
I saw this picture the other day and I figured I was just staring at it because I personally enjoy women and breasts. About halfway home I realized that I remembered when the bra in the picture was a drawing on a girlfriend's desk.
2) I think I already said something about this but I drink too much to recall right now.
Anthony Burgess, with constantly dwindling sales from before anyone cared to read Clockwork Orange goes to Dublin with the brand-new television station in London--BBC-2 to do a documentary about James Joyce. Most of the film had to be done over in voice-over because it was so cold that he had to heat himself with Jameson.
Anyway, Dublin distrurbed me. It was ancestoral ground and also holy. There was no whiff of sexual sin in it under the smell of roasting hops and peat. The sins were venial and were mostly drunkennes and calumny. As Joyce had demonstrated in his story 'The Dead', in Ireland there were no true divisions between dead and living, mythical and real. An old Dublin woman swore that the Blooms lived on Capel Street. In Glasnevin cemetary I met Dominic Behan, glassy-eyed and looking for his dead brother Brendan so he could piss on the fucker. The categories of logic did not apply, despite Catholicised Aristotle. The servant in the Cork hotel who brought a telegram to a man's room and was asked to shove it under the door replied that he couldn't because it was on a tray. That makes sense: he saw the tray and the telegram on it as a single entity. Freudians say that the Irish are the only race impervious to psychoanalysis. Dreams is it you're wanting now? Sure, I can tell you some lovely ones.
I read that this morning in Bed Stuy on the G train on my way home from last night. I wanted to turn to the woman next to me and say, "Good news! I'm not nuts I'm just Irish!" And just for the hell of it I decided to check back on what I wrote when I stayed with Pete in Ireland.
My arrival to Ireland did not have half of the confetti I expected.
Customs went like this: one desk says 'EU Members' the other 'Non EU.' I waited inline for a stamp while the fatman behind the other counter goes 'nationality?nationality?nationality?nationality?nationality?' People cruise through and spout out any country they like and the terrorists have already won.
Remember the liberation of currency in the last post? Well, it could have helped one thing: getting me the hell into town two miles away.
I was Ł1.10 short of full fare and so I asked the woman at the bus desk where the ATM was. 'There isn't a cash machine on the docks.' An international gateway that goes directly from one currency to another, and they don't have a cash machine. Fucking great.
Before leaving everyone always promised that you don't need travellers checks because you can just get money wherever you need from an ATM. So far this has not worked in England, Turkey, and Ireland. The only three countries I've ever seen.
Do you know how things get produced? I do, because I smelled them as I walked the two miles from the docks. Somewhere between the oil refinery and the factory that--from the smell of it--seemed only to produce rotting Doritoes, I developed a cancerous cough.
Somehow I figured that as a port city, the ferry would come right into the city center and unload us right into some historic site. Instead I walked over a cast iron bridge where teenage boys lobbied rocks at me and actually wore scally caps. -11/1/02
I had not only completely forgotten about this, but I re-remembered that I had been downplaying this story before because I felt like people didn't believe it. There was a point where I apparently gave a shit if people believed me when I was telling the truth. Life is always funny if I have enough time to tell the story right.
Do you remember in Back to the Future 2, when you first recognize that the glass edifice in the town is actually the clock tower? Today I dodged a Burger King and became dumbstruck by the cite of bullet scarred columns as I faced The Dublin General Post Office, the fortress and ultimate surrender site of the 1916 Easter Uprising against British colonial rule in Ireland.
I walked inside expecting to have to pay admission and tour the history, and I ended up in a line to buy stamps. How could such a historical sight be allowed to serve it's intended fuction? I mean, that makes sense and all: You wouldn't expect the White house to be a War of 1812 museum, would you?
Instead I found myself at this pivotal historic cite. It was here where the British army, deep into the trenches of World War 1, arrested for execution the 7 leaders of the rebellion and spared the lives of two men.
Michael Collins was allowed to live because no one listened to him anyway. He later went on to win the war of Independence and ushered in the first treaty that kicked the British out.
Eamon DeValera should have died as well, but he was born in America and the Brits didn't want anything to interfere with convincing the Americans to fight with them in World War I. He later served as president for 40 years all together. The history, the moment, the holyshit-that-was-here! hit me all at once and then I realized was I still blocking the line for stamps.
1) I finally broke down and bought Protools. I've resisted electronic recording for so long that I've deleted Garageband from every computer I've ever owned. I feel 1000 years old right now and I'm thinking of calling one of my younger DJs over to help me. I'm almost positive I plugged my cellphone into the XLR input.
2) Dear Farmington Valley Mall demolition crew circa 1997,
Since I'm almost positive you guys keep a satanically archived record of every piece of late-sixties Americana that you've demo'd: could one of you mail me the phonebooth that was in front of Waldenbooks from 1982-1997? It has the worlds most perfect accoustics. At the Guitar Center on my block they sell an accoustic shield quite like it, but it folds in thirds which means it has two sharp edges. It also costs $395, which is unacceptable.
When I was eight I used to stand in that for hours just to hear it. This was when phonecalls cost a dime and books cost about twice what they do now.
There's no point in pretending this wasn't hilarious. The only reaons I was in the bar in the first place was because I went broke going to see my own bands play shows. Dana's Dad gave me $50 to help them move her into her new apartment and I spent it on cover charges and drinks for the bands because they are even poorer than I am.
We have it on closed caption and turned up the little flat screen speaker, shushing each other. It felt vaguely like when Mr. O'Flynn wheeled a TV into eighth grade history class for the OJ verdict.
Conan said, "I've got 40 people back stage coaching me on how to pronounce this. Les Savy Fav."
The bassists girlfriend and I shot the shit about what an ass Dr. Phil is in real life. Then it started and Harrington came out in his hilarious costume. We all made fun of him. Shit, he made fun of him.
Haynes was next to me and, after this joke should have expired he goes, "Hey. Look I'm on TV!"
I turned to him and said, "There's two kids in Ohio watching this together right now. One's saying, 'I don't get it.' The other's saying, 'Me neither but I want to!"
He corrected me: "You mean Omaha."
The jokes and the shushing were unstoppable. I'm not really good at writing stories about joy or funny things (unless the jokes on me) but I will share my favorite line from the night. After they had been through everything and they were fading into the end I shouted, "Holy shit! I know that guy! I met him once in a bar in Brooklyn!"
Yesterday I went to a bar where I worked up until recently and the bartender had just gotten back from tour. Jay was back there. Jay and I have a special relationship. Not only does he have the same first name as my big brother, but her trained me there, made me sing "Milkshake" at Kareoke night and we also both have a history with the same girl.
"If you're going to play Beachland in Cleveland you gotta go to my friend's record shop down the street."
"I went there last year and two people came to see us. This year I went back and they have a hand-written sign of their top selling albums. We're number eight and the show's sold out. That's what happens when you get one review on Pitchfork."
