When I was a wee one my mother used to have me make a list of things I am thankful for. I was raised Christian Scientist so this was what passed for Tylenol and Immodium AD. Lately the weather and the economy and assholes in general have been getting me down. So here are blatant material possessions that are putting the ketchup on my hotdog.
Thai Coconut Curry from Bite. $5.50 for good Thai Food at a sandwich shop three doors from Beauty Bar? Yes please! I've been eating here every single Tuesday for almost five years now. In that time I could have completed medical school or been elected president. Unfortunately, in the past month another moron has made this his place to be at the exact time that I sit down. He is like what I would look like if you were making a movie where you based a character on me and that character were a complete jagoff. He has more obnoxious glasses, HE TALKS REALLY LOUDLY ABOUT EVERYTHING IN HIS BORING, PATHETIC LIFE AND TOTALLY WANTS YOU TO COME CHECK OUT HIS BAND. Some people need to get a blog or a girlfriend just so they can shut the fuck up.
My new pants. I'm a six-year old when it comes to clothing. When I was a kid my wardrobe was entirely handmedowns from my fat fuck brother. He was the biggest kid in school and I didn't hit puberty til my sophomore year of college. Whenever I did get a pair of pants for my very own I would always wear them out of the store. To this day I confuse shopclerks when I got to pay for shoes and they discover a pair of ratty old shoes in the box. I smile, devilishly, and explain that they are on my feet. The whole world is having a sale, however, most of it is crap. Purchasing pants is one of my least favorite things in life. It is becoming difficult to find pants in my size that aren't made to be obnoxiously skin tight. Some manpants now even have stretchy fabric. I hate these pants because they never have enough room for an iPhone or they give you cameltoe. I also wear boots alot so I actually do require bootcut pants. I spent an hour in Uniqlo which is like what American Apparel would look like in the eighth circle of hell. Afterwards I was trying on jeans in Bloomingdales to no avail. Men's pants are getting continually moronic (fashion fade has gone too far--last week I saw a pair of pants that have a fade-outline of brass knuckles, which had the tough/gay quotient of a barbed wire tattoo.) But then I found a pair of comfortable bluestriped railroad conductor-like pants. They fit without cameltoe and when assholes step in front of me and I'm thinking of saying something assholish back I just say to myself "Choo-choo!" and keep walking.
I was in Miami eating at Books & Books cafe for the second day in a row and these headphones kept staring at me from the shop window across the street. "Plug me into your iphone!" they begged. "We're portable and the entire left earphone is a volume knob--we're like a Technics stereo equilizer for your face!" And I said, "I would but people give me headphones all the time and I break them. Plus I have the old iPhone so I can't use normal planet-earth headphones." "We're made for the old iPhone!" I like them so much that sometimes I wear them when I don't have to. Like when I'm falling asleep.
Hulu.com I have never personally owned a television. Long before they started putting television online the assholes who do things on the internet put downloadable shows up. In eighth grade somebody put Beavis and Butthead clips up on AOL and since then I have become offended that advertisers interrupt my moron-time. Advertisements, especially local New York ads for Italian restaurants I will never go to in Queens, are like the loud moron in Bite who won't just let me enjoy a six month old copy of Time Out NY before I go to work. Since 2004 I have watched The Daily Show everyday by downloading it. But now Hulu is so good that if something isn't available on it I just don't bother watching. Also, lately The Daily Show from the same night has become available by the time I'm home from work, which means I can watch it in bed with my glorious, glorious headphones.
The new Trader Joe's on Atlantic and Union. My favorite business locations are as follows: anything in an old firehouse and anything in an old, beautiful captains-of-industry bank. This one is the latter. It is a fifteen minute walk from my house (on the way there I listen to Ginsberg Read "Howl" on my glorious headphones). For $35 I can get all the food I need for the week and I get the twin joys of feeling like I'm eating something healthy and not having to go to Whole Foods to pay $98 for it. I used to work above a Whole Foods and the office-joke was calling it "Whole Paycheck." Normally I ride out to Redhook to go to the Fairway out there but I haven't ridden my Vespa since October.
Justin's updates from tour. A friend and former showmate of mine is on tour right now and he updates almost too frequently. Justin is the only person I know who is more ridiculous than I. One time we had a show together at Rebel and he forced everyone who got in for free to buy his jewelry or Merch. He is the inspiration for this post because for no apparent reason he will send a video of them doing something like playing tennis.
Learning someone's name before I meet them. This joke never gets old. You walk into work and someone says, "You're going to have to train Catherine." And then you walk over to this new person and try and look excited/surprised and say, "Ohmygod! Catherine?" This joke is wonderful with alcoholics! They have that moment of terror where they wonder if maybe they've slept with you and forgotten.
The Google Voice Search Application. Not because it works whatsoever but because it never does at all. The otherday I was thinking of hot drinks for the weather and I remembered how much I loved walking around freezing cold Prague with a plastic cup of hot wine. So I open the phone to find out what wine to do this with. "Prague Hot Wine" I say and google gives me all the information I need for "Fraud Hot Line." And I go, "No, Prague. Hot. WINE." If Robots had breakrooms they would complain about how all humans talk to them like they're retarded. The Google Robot's revenge is that it then sends me to "Drug Hotline" and finally to "Fall Movie Times." This program is the robot version of an elderly hardware store employee.
Gay black dudes. On the flight back from Miami I was in the 30th row. Our plane was packed because the flight before us landed in the Hudson. There was a long line to the door and I was in the middle seat. It was taking so long to deplane that I pulled my book back out and the woman on the window seat goes, "Can we get moving here?" And I said, "We're stuck here either way." She let out a heavey mom-sigh and said, "Are you going to stay here all day?" And I said, "You're not my mother, you know." And she said, "Well that's for sure." I relented and stood up a minute later, which was annoying. I'm 6'2" and I only fit in airplanes length wise. After a minute of standing with my neck pressed against the airmasks I said, "Boy, we're still not moving, Mom." She rolled her eyes at me and put on the fur hat that came with the fur coat that Bernie Madoff bought her. Leigh was two rows behind me and the two gay black dudes in her row go, "Hmmm-hmmm, lookit what yo man said to Cruella DeVille!"
Appetite for Self Destruction is a book about the music industry that I loved. Here is the history of the music business in brief: There used to be hundreds of labels all over the world, then the radio companies started buying up artists and they owned all the means of production and distribution for LPs which were heavy and expensive to ship and fans boycotted any record that cost more than $8.99. Disco was huge for them and they grew bigger and more consolidated and didn't expect the backlash. Then everyone boycotted disco for no reason (some believe because disco was for blacks and homos) and then everyone jumped on board with a black gay guy who made music that sounded suspiciously like disco--Michael Jackson. Then they created the CD which you could not roll a joint on as well as you could with an LP. But what you could do was snort cables of blow off of it. Music fans loved the CD and some re-purchased their entire record collection on CDs (at the meeting where the CD was debuted to the record companies their favorite part was watching the drawer open and close). In order to pay off the inventors of the CD they were expensive--$16.99 for no reason other than huge amounts of profit, which the record companies used to purchase blow. All of these addicts spent the next ten years making terrible, near-disposable music and tried to ween people off of buying expensive-to-produce cassettes. The average advance on a record was a million, although half went to produce the record, pay the producer and then more to the advertising, which meant that a top-selling four-person rock band like Hole was left with $180,000 to split. As an example of the moronic way of distribution (and the fact that you had to buy the entire record even if you just wanted one song) "Who Let The Dogs Out" at one time outsold what Lily Allen currently does or than that other band I was in. But then Napster ruined everyone and the moronic record industry was so addicted to their precious, precious CDs that they tried suing their own fans (that didn't work) they tried protecting the CDs digitally (this ended up sending a virus to everyone who purchased Neil Diamond's supposed comeback record). Steve Jobs has almost no interest in music whatsoever, but if people were going to put 200 stolen records on their hard drives he was going to sell them a $500 music player to hold them all. In order to make this seem slightly legal he started the iTunes store, which the record labels only signed on to because he had an ad budget of $15million, which is more than the record industry itself was willing to spend on selling records. This made it possible for hundred of small labels all across the country to sell their entire albums for $8.99.
Seeing my girlfriend half-naked in magazines and knowing that somewhere everyone's mother is watching her and then not working out for another week. Next month she's in Cosmo half naked in bed with a male model who wants to watch TV. Each of these shoots are fun for me because because of her contract all these shoots have to be catered and I get to go to a place where models hang out in their underwear and I can enjoy all the food they won't eat. There's also the joy of watching a makeup artist try and cover up her Obama tattoo with concealer. (The link is listed as "Very slighty NSFW due to DJ VH1’s amazing girlfriends, amazingly badly designed dress.")
Periodically I think about giving up on nightlife. That only really happens when I get a minor setback like not getting paid or something getting cancelled at the last minute. The people I know who have been in nightlife for over fifteen years are sad, empty lifeless awful people. There's a guy who I DJ with sometimes and he had three children. I sometimes want to ask him how he feels on Take Your Dad to School Day when he has to wake up six hours earlier than usual and scrub off his makeup.
I guess the key is not to get too involved. It's just a job and it's actually a pretty bullshit job anyway. Sometimes I forget to have fun.
Probably the most ridiculous thing I do is try to have my own off-hours nightlife life. This means that for no reason I will be behind the bar or in the DJ booth and I'll find myself itching to be on the other side of it. Last night I left work at 3 and went to three other places on my way home just to shake the stench of work off of me.
Tonight on my way to DJ I forgot my motown records, which is a shame because I was really in the mood to play this:
Now if there's a smile on my face it's only there trying to fool the public but when it comes down to fooling you now honey that's quite a diff'rent subject.
Don't let my glad expression give you the wrong impression really I'm sad oh sadder than sad; you're gone and I'm hurting so bad like a clown I pretend to be glad.
Now there's some sad things known to man but ain't too much sadder than the tears of a clown. when there's no one around. just like pagliaccic did I try to keep my sadness hid; Smiling in the public eye but in my lonely room I cry the tears of a clown
when there's no one around.
Oh yeah baby now if there's a smile upon my face don't let my glad expression give you the wrong impression
don't let the smile I wear make you think I don't care. Now if I appear to be carefree it's only to camouflage my sadness
in order to shield my pride I try to cover this hurt with a show of gladness but don't let my show convince you that I've been happy since you decided to go.
Oh I need you so. I'm hurt and I want you to know but for others I put on a show.
And then I thought that this was a bullshit way to spend the evening.
I am getting ready to write another novel. This is difficult because I realize that everytime I write one of these things I have to accept that I tend to go a little bit crazy. And everytime I go crazy I lose a good friend.
At 5:40 AM last Tuesday I met up with Leigh at Penn Station and we boarded a train known as "The Inaugural Express." It was an Amtrak train borrowed from New Jersey Transit, which meant we got to ride on the top of a double decker all the way to Washington, DC to watch the inauguration. Fun stuff!
In general I am a huge fan of history, travel, and racking up as many Forest Gump moments that I can. I had planned to meet up with the Air Mattress Posse that I worked with on the Obama campaign in Florida.
We pulled in to Union Station in DC and decided to walk around. Barack Obama was indeed something more than a celebrity. The Obama name is more like a new national sports team that everyone wants to get a piece of. They sold Obama hats, t-shirts, posters, scarves, calenders, buttons, pins, bumperstickers. Lots of young black families brought their children to watch in the frigid air of that January morning.
Washington, DC is not a city that is very much prepared for something like this. I was surprised. There was nowhere to get coffee. We waited in line at the Starbucks for about 20 minutes. Starbucks was also the only bathroom around and that had a line just as long. To get into the mall you had to wait in a long, trail-of-tears kind of line or go through one of the side entrances.
I had heard that the other campaigners had tickets so we walked around and tried to meet up with them. It felt like something of a school field trip. Lots of teenagers rocking around, trying to text their friends and clown around in front of girls. At 11:30 we were standing in a mass before the security entrance and I realized something. We were going to miss it!
The line wasn't moving so we decided to get out. We ran back towards the station to a firefighers bar where I had been before. They weren't letting anyone in. No one was. It was 11:45 and I had paid $528 in train tickets to stand around in the cold.
I called a friend of mine who is a firefighter in DC and he told us to come up to his firehouse and watch it from a bar in Adams Morgan. We hopped in a cab and on the way over we heard Joe Biden get sworn in. Then I heard the beautiful voice of Aretha Franklin.
I have gotten in two fights with strangers over Aretha Franklin in the last week. First of all--singing outdoors in a mall into a non-condenser mic is not easy. Pavoratti would have lip synced. She didn't. And second of all--it's just a fucking hat and she's the fucking greatest so shut the fuck up about Aretha Franklin's hat bow.
We got to a bar in Adams Morgan called Asylum. It seemed like a very ambitious place that I would have loved if I didn't live in New York City. Vegan bar snacks, brunch every day and bands and DJs at night. It was actually something like the bar I used to DJ at in Chicago.
We watched the inauguration on the big screen and then we had 10 hours to kill before our train would take us back home. We shopped for books and walked around and enjoyed our first moments of the new administration. I fell asleep in a coffeeshop down the street, but pretended that I was just reading (no one falls for that). We went to my friend's firehouse and he showed us the situation and watched the way that a firehouse operates. He let us slide down the pole!
I think I slept the next day until 4:00 and I've yet to recover.
I hope I can work this story into a crappy teen comedy I write some day. In general I am terrible at writing sex scenes in stories. I want the lights to fade out and for the audience to respect their privacy. One of my favorite sex scenes is the one in High Fidelity in which Rob says simply, "I'm not going into all that other stuff, the who-did-what-to-whom stuff. You know "Behind Closed Doors" by Charlie Rich? That's one of my favorite songs."
But that's not exactly how life works. I have friends who will tell me amazingly great stories about the strangers that inhabit their beds (Quick one? Okay, it goes like this. She says, "Hit me." He does. She says "No, hit me.") And I agree with Kinsey that we know more about the sexual habits of other species than we do about our own.
The sexual habits between continents, for example has been more interesting to me. For example.
One night I was downtown with some friends and I got a text from Brina, "My British friend wants to fuck you." This was very exciting because I had never met this person. I do not think of myself at the sort of pin-up man-beef that make pretty girls squirmy at work. I entertained the idea that this might be the only women who would ever be attracted to me entirely in theory.
Perhaps she theoretically liked my facebook picture? Perhaps she was just viscerally drawn to Shakespearean Fanfictionist? Maybe, like Cocaine Allie, she was going through her glasses phase ("The Joy of Specs.")
I met up with her, she met me. Neither of us seemed alarming to the other. She was a very cute British girl with one Jamaican parent and her accent reminded me a little too much of Zadie Smith. A couple of hours later we were back in my apartment. Things were neither going good nor bad. I think I went out for cigarettes and she sat on the floor with my laptop going through my music. When I came back she said, with great delight, "You have so much great music!"
Being complimented on your music collection is one of those wonderful things that never happens to boys in real life. I can remember spending countless hours of my life in record stores all across this country, thinking Adriannically that someday I would be on a first date with a girl who would go through my records and melt. "You have the first press 12" of Make-Up's 'I Want Some'?"
And this time it actually happened! Only she said, "You have so much Led Zeppelin!" which is not what I had in mind. But. Then she put on this song.
Only, like, it was the original because I'm like that. (But press play above. It'll be more fun.)
(Intro)
British people are, in general, not the most expressive. But this song lit this girl up in a way, curiously enough, that Zadie Smith says British people only get on New Years Eve. She climbed ontop of me and growled, "You don't understand, Brandon. When I hear Led Zeppelin. I. Need. To fuck."
"It's pronounced Bren--"
(00:12)
You need coolin, baby, Im not foolin, Im gonna send you back to schoolin, Way down inside honey, you need it, You've been learnin' And baby, I been learnin' All them good times Baby, baby, I've been discernin'-a A-way, way down inside A-honey, you need-a I'm gonna give you my love, ah I'm gonna give you my love, ah
Oh, whole lotta love
wanna whole lotta love...
(01:18)
Of course this was wonderful. I was worried that this would be one of those nights where the girl loses interest in the cab home and I'm instead left with a tenant who isn't going to be too keen on the idea of "writing time" starting three-and-a-half-hours after they pass out.*
(02:09)
But then things started to get a little crazy. The lyrics posted for this part of the song are as follows and I think they sum up what was going on.
(various mumblings and screechings with cool effects)
So there I was with a girl I had just met, in a pile on my floor while she was giving me ever inch of her love and I was lying, half in terror, while trying to hold back all of my various mumblings and screechings with cool effects.
Another translation of it is listed as this:
(voice from behind) You've got to bleed on me, yeah (tortured soul) Ah, ah, ah, ah Ah, ah, ah, ah, ha, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah ah, ah, ah, ah, ha, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah No, no, no, no, ah Love, love, low-ow-ow-ow-ove Oh, babe, oh--
(03:08 is a perfect description of what was going on then after which she seemed to slow down and the tempo changed entirely.)
(her)You been coolin' (him)And baby, I've been droolin' (her)All the good times, baby, I've been misusin'-a/Oh A-way, way down inside I'm gonna give ya my love/Ah I'm gonna give ya every inch of my love/Ah I'm gonna give you my love/Ah Yes, alright, let's go/Ah
Way down inside/ Way down inside Way downinside, woman, you/woman woman, you/you need it need/Love
Keep in mind. I am definately the woman in this, lyrically. Anytime you would air guitar in this song she was pressing down into my shoulders or knocking the wind out to my chest. I was a human bag pipe.
(05:13)
My, my, my, my My, my, my, my/Ahh Oh, shake for me, girl I wanna be your backdoor man-a Hey, oh, hey, oh/Ahh Hey, oh, oooh Oh, oh, oh, oh Hoo-ma, ma, hey Keep a-coolin', baby A-keep a-coolin', baby A-keep a-coolin', baby Uh, keep a-coolin', baby, wuh, way-hoh, oo-ohh
In the morning she awoke in terror. I awoke sore. She lept out of bed and I heard her footsteps pacing up and down my floors.
She burst into the room ten seconds later, covering one eye with her hand, "WHERE'S THE LOO?"
"Downstairs."
She was in there for maybe ten or fifteen minutes. I was worried, of course. My first thought was that she didn't mean for any of this to happen. She came out and said, "I can't see out me eye!"
"What?"
She moved her hand away and her eye was indeed swollen. "Let me have a look. Okay, shhh....shhhhh...honey you're going to be okay. You're probably just allergic to something in my apartment. You may have gotten a splinter in there or something. Okay. Here." I made her a little ice pack and had her lay down on the couch.
"Thank you."
"Okay, tell me. Are you one of those British girls who hates English breakfast or do you secretly like it?"
"I secretly love it."
I had not planned on having any transatlantic guests that thursday but I did have an apartment full of English Breakfast supplies. Heinz Baked Beans, Malt Vinegar, red potatoes, eggs, (veg)sausage, and I even had the tomatoes to fry (although I think that part is kind of gross.)
She was starting to feel better so I had her sit up and I took an old eye-shade thing from Jet Blue and put the soft, silk band over one eye. Breakfast was served and she smiled, somewhat embarrassed over how the morning started. But we both grin into our potatoes and I can see a smile on the face of the girl who wears half an eye-shade over one eye, pirate-like.
"Can I ask you something, Brandon?"
"Of course."
"Did we have sex last night?"
*This is the worst. "What are you doing?" "Shhh, honey go back to sleep." "Are you okay?" "I'm fine. Thanks. You need water or anything?" "It's seven in the morning are you coming to bed?" "I...I did but I have this thing...nevermind." Writing day ruined, once again, by the confines of real life.
In Brooklyn there is an illegal ad-hoc paratransit van system run. It is known as the "Dollar Van.". The drivers pull up to bus stops, honk and people hop on. It's especially useful if you live far from the subway or you have groceries.
But my favorite part is that--unlike the ads in the subway--this service has a single, ghetto market. Sometimes it's the way to find out about big dub parties. Othertimes it's just sad, like this ad which says "Does he really have his father's eyes?"
Currently the fashionable phrase among rich people in Manhattan is "I would be on the beach in ______ if Bernie [Madoff] didn't have all my money." I have a reverse version of this phrase which is something like, "It's so exciting to be back in Miami. I've never been just for pleasure before!"
It's one of those dickhead things you say just incase anyone forgot for a second that you're a jackass.
Despite the wonderfully weird year I've had, I managed to make almost no money off of my enterprises. From October to December I think I made maybe $120/week. I mastered the art of turning things into Macaroni and Cheese. Luckily in December I booked a couple of good parties. I've also scored the last saturday of every month DJ'ing for a good percentage in Williamsburg. I manage to pull rent out of my ass at the last minute each time and watch my checks just barely clear online as if it were the pole vault.
Despite this unending amount of freetime I haven't been writing very much. I'm adapting Mercutio as a stage play which is probably the only thing I'm more ignorant of outside of air traffic control.
However, I managed to make a small amount of money over the holidays and before Leigh goes back to school on the 20th we decided to make a little two-night three-day getaway to Miami. She gets luxury beachfront hotels through her company for about $75/night and I am a big fan of credit card debt.
Vacations are, however, one enterprise where I consider myself an expert. Because of some terrible decisions I've made in life I get to enjoy a large amount of time traveling and I don't think of sleeping-in as a luxury. One of my favorite things in the world to do is sit and drink coffee. This means I can enjoy myself anywhere in the world. Which I love to do.
On Monday night I got out of work around 2am. I told Leigh that we would meet at 4am and go directly to the airport. So, with two hours to spare I went straight home and took a combination of Chamomile tea, Melatonin and valerian root. I also lodged a time-release Adderall in a gumball and swallowed the whole mixture so that I would have the perfect one-hour power nap and then wake up refreshed, do some yoga, brew some green tea and get organized for the airport in time.
Just kidding! I went out drinking!!
A friend of mine just opened a place called Greenhouse in the West Village, which is a neighborhood I never go to unless I'm DJ'ing. As soon as I got there I saw familiar L.E.S. faces. Conrad and his girlfriend Katie were just stepping out. Angus was there with his Ron Jeremy mustache and Warhol camera. I walked in and met up with even more friends. Conrad on his way out described it as a "MisShapesish shitshow," which it was only it was full of people who were probably still at RISD while MisShapes was still a party and not just a way to make fun of someone's tired-ass haircut.
I bought a round of shots, which is exactly the wrong thing to do when a friend of yours works in the club. Because for the rest of the night anytime a friend of yours walks in you will be forced to do a shot with them because you haven't seen them in days/months/hours-since-you-left-work.
At about 3:45 the promoters all got paid (there must have been 15 promoters, none charging cover and all drinking for free. If you're looking to purchase a Manhattan nightclub, this one will surely be up for sale at the end of this year.) and we went to Beatrice Inn for more shots.
My next clearest memory is going through airport security unbelievably hammered. This is one of those things like family reunions and testifying in court which is more fun and completely tolerable when drunk. Once I found my seat in the back of the plane I heard over the loud speaker "Passenger Brandon Sullivan. Passenger Brendan Sullivan please report to aisle 20."
Let's not make this story any longer than it needs to be: I thought my seat was in row 20 and then I noticed that Leigh was sitting nine rows behind me and not just because I smelled like mustard gas and roses. And when I went back to her I just left all my goddam luggage on the seat.
Luckily it was 7 AM by now--a completely acceptable time to be groggy or, in my case, foggy.
My first night in Miami was wonderful. I think I ate somewhere and I'm positive I had plenty to drink. At 8AM Wednesday room service knocked on the door with our $16 room service pot of coffee (plus $4 delivery charge and automatically included 20% gratuity.)
Could I have gotten out of my bathrobe, put on pants and walked to the nearest store, purchase a coffeepot and coffee and brewed it myself in the room for that price? Yes. But I believe that people who complain about things like roomservice are the same people who complain about how you have to pay taxes on the millions you win in the lottery.
In additon to which, I probably would not be on the beach by 9 AM otherwise. All of the beaches in South beach are top-optional which is one of those things like Burlesque that I am surprised that women enjoy participating in and watching. Because I really, really enjoy watching.
Lately I've been working a terrible shift on Sundays in midtown. The nicest part about it is that the rich guy who owns the bar will often send me some cash because the Sundays in the winter are nothing special. My favorite part is that I can be done with a terrible shift by two and go somewhere fun with a little cash in my pocket.
This year has been great for me (if you aren't my accountant). I did not make any money off of #1 singles or top rated parties. Which I prefer. I am uncomfortable for making money off of unearned wages.
But last night I went to my old gig. They axed lots of questions. What have you been doing since you left? I had a couple of things on major label acts but they were short lived and not really my thing.
I was honest with everyone, of course. The gigs I have are full of hasbeen majorlabeldetritus forgetmynameattheendofthesummer kids. But now this bar is under new ownership. Gone are the 9AM days where the Sunday crowd is still partying when the accountant shows up in the morning on Monday. Now some asshole watches the tapes to make sure no one gets a free drink or--god forbid!--some ex-DFA'er chills out with old friends. I understand that. It's fine.
But tonight I dropped in for a drink and caught up with old friends. They kicked the assholes out at 4. I stayed. A friend of mine was drunk upstairs and stuck there. He was in no shape to come down. I stayed to help out. I had fun pretending to have my old job.
Then at about five the pipes, the pipes were calling.
Unfortunately then, then... I stopped as I walked out. I really just meant to light a cigarette and enjoy my extra moment at an old gig with old friends.
And the I heard, "What the fuck?" from the bouncer. "Homeboy drops back in like he's something? Dude's a backup dancer on GayMTV? Shit is wack. Seriously."
"What a fag."
I paused for a moment--because I love the unlisted-confessions-of-others-moments--and listened. "I mean, I liked the bands he used to bring in but that is some gay-ass-shit."
"LOGO? That shit is too gay for Cable."
I paused to hear what else they might have to say but I was far enough away that it didn't matter. The sound was too muffled.
Maybe I would make fun of me if I heard me talk. Maybe I would love to talk shit about whomever a friend of mine worked for. But in a really-boring-way they're all the same assholes. They're all the assholes that made me ride my bike to school in the freezing cold New England mornings of the early Clinton years--instead of riding the convenient--treacherous--bus and risk being made fun of (without my older brother to protect me). Somehow the assholes haven't gotten any more creative than they were in fifth grade.
According to convention, New York writers are not to glean any wisdom from cab drivers. However, I was upset about how my own friends treated me and instead of taking the subway home I lit up a Marlboro Red 100 (donated by a so-called friend) and flagged a cab.
"You can smoke that in here."
"Thank you, sir. Over the Manhattan Bridge. Down Flatbush. Left on Fulton."
"Drop the 'Sir.' The name's Michael. I'm from Brooklyn. "
Oh, what part? No? Really? How is the surf on Rockaway Beach? "I'm actually headed to Miami on Tuesday. Gonna DJ in a gay club and ride it out for the week as a mini vacation. I've never been to Miami except on business."
"God bless you," said my near mythic actual-New-Yorker-indigenous-cab-driver. "Tomorrow you'll probably think you dreamed me up. Too much Jameson and too many broken dreams," he said.
"That, or too many pre-created memories."
"You got a smoke for me?"
"Of course." I said. "Spark it on the bridge where the TLC can't see you."
At my house I threw him twenty dollars for my $9.10 ride and he said, "Thursday's my day off. While you're in Miami I'll have two Coronas out near Coney Island and thank you! Think of me."
And that's what I'll be thinking about on my flight home, instead of the assholes that I surround myself with.
This has been gone over many times before but when I was younger I didn't have poets. I did have, however, music. I loved every record I ever bought. I loved hearing them a hundred times and then going back through the liner notes to find out what the songs really said. But some songs just hit you the first time you hear them.
I was tormented on the bus. The worst part is I was tormented by kids in the younger grades. Girls in the younger grades, actually. Pathetically. Kiersten Rowe had a brother a year older than me, but when they got off the bus everyday she would lace into me. "Why this?" "Why does your family ___?" "How does it feel to have a brother who's a ___?" "I saw a cop car parked in front of your house again yesterday."
One time I slapped her straight across the face. But it didn't change anything. I was still falling further behind in school. My English teacher in eight grade wanted to fail me. You fail English in Connecticut and you fail the grade.
You can fuck up in Social Studies, no problem. But if you don't start caring what the fuck Steinbeck wanted you to care about in The Pearl and you'll be a fifteen year old eighth grader who still can't spell.
When you're a teenager you never sit down and say, "I'm going to fuck up a number of simple things this year so that I can ruin my life. That'll get everybody to stop fighting." But that's what comes across. I was a little Irish boy in suburban Connecticut, dreaming of joining the Navy, thinking they would teach me to be an electrician.
And then one day I heard a song in the car. "... this album is dedicated to all the teachers that told me / I'd never amount to nothin'..."
So tonight I ended up getting tickets to the premier of the film NOTORIOUS, the Christopher Wallace story. I wanted to go just to see the movie. I wanted to go even more when I found that it was playing across the street from my house. We stood in line for barely half an hour outside and they let us in.
The neighborhood I've lived in these past five years in Brooklyn is on the edge of Bed Stuy. When I moved here it was kinda scary to walk home at night. Last year I said it was kinda scary to walk home not knowing if your landlord had sold the building to some developer, leaving your to apartment hunt in Queens. Now all of these buildings are foreclosing.
This winter my landlord disappeared right before Christmas and the heat shut off. The first thing I thought was
Thinkin' back on my one-room shack Now my mom pimps a Ac' with minks on her back And she loves to show me off, of course Smiles every time my face is up in The Source We used to fuss when the landlord dissed us No heat, wonder why Christmas missed us
And then tonight the movie Biggie's mom took the stage in the fur coat her son bought. Biggie's son played the young parts of Biggie. All the main actors came up at the end. Jesse Jackson took the stage while everyone shouted, "BROOKLYN!!" Faith Evans came up and forgave her husband for what he had done to her. And the new owners of The Source were all, as it were, in the house and pledged to make their magazine a positive force for youth.
Leigh was sitting on the bed flipping through Spin and giggling. She's a wonderful girl but she's still a girl. I was going through my music for DJ'ing New Years and I wanted to find the best songs of the year instead of partying like it was 1999.
She giggled again and I asked what was so goddam funny. There was an article in there about songs from the year. Travis McCoy and Paul F. Tompkins were talking shit about friends of mine. If they weren't people I cared about the jokes would have been funny. For example, I don't know Katy Perry. I actually don't know if we're supposed to pronounce her name like "catty." She giggled again and I asked what was so goddam funny. There was an article in there about songs from the year. Travis McCoy and Paul F. Tompkins were talking shit about friends of mine. If they weren't people I cared about the jokes would have been funny. For example, I don't know Katy Perry. I actually don't know if we're supposed to pronounce her name like "catty."
4) Katy Perry
"I KISSED A GIRL."
McCOY: Uh, okay. I'm not talking bad about this one.
THOMPKINS: [Laughs] Not this one?
McCOY: This is my girlfriend.
TOMPKINS: [Laughs]
SPIN: Travis isn't joking.
TOMPKINS: Oh, okay.
McCOY: This song fucking rocks! This is cutting edge right here! And I'm not just sucking my girlfriend's dick.
TOMPKINS: You know who I feel bad for? Jill Sobule.
McCOY: Definately. I told Katy there was already a song called "I Kissed a Girl," and she was like, "Nobody remembers that shit." But what's good about this song is that it's now cool for young girls across America to kiss each other.
TOMPKINS: Katy Perry is the Rosa Parks of getting girls to make out with each other.
McCOY: We need to skip songs now.
In general I get slightly annoyed when people make tired jokes about celebrities. It really just makes you look petty and ugly. Like, when I get drunk I don't make jokes about what a drunk your sister is but somehow it's okay to reference someone who has a better voice than you.
She turned the page and said, "Ohmygod. Is that you?"
There are helicopters with flashlights all around the Empire State Building. I hope someone is climbing it but I would be equally thrilled if someone were on the ledge.
I agree with George Carlin. Just about the most interesting people do with their lives is end it.
Back in Chicago we used to go to this coffee shop near the Damen stop called Filter. You could smoke in there, so I guess the name was a pun or a ploy of some kind. Somedays I'd meet Ben there while he was working on a video. The place was huge in what is Chicago's version of the Flatiron building. Some of the older artists in Chicago had studios upstairs, which was great because they displayed their often pornographic art work on the huge second story windows out to the street below.
The men's bathroom of Filter had walls painted like chalkboard so the guys can do grade school graffiti. The women's bathroom--and this says alot about Chicago women--was completely tagged over in marker. "How come we don't get a chalkboard in the women's room?" "The manager said women don't draw on walls." "We do now." "Watch out ladies--Curves [Gym] gives to pro-life causes."
It was outside of Filter that I met my first dedicated homeless person Mike. He was Biggie Smalls sized and he would beg in the streets. I went to hand him some change one night and he said, "I don't waste my time with that. I'm tryna get some baby food for my little girl." On my first night bartending ever I got off the L at 3 in the morning and gave Mike $20.
You didn't go to Filter for a coffee on the go. For that you go to Half/Half, which was under the El. You go to Filter because it's sunny and you're thirsty and you have hours and hours to kill because you've just bought one of my stolen volumes from Myopic Used Books across the street.
I never asked a single girl for her phone number in Chicago. So on my first date with Annie I met up with her at noon in Wicker Park to read the paper and we decided to go to Filter Coffee. I remember her giving me the first of many specific orders, "Large coffee, splash of skim," she held up two fingers. "Two Equal packets." I said to myself then, "My, this girl is much more specific than I would be on a first date. She's probably demanding and unwilling to compromise for anyone. But maybe I'm wrong!"
The last time I was in Chicago I was dating a lingerie designer who was trying to sell her wares to a naughtyshop up the street. I didn't want to go and stand around all the knickers so I took myself out to Filter Coffee. I stood there alone watching people put up flyers seeking bandmates and fans.
Last week Raphael emailed me from Chicago asking me what there is to do in this god forsaken place. I told him, "There's a coffeeshop with free wireless on milwaukee called Filter. But the last time I was there it was where all the cool kids would go to smoke and talk about how their band is doing something."
And today I got an email from him, "FYI: while I was in Chicago I went to Filter. It's a Bank of America now."
The handsome guy who can't keep his shirt on is my friend Trevor. We bartended together in a shitstorm hellhole one summer and became very good friends. I'm pretty sure he won and just can't tell us yet or else he doesn't get to keep the money.
1) So the Village Voice says that my party where someone on the new season of the Real World kissed someone who was on Top Model was on par with Obama winning the presidency. Thanks this year in pictures!
2) In other news it's 2009 and I'm finally getting into Flight of the Conchords. Why didn't anyone tell me that all of my favorite comedians are in a show about nerdy guys who go to all the same bars and clubs where I work and fail with women? What a great premise! They used to come to Pianos when I worked there and not in celebrity-incog. They really dress that terribly in real life.
My secret wish for 2009 is to find a premise for this line. "...It's one of those sad truths, like how girls who have naked pictures of themselves on their phones always have boyfriends."
I was in Miami eating at Books & Books cafe for the second day in a row and 
Seeing 
