This Side of the City

cycle

2009-02-25T19:33:00.006-05:00

One era comes to an end today and another begins. It's nothing dramatic, simply a change of scene, a change of style. The morning job has placed me on its work-from-home program, along with several other people from my department at the office. Overall, it is a positive transition. I no longer have to drag my sleep-deprived self out of bed at 5:15 a.m. My shift still begins at 7:00, but because I can avoid the too-early subway commute, I get an extra hour of sleep. No more of that hike to the train while the rest of the world still slumbers or is just awakening. I also leave behind an extant artifact of my past now relegated to the archives of my personal history.

I will miss many of my coworkers. These are solid people. Good people. Chance and circumstance caused our lives to cross. People come, they go, and some stay. There are instances when a few become friends. I will definitely see these friends again (and again) and they will remain a part of my life. I admit I have my foibles and peculiarities, as do we all. I do have self-esteem and confidence to spare. But I don't like to lose. I can be temperamental and impatient, brash and cocky. I can speak before I think. But I am generous, compassionate, irrepressible, and loyal. And when I make a friend - a true friend - I consider it to be planted and unbreakable. If there ever was a Leo... it's me. That's one reason why when someone wrongs me, it cuts so deeply that it is hard to forget and even more difficult to forgive. However, another one of my positive qualities is my ability to, eventually, forgive. It can be a long and thorny path to navigate, but I find my way. Clarity arrives. Acrimony, spite, and a destructive desire for retribution are abated, extracted, eliminated. I do not want that burden. I only want peace, but too frequently, the collision and conflict of thoughts and perceived needs obfuscate my vision and I lose the direction to some degree of inner harmony. I see it through. The inner moral compass guides me back. Oh, how it can be a long journey to the end of the night.

So, the journey continues as I embark on a new era, of sorts. And what are our lives if not a minuscule series of eras that dovetail into each other, creating the entirety of our existence? One experience meshes into the next, and if we're fortunate, we learn from the past, whether that past was rife with mistake or triumph. I move forward through this curious, often quaint, sometimes painful, and occasionally glorious life.

We traverse the circle and we take the cycle to its end.

inaugural

2009-01-20T21:14:00.001-05:00

The scene in Times Square today for Obama's inauguration:

Photos taken by Me with a Motorola K-RZR K1M mobile from a 4th floor window.

found

2008-12-01T18:36:00.002-05:00

I paid a holiday visit to upstate New York, dazzlingly cold and chillingly desolate. The photocopied photograph below was tacked to a bulletin board outside a grocery store...

It appears to be from decades past - people out of time and frozen in a moment like some kind of anachronism and with no identity. Just... there... with the word "Found" scrawled at the top in Sharpie without any contact information. This tiny idiosyncrasy struck me as bizarre, a little amusing, and even slightly eerie.

Found.

pace

2008-11-21T07:28:00.002-05:00

Pace Is the Essence
by Charles Bukowski

as the mailman walked up the hill
he laughed
when he saw me.
I laughed too.
"yeah, Harry, I know:
just an old man with a hose
watering the parkway.
you got me..."

those guys think it's got to be
war
all the time.
I'm just taking a
rest.
when I finally press that red
button
they'll wish I was
back watering the
gladiolas.

vote!

2008-10-19T20:40:00.000-04:00

topical

2008-09-30T22:30:00.000-04:00

Things I like:

1) laughter among loyal friends and late nights out

2) half-day Fridays

3) Mad Men, Dexter, Spaced (worthwhile, thought-provoking television)

4) the new Metallica (finally, after a twenty year wait, an album worthy of their name)

5) a seat on the subway at 6:10am

6) my Ben Sherman shirts

7) integrity and dignity when faced with the duplicitous and insincere

8) intelligent discourse (college degree not required)

9) writing

10) reading good writing

11) cheesy, but fun, movies that go well with a hangover (Death Race, Shoot 'Em Up, The Ultimate Warrior, Hawk the Slayer, Crank, etc.)

12) the recent Nine Inch Nails album "The Slip" (a free download - thanks, Trent)

13) Arlene's Grocery for local music in an intimate setting ("God Save Queens" last Saturday)

olio

2008-09-01T15:56:00.001-04:00

Raindrops on roses
Happy Disney animals
This makes my parts hurt
– Chuck Palahniuk

Many thanks to Chuck for the haiku. There's an author I haven't read in a few years. The last book I checked out was "Haunted," and I enjoyed it regardless of some over-the-top shock value content. Since then, Palahniuk has put out a couple more novels ("Rant" and "Snuff"). Maybe I'll get to them someday. I've been catching up with posthumous Charles Bukowski works, and I have a masochistic desire to read "Ulysses" by James Joyce again. So much to read, so little time.

I keep a journal on my computer. People sometimes ask why it's not handwritten. Well, typing it does not make it less personal. Plus, when I got my first computer in April of 1997, I simply started writing on the new machine, and continued from there to this day. So as of right now, I have over ten years of entries, 239 pages (in 10-point arial font). I try to add to the journal every week. It's fascinating to scroll back and see where I was, what I was doing, and where my life was on a particular date. I can see where my mind and life were at a certain point in time, and I might laugh, or cringe, or shrug. Some of the written memories are pleasant, many are matter-of-fact, and some unpleasant. But I don't think I would change anything. We are all the products of our accumulated experiences and choices. I've made some wise decisions, some dubious, and some... not so wise and highly questionable. I know who I am, and I happen to like who I am. And the people who truly know me, the friends who know my acerbic veneer is just that - a facade to protect this writer's sensitive soul - happen to like me, too. Onward.

My new favorite website? It's the brilliant and riotous "The Nietzsche Family Circus." The site is exactly what it says: it combines the wholesome, cloying family drones of "The Family Circus" with the quotes of German firebrand philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Click here to see young Billy, seeking ontological meaning for himself, remark that he must "look to it that he himself does not become a monster."

"Permalink" your favorites and send along all the existential fun to your friends and neighbors and foes... let them not gaze long into an abyss (you may be on the abyssal fence about your foes, if you have any).

There isn't much on television anymore that can really blow me away, but Mad Men (on AMC) does it. The action revolves around a Madison Avenue advertising agency (Sterling & Cooper) in the early 1960s. The writing, acting, and attention to period detail is so meticulous and organic that it's nearly impossible to not be drawn in week after week. Unfortunately, much like The Sopranos and The Shield (to name just two of many), the season is only thirteen episodes long. Mad Men is more-than-worthwhile and, of course, highly recommended.

It is Labor Day here, but no labor for me today, unless you count a walk to the drug store and the job search. Of course, sending out the cover letter and resume isn't exactly arduous - it merely requires time and focus. A festive extended weekend winds down. The autumn weather slinks about on the fringe of summer, and I welcome it. I, for one, will not miss the heat and humidity, nor the higher electric bills. On the worst of summer days, I long for the temperate climate of San Francisco.

A warm week awaits. Summer's last gasp. perhaps. We head toward the fall and soon enough the holidays will be upon us. Where does the time go?

Moz

2008-08-17T14:20:00.000-04:00

After an energetic morning, I embarked on a Morrissey listening marathon this afternoon. From his days with The Smiths to his occasionally mercurial solo career, the man is indisputably a musical genius (and "genius" is a term I do not toss about lightly). Whereas many artists lose a certain amount of the inspiration of "the hungry years" and drop into crevices of creature comfort and stability, even Morrissey's recent output shines as brightly as older classics like "Viva Hate," "Your Arsenal," and "Bona Drag." And few songwriters can turn a lyrical phrase quite as deftly as "The Moz"...

Ah, Morrissey, it's so good to still have you around.

You Have Killed Me

Pasolini is me
'Accattone' you'll be
I entered nothing and nothing entered me
'Til you came with the key
And you did your best but

As I live and breathe
You have killed me
You have killed me
Yes I walk around somehow
But you have killed me
You have killed me

Piazza Cavour, what's my life for?

Visconti is me
Magnani you'll never be
I entered nothing and nothing entered me
'Til you came with the key
And you did your best but

As I live and breathe
You have killed me
You have killed me
Yes, I walk around somehow
But you have killed me
You have killed me

Who am I that I come to be here...?

As I live and breathe
You have killed me
You have killed me
Yes I walk around somehow
But you have killed me
You have killed me

And there is no point saying this again
There is no point saying this again
But I forgive you, I forgive you
Always I do forgive you.

(From the album "Ringleader Of The Tormentors")

deliverance

2008-08-01T16:11:00.000-04:00

"Question And Answer" by Charles Bukowski

he sat naked and drunk in a room of summer
night, running the blade of the knife
under his fingernails, smiling, thinking
of all the letters he had received
telling him that
the way he lived and wrote about
that--
it had kept them going when
all seemed
truly
hopeless.

putting the blade on the table, he
flicked it with a finger
and it whirled
in a flashing circle
under the light.

who the hell is going to save
me? he
thought.

as the knife stopped spinning
the answer came:
you're going to have to
save yourself.

still smiling,
a: he lit a
cigarette
b: he poured
another
drink
c: gave the blade
another
spin.

--from The Last Night of the Earth Poems

regal

2008-07-27T13:31:00.004-04:00

"When the mighty Lion enters center stage, everyone notices."

"By far the most generous of the zodiac, Leos make loyal and giving friends... Close friends are chosen for their ability to keep up with the Leo's energy along with a strong sense of dignity and a commitment to individual values... the mighty Lion will do whatever it takes to defend loved ones. Loyalty for the Leo is for a lifetime."

"Leos are doers. I will is the key phrase for this sign. There's a lot of energy packed into this sign, and they're always going to be busy, regardless of whatever else is happening around them. They are ambitious, creative, and optimistic."

"This fiery sign is passionate and forthright with affections. When it comes to sex, you can expect the Leo to be adventurous, fun, and highly energetic. There is a definite line of division between sex and love for Leos... They look for uninhibited lovers who aren't self-conscious. As accepting as the Leo is, a mate needs to be an intellectual equal to cut the mustard. Leos are loving, fun, and very giving to those in their personal life."

"The ruling planet for Leo is the Sun. Considered the masculine principal of the horoscope, the Sun rules men in general, health, leadership, rank, authority, progress, energy, dignity, the capacity for experience, and the sense of identity."

Compatibility: Leos are most compatible with Sagittarius and Aries.

Opposite Sign: The opposite sign of Leo is Aquarius.

Strength: Warmth, humor, pride, joy, creativity, passion, generosity

Weakness: Arrogance, stubbornness, inflexibility, laziness

eulogy

2008-07-24T21:00:00.005-04:00

Ya' see, madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little...push.

The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules!

See, I'm not a monster...I'm just ahead of the curve.

What does not kill you... simply makes you stranger...

Why so serious?

purity

2008-06-19T19:40:00.000-04:00

So You Want To Be A Writer?
by Charles Bukowski

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.

unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.

if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.

if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.

if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.

if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.

if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.

if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.

the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.

don't add to that.

don't do it.

unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

excogitative

2008-05-30T22:32:00.003-04:00

Friday night, red wine and fatigue and much-desired solitude…

Strange how it all works, that is, if it even works at all. But, I suppose it does, somehow. This moment we call life. And it IS a moment. The greater time-line of it all makes that a perfunctory fact. Here we are now, in our lives, as seconds tick into minutes tick into hours and days and weeks. And before we know it, life is something we can look back on. It's relative. Really, the theory of relativity involves more than physics.

So. Yes. A Friday night in because I am too damn tired to make the foray into social circles. So tired that I can't sleep. At a middle-place outside reality on a bottle of red wine yet so ensconced, so enshrouded in the depths of all of this... whatever "this" is.

I often feel... isolated. Sometimes by choice, but also by who I am. That feeling is invoked to such an extent in the first book I wrote, "Ache." I can be incendiary. I can be temperamental and stubborn, acerbic and cynical, vindictive and wrathful. I brood. I theorize and philosophize and reason. Occasionally, it all makes a sliver of sense. As my friend Dave once wrote to me in an email, "You're so jaded, it’s a shame. I know there is marshmallow center under the bad-ass exterior." And he’s right. There is generosity and loyalty and love in me. I embrace those feelings as much as I do the darker side of my emotions. They fit – they work in tandem. All that I am is a culmination of where I have been and who I have known and what I have experienced. Through it all, I seek only truth. I want those who will be true to me to keep me warm. I'm a Leo and pride dictates. Leo - born to rule. Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.

I raise my glass and this next gulp of wine is for you, whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever brought you to these words.

currently

2008-05-17T19:28:00.006-04:00

Since the debacle that was Easter weekend (that's a story unto itself not meant for the pages of this blog -- yet), I've been back in the city, going about the motions of life - work, play, and what lies between. I took the train upstate for a disastrous three-day visit, and the next time I leave the city will be for my friend Dave's wedding in San Francisco in July. Back to the city by the Bay. My city. The city that I will always consider my second home (Buffalo would take third place by rank), unless I decide to make San Francisco home again.

Here and now, present tense, in New York, yes, there are the motions - the motions that keep a roof overhead, food in the cupboard, and new clothes in the closet. Somnolent at sunrise, thoughts inchoate, on the elevated platform so damn early in the morning. The bonus is that the subway almost always runs on time pre-rush hour. There's always a seat, and I close my eyes and relax before the fluorescent rigors of the workday and lose myself in the music piped through my earbuds. Now and then you're unfortunate enough to find yourself on "the crazy train" (as I did on Friday morning). A jolly fella was whooping it up, laughing heartily at his own perceived comedy stylings, and calling himself the "n-word." There I sat, eyes slit, turning up the volume, thinking, "Please, I beg of thee, get off the train, Mr. Forgot-His-Meds-This-Morning." And his apparent insanity must have picked up the psionic waves of my fervent telepathic wish, and the gent took his controversial, race-inflected stand-up act onto the Queensboro Plaza platform. Thank you. The rest of the morning went as usual - sign out keys, open office, power everything on, slump into the chair at my assigned cubicle, stare at the ceiling, determine with little precision my sarcasm/arrogance quotient for the rest of the morning (read: defense mechanisms/self-deprecation), and contemplate existence.

Job search! Yes, that is an exclamation point. You don't see me using many of those, and that would make grammarians everywhere pleased. Anyway, the job search! Yes, it continues. But with this economy... sheesh. Jobs are not in flux. Then I factor in the narrow and competitive market to which I apply. No excuses - I simply won't settle and I won't sell myself short. So, I sleepwalk through the morning job with caffeine and a chemical buoy. Alternately, I actually like the afternoon job. I earn more than enough to maintain my lifestyle, which isn't necessarily high maintenance, but I do have a certain comfort level I enjoy. So it goes.

The book! No elaboration on that exclamation point. My book. Ache. Yes, it's coming. There is no doubt, so shut down those synapses in the skeptical area of your brain before they even fire off. Delays, edits, rewrites, renewed submissions, work-induced fatigue, and a social life contribute to the delays. Most importantly, it needs to be the best it can be. That takes time and patience. Why rush and release something below my high standards? I write. The standards I hold myself to in my life are no different for my writing.

And, finally, this website has given me an abundance of uncomfortable chortles, unsettled belly laughs, and pained grimaces for the past couple days: Hot Chicks with Douchebags. It's hilarious. Gasp in wonderment at the (ahem) finest specimens of humanity on display in all of their post-modern foppish, pseudo-gangsta, trainwrecked, steroid-pumped glory. By "finest," I mean "the most cringe-worthy" and "abominable." I'm sure they are all avid readers and have devoured many, many books and are prepared for intelligent discourse at the drop of a halter top. Prepare yourself for "the Warthog," "Fish Slap," "Dung Beetle," and "Magilla Scrotilla." You have been warned.

I am off into the night. Until next time...

symbolic

2008-05-03T19:28:00.003-04:00

Check out the Birthday Calculator.

My results:

You were born on a Wednesday
under the astrological sign Leo.
Your Life path number is 3.

Your fortune cookie reads:
Your blessing is no more than being safe and sound for the whole lifetime.
Life Path Compatibility:
You are most compatible with those with the Life Path numbers 3, 6 & 9.
You should get along well with those with the Life Path numbers 1, 2, 5 & 11.
You are least compatible with those with the Life Path numbers 4, 7, 8 & 22.

You were born in the Chinese year of the Monkey.

Your Native American Zodiac sign is Salmon; your plant is Raspberry.

Celebrities who share your birthday:
Charlize Theron (1975)
David Duchovny (1960)
Garrison Keillor (1942)
Mata Hari (1876)

Your lucky day is Sunday.
Your lucky number is 1 & 4.
Your ruling "planet" is Sun.
Your lucky dates are 1st, 10th, 19th, 28th.
Your opposition sign is Aquarius.
Your opposition number is 8.

There are 96 days till your next birthday

Your birthstone is Peridot

Peridot is used to help dreams become a reality.

Some lists consider these stones to be your birthstone. (Birthstone lists come from Jewelers, Tibet, Ayurvedic Indian medicine, and other sources): Sardonyx, Diamond, Jade

Your birth tree is Poplar, the Uncertainty

Looks very decorative, no self-confident behaviour, only courageous if necessary, needs goodwill and pleasant surroundings, very choosy, often lonely, great animosity, artistic nature, good organiser, tends to philosophy, reliable in any situation, takes partnership serious.

The moon's phase on the day you were born was waxing gibbous.

verstoteling

2008-04-24T19:56:00.003-04:00

black sheep by definition:

"In psychology, a black sheep is the member of a rigidly triangulated family, who holds the rest tightly together by being identified as the bad/sick/deviant one who causes all the family problems. In this situation, the rule enforcer in the family is charged with the job of controlling the black sheep from revealing the family secrets. The black sheep is seen as an outsider, but only because he is a teller of truth."

reflective

2008-03-08T16:01:00.006-05:00

An enjoyable night out. A late night, late morning. A divergence from the state of things. Not that "the state of things" has been particularly poor, overall. The focus is on what matters right now - the fulfillment of ambitions steadily approaches. The focus on the writing and new work. Other distractions? Well, I actually have a social life. Otherwise, I don't play video games - I outgrew that when "Galaga" was no longer the rage at the arcade. Nowadays it's all about something known as "Guitar Hero." I have no interest. My television viewing is sporadic, at best. Movies still hold a prominent place in this film geek's heart - they accompany me through all muck and mire, much like books. The best films I've seen in years are certainly "There Will Be Blood" and "No Country for Old Men," friend-o.

Nothing is obfuscated anymore. Better to die on your feet than live on your knees, right? The ego, the perceived arrogance, the sarcasm, the detachment - it might seem unsavory, but those mechanisms defend acute emotion against the wicked whims or wiles of the world. When I remove the facade, there I am exposed but unafraid. This heart will take all comers because this heart is resilient. It can be hurt but it cannot be crushed. Do as you will... but try to be kind. Thank you.

Here on a soggy Saturday afternoon, the rain reflects. I light a candle. The words escape my mind and my fingertips. You see them now. It will be dusk soon and the sun will find itself elsewhere. The damp dark will edge across the city and this restless night owl will do it all over again.

fop

2008-02-06T20:45:00.005-05:00

My favorite images of the year (so far). Call them clotheshorse, coxcomb, dasher, swell, or toff, but I prefer "fop" or dandy." And why the sudden fascination with the "fop" or the "dandy"? I haven't watched Mel Brooks' "History of the World: Part I" recently, so... I don't know. What I do know is that these images definitely make me chuckle...

editred.

2008-01-17T21:55:00.000-05:00

interregnum

2008-01-04T13:25:00.000-05:00

Out of the city and upstate (again) for the 2007 holidays...

Magicians

Luke

The boys and their uncle huddled for the snapshot

High winds and lashing rain on December 23rd

The ersatz glory of suburbia

Outside the front door

Cute 'n' hungry strays

Church, Christmas Eve (no, an invisible holy barrier at the front doors did not deny me access to the inner sanctum)

Evan

Content "Gray Cat" in my lap during Shrek 3

tabula rasa

2007-12-22T20:03:00.000-05:00

I've never ascribed much credence to the romantic notions of the New Year holiday. In the past, though I might have made halfhearted remarks about a "fresh start," a new year has actually always seemed to me like the simple continuation of the old. It's a new chapter in the novel that entails our lives, but it's a also furtherance of the same story. Not so now. 2007 was a turbulent year for your occasionally humble and frequently self-deprecating scribe. So, the imminent arrival of 2008 imbues me with a... different... ineffable type of feeling. It feels like it matters more this time 'round.

Tabula rasa.

2007. The year may have been tumultuous in spots, but it was not a waste. Lessons were learned and certain goals achieved. However, my focus and ambition will not allow me to rest on any proverbial laurels. Yes, I finished my duties as the editor of the "Falling From the Sky" short story anthology - a labor of love and a groovy credit on my résumé. I managed to hold on to two jobs... but I suppose that's not necessarily a grand accomplishment. I decided to finally publish my debut novel, Ache. I don't want it to be just mine any longer. I want the words I crafted from my heart to belong to other people - and to possibly mean as much to other people as it means to me.

Writing. The word flow in 2007 was desultory - I will accomplish more writing in 2008. It has already begun, actually. I plan a collection of my short stories as a follow-up to Ache, which will be released in late winter. I already have fragments of several stories which must be fleshed-out, and an abundance of ideas for several others. I must thank a coworker for the concept of one story, a post-modern tip of my risible hat to Franz Kafka, titled "Radioactive Testicle" (yes, it is a humor piece). There will be another which is entirely dialogue between two (or more) characters - no descriptive prose. With yet another I want to experiment with the "stream of consciousness" style of writing, such as that made famous (or infamous, depending on your literary viewpoint) by James Joyce. And why the delay on the aforementioned Ache? Rewrites and editing take time. It has to be done properly, or it's not worth doing at all. But that novel will come out, followed by a promotional and PR campaign and public readings. Focus. Complacency dies a swift death.

Absolution. I eschew resentment and guilt. Pernicious events in 2007 briefly dragged me into a dark, inimical place I do not care to revisit. I am not proud of my actions or reactions. Hindsight flaunts my missteps. But I never adopted a victim's mentality and I will not reside in self-righteous denial or repression. I accept my culpability and resolve feelings of guilt and acrimony and I rise above. Any lingering antipathy is released, replaced with empathy. I can merely forgive now. I am not proud of what I allowed to happen, but I am stronger and better for it. Sure, my ego was wounded, but there was no tactile reason since I won't devalue myself, nor will anyone who truly knows the benevolent soul I possess. And it's a pretty damn resilient ego. I also realize that the only person who can damage or destroy me - or unequivocally hurt me - is me. It's done. No self-flagellation. No regrets. Tabula rasa.

Employment. Ah, the office. No, not the droll television show (though there might be some accurate comparisons between their comedy fiction and my workplace reality). I couldn't let this "2007 Year in Review and Renewal" blog post pass without a mention of the workplace. I was still with the two jobs - one in the a.m. and the other in the p.m. and making enough money between the two to live comfortably. But there's been a shift in my thinking and a change in my attitude and now something new looms. Yes, it is out there on my horizon, and it is almost tangible. 2008 is the time to move forward. And, I might add, with employment far removed from the lodging and hotel industry (that would be the phlegmatic morning job).

Bridges. No burning the bridges that still matter. And though I dedicated a lot of time to myself in the latter part of 2007, I also drew my friends closer and opened up to new (and renewed) relationships. Sometimes I can delude myself into believing I am a completely autonomous, self-reliant human machine. Sure, I often enjoy solitude, isolated from the world beyond my front door, with time for my words and my books and my thoughts. When all is said and done, as the new dawn fades, I still have me. But I know that any sense I have of abolition or disengagement is false. Without friends, both old and new, I become a much lesser and weaker person. So in 2008 I plan to nurture and keep these friendships alive and dynamic.

Tomorrow I begin a full week off from the jobs. I head upstate to celebrate the holiday and spend an abundance of time playing with my nephews. When I return to the city, the new year will be upon us.

New beginnings. Strides into a new life in a new year. Focus. Super-connected.

Tabula rasa.

respite

2007-12-01T17:00:00.000-05:00

Out of the city and upstate for the holiday:

Poughkeepsie

View from the train

Another view from the train

Schenectady

Albany

Station stop Albany

Gray Cat

The boys on their sled and Uncle Craig pulling them along

combat!

2007-11-26T21:41:00.001-05:00

here

2007-11-03T00:40:00.000-04:00

Home by myself on a Friday night. By choice. A bit of solitude after a stupid week at work. I care so little that it makes me care about everything else even more. Maybe that's a good thing? Vodka siphoned into my bloodstream. Synthetic supplement. Lit up. A night of isolation does my soul some good, I think. Only distracted by the music here. Peter Murphy with "Cuts You Up" plays - a dolorous piece that puts me into a reflective place with that close-mouthed smile of mirth and memory on my face.

Rhythm and rhyme. Some of the time I feel like I am out of time. Balanced on the precipice I chose, nudged to the edge by circumstance of the path I've chosen. I look down, out, and about, and I feel as if I can see everything from within the confinement of these walls. I know everything, but know nothing. That's the paradox. Sing to myself, talk to myself, jot my words down on a scrap of paper. Never mistake weirdness for insanity. I am fragmented and I am whole.

What comes next? Oh, the anticipation of chance. There is nothing like being in the moment. Whatever that moment brings or means has its own impact. And there is an emotional edification [of any sort] just to be there, to know it, to experience it, to remember it. For better. For worse. But often for better in the end.

We are matter. We are here and we seem to exist in whatever this is, and then we are gone and our matter decays. But I truly believe the spirit lives on.

You're reading this right now. You might wonder why. But you already know.

Kierkegaard

2007-10-30T20:39:00.000-04:00

People understand me so poorly that they don't even understand my complaint about them not understanding me.

Lately I have delved into the works of Søren Kierkegaard (May 5, 1813 - November 11, 1855), the Danish philosopher and theologian. Kierkegaard is often regarded as a founder of existentialist thought. Though his entire body of work is worthy of reading (and/or study), for the neophyte or aspirant start with "Fear and Trembling." Also, read a biography, or at least an overview or précis of the man's life, to gain greater insights into the man behind the ideas. There is an intriguing rift in his thinking - a dichotomy between his religious faith and his theoretical logic (another dichotomy presents itself there, because many might characterize religion and faith as theory, as well).

Now, some assorted aphorisms from Kierkegaard... words of wisdom to place in a mental recall pattern:

I must find a truth that is true for me.

Only one deception is possible in the infinite sense - self-deception.

Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

Since my earliest childhood a barb of sorrow has lodged in my heart. As long as it stays I am ironic — if it is pulled out I shall die.

It is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey.

Above all do not forget your duty to love yourself.

The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly one you can never have.

imagery

2007-10-13T16:36:00.000-04:00

A random assortment of recent images from around the city:

Times Square in the rain (October 11, 2007).

Outside Amsterdam Billiards, a cart of miscellaneous detritus on 11th Street (October 7, 2007).

Blurry and from a distance - Freddy Krueger on 46th Street (October 1, 2007).

An ironing board at dawn, set up and ready-to-use on 45th Street (September 27, 2007).

A close-up of the enigmatic ironing board.

religion

2007-09-27T20:06:00.000-04:00

'Right' branded on my brow
'Wrong' graven on my mind
You see, the sin is in me
When will it stop unfolding
When will I ever be face to face
With the devil in me

Let me burn you... let me burn you...
Let me burn you down...
Let me burn you... let me burn you...
Let me burn you down...
Burn you down...
Let me... let me...

Brain wants to rule the heart
Heart wants to tie the hands
Unseat the assassin in me
So you cry, not to give it away
So you lie...

Born with a wicked charm
Torn by this driving harm
You see, it moves into me
So you lie, not to give it away
So you cry

Let me burn you... let me burn you...
Let me burn you down...
Burn you down...

Front 242, "Religion"

belief

2007-09-16T15:51:00.000-04:00

The boys. My nephews. They help keep me from a descent into utter cynicism when the world around me crashes down - when my thoughts become foreboding and my mind turns claustrophobic. They help me embrace a gentle nature and sense of optimism whenever life seems dark and disquieted. They rule.

Craig

2007-08-28T19:50:00.000-04:00

From today's news, on the Internet and otherwise:

"Craig denies inappropriate conduct"

Hey, I never denied anything. Okay, I've denied some things over time, but I often (too often) bare my heart for all to see.

"Craig 'agitated and demeaning'"

Yes, I can become agitated when provoked. I'm the first to admit I have a lot of pride, and when that pride is threatened, my temperamental nature can roar forth... but I do not consider myself demeaning.

"Conservative leader says Craig should resign"

Resign? From what? Fine. Doesn't matter. Whatever it is, I'm not a Conservative, so no problem.

"Craig Denies Wrongdoing in Airport Bathroom"

Um. Hmm. I've not been in an airport, let alone an airport bathroom, in several years.

Wait. This isn't about me. It's about some hebetudinous Republican Senator from Idaho named Larry Craig.

I'll resign anyway.

Did you find this post humorous?

1) _____ Yes, you're a brilliant blend of Chaplin, Hicks, and Pryor incarnate!

2) _____ No, Craig. You may be slightly hebetudinous yourself.

3) _____ What blog is this exactly, and how did I get here?

contusion

2007-08-22T13:03:00.000-04:00

Have no confusion... this is a major contusion. Cheesy puns aside, this picture shows the bruise inflicted on my coworker Victoria by a crazed cab driver last weekend. This driver obviously deserves a tire iron upside the head.

Hang in there, Victoria - bruises to the body heal far more quickly than bruises to the heart. Hey, I had to put something "writerly" in this post, right?

process

2007-08-18T20:15:00.000-04:00

my opinion remains the
same: writing is done
one person
at a time
one place
at a time

and all the gatherings
of
the
flock
have very little
to do
with
anything.

-Charles Bukowski

071907

2007-07-21T16:00:00.001-04:00

45th Street

Astoria, Queens

odds

2007-07-15T15:54:00.000-04:00

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. - Soren Kierkegaard

Always outnumbered, always outgunned. The odds might be stacked, but that's never been a deterrent. The challenge is welcome.

Post-college in Buffalo, lucky if I had forty dollars in my wallet. Working the McJob for rent, bills, gas, and the next six pack and Chinese take-out order. But I had ideas, and sketched a plan, and off I went across the country to San Francisco to attend film school. Fifteen hundred dollars to my name. The student loan came through, and a job and a place to live followed. I spent over three years there. I succeeded, against the odds and the expectations of other people.

Off to New York City in mid-'97. This time with a few grand to get started. The apartment came quickly, and work a couple months later. Ten years and a couple jobs and a few emotional trials and tribulations later, a new transition. New circumstances, new possibilities. Oh, I remain rooted here in New York, for now. But the book. My book. It's coming. How will potential readers react to it? What about the reviews? How will it sell? Will the promotion plans and the PR firm help spread the word of Ache like a meme?

I've done it myself for so long. Now there's help. Support. It doesn't mean it's going to be easy. It means it lowers the odds.

Yeah, there's those odds again. Here I sit on a muggy Sunday afternoon and I smirk as I write this. Then I have to smile as the reality sinks in and takes hold. The challenge actually makes me happy.

Outnumbered. Outgunned. So what? I'm ready.

enkindle

2007-07-09T19:20:00.000-04:00

The heat. The sweltering heat. It's a good thing I bought a pair of loose linen pants to wear in this oppressive weather.

Summer turns me upside down. And other than suffering in the throes of summer...

The rewrite and edits of Ache continue in preparation for its publication. Presently, we are aiming for a release date at the beginning of Autumn - hopefully September 25, 2007. So many small changes make such a large difference in the overall tone and scope of the story.

The Empty Spaces short story cycle (to initially appear on editred.com) is underway. The first, Office, is almost ready to be posted. I wasn't certain about my ability to write short stories at first. Many of my ideas are grand in scheme and usually could encompass the span of a novel. But I have found that writing short stories - or at least the attempt to do so - helps to hone the craft and purge a build-up of ideas. These ideas, of course, can be spun into longer works if they lend themselves to such.

Back into the fray of the workweek after a relaxing and... desultory... five days off.

And there's an amusing anecdote (well, I found it amusing) I must relate - a spam email today in my inbox with the subject line: "Get a new pair of clogs-they're super comfy." Tempting... but my Dutch heritage notwithstanding, I'll stick with my current footwear, thanks.

Oh, did I mention the heat?

haven

2007-06-21T21:30:00.000-04:00

Sometimes the journey is what counts...

Hey, I'm a writer. Sometimes we're not the most pleasant people to be around.

Huddled over, pressing these keys, focused entirely on the word, everything else gone away. Do my eyes even blink? Is anything actually happening in the world outside? White noise background buzz.

I keep a personal journal. I've typed entries on a regular basis since late 1997. Yes, it has become quite extensive - and detailed. Though I delve into highly personal territory with this blog, sometimes in an abstract manner, there are facets of the journal that are too... involved and private... to make it into this public forum. It's not self-censorship in any way - it's a personal safeguard (some things should not be widely known), and a protection of people in my life who might not enjoy secrets and blemishes revealed.

It's all a journey. For me, much of it entails the written word. The writer uses experiences accrued along the way and feeds off the vitality of emotion. The writer expels demons through the word. Sometimes the overactive mind reaches the breaking point and it manifests in words of vitriol, phrases of hostility. Other times the word comes in a kind word, or the low, soothing note spoken to a lover in the dark - the heart's gentle release.

My gaze takes on a sharp scrutiny missing for too long. Negativity extricated. The words from my mouth soften. Always the pessimistic optimist. As has been said, "Life is too short to be pissed off all the time." I explore new avenues with a sense of adventure. I see hope in tomorrow.

There is a return. The din in my head recedes. I focus now on my life as it has been presented to me. It's too short to spiral downward into fear and doubt's murky cesspool. When I drown, there is help beyond the words. Those who save me are the people who know me - who truly knew me all along and not some vague facsimile or a misplaced creation of someone I am not. They keep me above the surface. They provide safety and a haven in their hearts.

Another return to what has been absent - benevolence, affection, mirth. A balance - or an antithesis - to the me whose mind reflects the dark and whose imagination broods, ruminates, speculates. Words and actions to soothe, to support, to sustain.

Alpha and Omega, the symbols of eternity, the first and the last. It's inside us. When it's all run down, when emotions are frayed, when the world is shrouded in shades of gray, when all seems so evasive and intangible and weak, what do I have left? Me.

Alpha and Omega. The bringer of balance. The inside opens. Light pours outward and life tilts upward.

The snake behind me hisses
What my damage could have been.
My blood before me begs me
Open up my heart again.

And I feel this coming over like a storm again.

permutation

2007-06-02T00:36:00.000-04:00

With a new name and logo, the Small Press Center became the Center for Independent Publishing on May 31, 2007. Being associated, to an extent, with the publishing community (I'm one of those fringe purist writers - don't mess with my words), I was in attendance. After all, I've been to a variety of events at the (former) Small press Center, and I know Lloyd Jassin, a publishing attorney and the Chair of the NYCIP Executive Committee.

The event was well-attended, scattered with those of us who have a love for books, writing, and the spirit of independence - and wine. Ah, yes, there was a cocktail reception consisting of, from what I could see, wine. There weren't any cocktails. Still, I indulged in several plastic cups of the red stuff. I also felt compelled to engage in a Fight Club gag:

The guest of honor was Barney Rosset. Who is Barney Rosset? Read closely and learn, ye in need of a publishing history lesson. He is the man responsible for bringing literary classics such as "Lady Chatterley's Lover" (D.H. Lawrence), "Naked Lunch" (William S. Burroughs), and "Tropic of Cancer" (Henry Miller) to the United States when those books were still banned due to alleged obscenity due to provocative cotent and so-called scatalogical themes. In other words, these books had balls, and the Puritanical sect of the mid-20th Century U.S. couldn't handle it.

Adversity and the long arm of the law shoved aside, Rosset founded the independent Grove Press and published these works, among others. In doing so, he subjected himself to years of costly legal hassles. But in the end, he broke through the heavy lead curtain of censorship and created new paths and possibilities for the independent publishing community. Here is your blog writer meeting Mr. Rosset:

"Our new name more accurately describes who we are," said Lloyd J. Jassin (below).

More here about the Center for Independent Publishing and the opening night cocktail reception.

paroxysm

2007-05-04T21:20:00.000-04:00

I think the writer in me is experiencing a manic phase.

Yeah, sometimes when the words whip into a frenzy in my head, I am stimulated into a semi-deranged state. Writing has recurrently become like that - an ardent focus on the fervor of words charging from my mind. It's like an avoidance reaction to everything else in my life, but rendered as a disorder of the artistic kind. It's my stream of creative thought with this machine and keypad to convey and transform the flow into written passages.

Sure, there's the ineludible comedown - the descent into fatigue. When I've released and I'm spent. When I drop back on the couch, or tumble into my bed, and drift off into dream.

How do I write? Yes, I've been asked that question. It's a direct query with an obfuscated answer. Writing, for me, is a private endeavor. I'm not entirely certain anyone has ever witnessed me "in the moment." I am not opposed to someone watching me, because I have not experienced that, and it might be interesting to see how I react to company, and how that company reacts to me in my manic writer's state. If someone else was watching this private ritual they would see the shift in expression, like orgasm as the word comes. That's not an intentionally evasive or ambiguous answer. It also not meant to seem patently sexual, but the process can be libidinous, frenzied, and consuming. It's just the only way I know how to honestly respond.

My ideas on writing? It's serious. Born into it. Light a candle. Pour a drink. Put on music, sometimes. Focus into intensity.

Reach inside and expose the thoughts kept hidden during the hours spent adrift in the "normal" world. Yes, these thoughts are usually kept hidden because they don't fit in with the day-to-day rites of the office realm or the working life, but they're in the mind - a constant, unquestionable presence. Reveal those dark little parts of the heart no one else sees except through the writer's words. Edit and rewrite - and do not censor. Abject honesty in personal literary writing is pivotal. Unmask and reveal. Let the reader wonder from where these thoughts and ideas emanate. And let the reader find the beauty and the darkness and the joys in the words connected and shaped into something as real as you.

reading

2007-04-27T12:58:00.000-04:00

afterword

2007-04-15T19:04:00.000-04:00

Outside a few minutes ago, the downpour at a lull. The sky cinereal - a dusky gray tapestry around and above the buildings, the skyline. The mist and haze, and few cars and sporadic pedestrains, conjures a slightly hallucinatory neighborhood mural. My hair, getting longer now, tossed and and twirled in a dewy crescendo of wind.

This mood of nature induces a sense of melancholy. It gives pause. Instills quiescence. It's my favorite weather.

It is suddenly monsoon season here - a so-called “Nor’easter” has struck. I am happy to be inside on this soaked Sunday. And after yesterday and last night, I need a respite, and if being lugubrious is a part of this brief Sunday intermission in a hectic life, then so be it.

Yesterday afternoon I went to the Third Annual New York Round Table Writers' Conference at the Small Press Center. I networked a bit, passed out promotional materials for the Falling From the Sky anthology, imbibed some red wine, and was hit on by an irrtiating, self-absorbed young woman (I could only think to myself at the time, Writers are so annoying - and yeah, as you know by now, I'm a writer). As I made my escape, I extinguished that thought since, hey, I'm not annoying (no contrarian comments necessary from the This Side of the City fanbase, thank you).

I then attended a discussion panel, “Big, Small, or Me: Commercial vs. Small vs. University Presses." Susan Driscoll of iUniverse (a well-regarded self-publishing company) was a member of the panel. Afterward, I approached her and we spoke for a while. We discussed the self-publishing paradigm in a bit more depth. I also gave her Falling From the Sky materials, and commented that I was the editor (of course). She told me that iUniverse always has opportunities for freelance editors (they pay by the word), and that the work is steady. She gave me her business card and told me to get in touch with her directly. So, I will. And with that said, it appears quite possible that I could have some additional editing work, along with additional income.

I was asked last night, "Are you an editor or a writer?" I answered, "Both." The follow-up question: "But which one are you first?" Well, I'm a writer (see above).

Before the closing event of the conference, an interview with well-known author Richard Ford, I met a couple of fellow writers. We had a friendly conversation, full of witty banter and acerbic asides, and found that our attitudes and opinions regarding, well… writing, publishing, and life in general were similar. So after the Ford interview (he was kind of dull and not funny), I grabbed some food from the buffet and we charged off to a Midtown bar on 45th. Several beers were consumed and the tête-à-tête continued. It was some Scottish holiday, apparently, and the Perfect Pint was rife with kilts and bagpipes, so often the discussion consisted of yelling and exaggerated gestures. We absconded from Midtown and the mischief continued late into the night. Late. At the end of this unexpected evening, phone numbers and info were exchanged, and I got home at 4:30. I wish I could have slept in longer, and usually the lull of heavy rains and intemperate weather helps, but there is much to accomplish today.

One of my writers for Falling From the Sky is flying into the city on Wednesday. She and I have been in touch via email, and we plan to meet up for a cocktail or three one on Friday or Saturday night. It is always interesting to hang out and drink with fellow writers, as duly noted above.

Now, shunning the malaise and stretching out sore limbs, I have to put together and informal cover letter for Susan Driscoll, take a look at the refurbished résumé, put in some time on a couple of manuscripts, and get back to the promotion of Falling From the Sky.

Forward momentum.

Are you with me? Am I with me?

network

2007-04-10T21:55:00.000-04:00

And now, a public service announcement. The Writers' Conference, held here in New York City, is a valuable annual event where the writer can attend workshops and seminars, network and mingle with agents, publishers, industry professionals, and fellow writers, trade ideas, etc.

The Small Press Center: The New York Center for Independent Publishing is sponsoring the third annual New York Round Table Writers' Conference to be held Friday, April 13 and Saturday, April 14, 2007, at 20 West 44th Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues in midtown Manhattan at the landmark General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen Library.

The Third Annual New York Round Table Writers' Conference

sometime

2007-03-31T00:45:00.001-04:00

The first book, the second book. Both still manuscripts, but so what? Heart, time, and emotion drip-dropped minute by minute into these words. Friday night edits and rewrites. Intensity of my eyes focused on the screen and everything else in the world absent.

From Somewhere, Sometime, Some Enchanted Life

We’re a long way from anywhere. This trip has taken us so far from what we were and what we’d known. And we didn’t know what we’d find when got wherever we were going. This was just an interlude.
I lean against the side of the Cougar at a rest stop just off the interstate. It's not one of those rest areas with a gas station and fast food and a gift shop and mini-vans of weary families. No, this is a wide gravel driveway, a few cockeyed and weathered picnic tables amid tangled weeds, and a cluster of wood-encased bathroom stalls. It doesn't seem the safest place at midnight, but I don't feel threatened. As a matter of fact, I feel almost tranquil. Cal's inside, taking care of urgent business, while I huddle in my jacket and wait and suck in the crisp air.
I exhale puffy cold clouds and gaze at a clear night's starry skies, no clouds from here to the unseen horizon. My eyes rove and I try to pinpoint a familiar constellation, or determine whether the brighter gleams are planets. Or maybe I just want to catch a glimpse of God.
I imagine what a movie or a stage play means to us mortals; the planet earth is to God. We enter a theater for a predetermined length of time and sit and watch the story play out. Images flutter across us, drama or comedy, absurdity or farce, along the boards. And then it's done and we're outside and back to real life.
So God, in immortality and fathomless might, looks down upon this tiny speck of infected blue and white and watches our histories and destinies unfold like the two-hour escape we find behind the swinging doors. God as director goes for the improvisational. He views this massive mise-en-scene as it develops its own plots, it own ostensibly endless acts, scenes drawn out for decades, a billion character arcs, dramatic crescendos, comedic pratfalls, stirring tragedy. A script written to infinity.
Maybe God put us into production to alleviate his boredom. It’s his show - introductions, rising action, and a constant montage of climax and catharsis and eventual denouement. The billions of stories would be so effortless for God to follow but it boggles us.
I wonder if God has grown bored. Maybe he left the theater early. Maybe he became tired of our story. Here we are, abandoned and playing out our roles and no one cares. The seats are empty.
But a sliver of hope placates me - I picture him above. My intense anger has subsided. The death I’ve seen, numbed by pain, family now decaying in the ground, and me alone to carry on, almost seems another life. The homicidal fantasies that spun me to sleep for too long have receded – shredded Seraphim and impaled cherubs and Heaven’s golden cloud palaces afire against a sooty dark sky.
Could it be that out here where there is nothing and no one that I find what I need? My eyes rove the skies with a reverse twinkle.
God's resemblance is some vaguely humanoid shape but featureless - emotion without defined physical characteristics. I know, so many religions want to create the image of god in their way, but what do they know? Everyone is right while everyone else is wrong.
I imagine God trudges across expanses of void, the imprints of what would pass for God's feet leaving black holes in the fabric. He floats and hovers and throws a planet here, tosses a star there, two-finger-flicks a playful quasar over that way, with a comet or two in the mix to distill the monotony. God wants a light show and detonates a star and causes a nebula, tendrils of starlight seep across black. Who's to say he doesn't require entertainment? Being omnipotent could prove a lonesome gig in the grand scheme, no matter how many angels lick God’s perceived boots.
Cal comes out of the derelict facilities. He is hunched against the chill, hands thrust into his knee-length black coat. His junked cargo pants with a rip in the knee do not help to deflect the cold. "I wonder if the state sends out a clean-up crew even once a year." It's more statement than question. "No soap and cold water."
"You expected warm water, and soap, here?"
Cal opens the driver's side door. "People are disgusting. They need to learn not only how to aim, but how to flush. It took me five minutes to find the stall least festering with feces and disease."
“Lovely.”
Cal clambers behind the wheel and closes the door, starts it up again, and rapidly rubs his hands together. He revs the engine.
With a last glance straight up at the sky, I smile with a kind of contentment and slide into the car as the word maybe echoes in my head.
We lurch out of the gravel driveway and onto the Interstate. We’re off again. I twist in my seat to look at Cal. His eyes are focused straight ahead, the corner of his mouth upturned, and eyes with long lashes in slow blinks. He doesn’t even look over at me, but takes my hand in his, squeezes. I smile and look away, out at the road. There is something about this man I love so deeply, but it is something I cannot wholly define. He’s the penniless outsider, pure of spirit, and has nothing left to lose. He will help me find who I am again.
Cal’s foot steadily eases down on the gas pedal to the speed of light and we’re two taillights receding into the dark.

frenetic

2007-03-28T14:13:00.000-04:00

Okay. It's just getting too damn busy for one person to handle.

I need a part-time personal assistant. Just for a while. I can pay with liquor, witty banter, an unhealthy dose of sarcasm, my uproarious jokes, and a hint of brooding. How's that for recompense? If you need an application, just jot all of your relevant info (what authors, music, and movies you like) and stats (including height, weight, gender, and hair color) on the back of a cocktail napkin, then email me with a photo attachment via this blog, and I might reply with the pertinent details.

I vigilantly await a virtual tsunami of responses.

For the first time in many months, I opened up my manuscript for my second novel, "Somewhere, Sometime, Some Enchanted Life." And though dozens of the passages struck me ("Wow, I wrote that?"), I also noticed that it needs work. Editing. "Fading out of sight, we spun westward... The damage incurable, the damage done. Now, we were running at the speed of light."

So, the Falling From the Sky anthology goes to the printer Friday. As in, this Friday the 30th of March. That means it will soon be available to you, the eager and discerning reader. And it also means that the publicity machine is about to kick into gear. Okay, it's not like the clamor surrounding the release of celluloid claptrap like The DaVinci Code, for example, but still, for an independent publisher, it's fairly impressive.

One of the authors, Steve Quinlan, has set up a May 10 reading at Edinburgh Castle Pub on Geary Street in San Francisco. It's a 90-minute block, from 7:30 until 9:00. Quinlan will read his contribution to the anthology (Glimmer), Oakland resident Mallory Small will read his story Night Time Is the Right Time (which is set in the very district where the reading is happening - the enchanting Tenderloin). Other west coast anthology authors might just hitchhike or pogo stick to the City by the Bay for the reading, as well.

And me, the editor of the anthology? I might - might - just head out to San Francisco, too. I haven't been back since I left - nearly ten years. And besides the fact that I occasionally miss my old stomping grounds, this reading is another reason to get back there. Plus, I always enjoyed drinking at the Castle (Harp beer was my libation of choice there). The company I work for has a hotel near the financial district (on Clay Street near the Embarcadero), so I can, in all likelihood, lodge for free. This is all dependent upon how badly my taxes deplete my bankroll (one of this weekend's many tasks and assignations) and, of course, the cost of airfare.

Perhaps my imponderable non-assistant could do my taxes for me. And secure me a surfeit of prescription mood elevators for the flight.

There is also the Third Annual New York Round Table Writers' Conference on April 13 and 14 at the Small Press Center (20 West Forty-Fourth Street here in New York) which I will be both attending, and lending my sardonic self as a volunteer. I attended a couple of years ago, in April 2005, and the conference is a fantastic venue in which to mingle, promote, and network with an abundance of creative types. So Falling From the Sky and Another Sky Press promotional materials and bookmarks will be distributed by the handful to any and all in attendance.

There are a few other events coming up in the next month or two at which I will press the flesh. But I have rambled enough, and I do not have a personal assistant (yet), and I need to continue the forward momentum (even if I am stuck at the office right now).

What's for lunch?

métier

2007-03-25T22:07:00.000-04:00

Métier (or, "Career Opportunities")

After a demurral for several months, the search for editing and writing-oriented work has resumed. With the editing for Falling From the Sky complete, my résumé has been reworked and updated to reflect my new status as an "editor." The editorial work for the book was a joy, a highly-involved learning process, and a great deal of hard work and focus.

Now the focus shifts from the anthology to work in the professional field of editing, copywriting, or research - often it's an amalgam of all three. At the risk of seeming brazen (who, me? Never!), I am adept at all three of those functions.

Here's an example of work for which I would qualify: "If you’re a fast, meticulous editor who can consistently meet tight deadlines and handle lots of copy, you’re halfway there. If you have experience editing, command of Associated Press style, a flare for headline writing and fine-tuning copy, contact us. Responsibilities: • Copy edit for clarity, grammar, spelling and Associated Press style • Handle numerous 100 to 1,000-word articles each day • Fact-check using the Internet, other reference materials and by contacting writers • Write headlines and rework copy when needed..."

Yep. That has me (bad pun ahead) "written" all over it.

So, I will see what is listed in the classifieds (The New York Times, mediabistro.com, hotjobs, etc.) and what leads I can find through my scattered contacts. I'm sure the industry eagerly awaits a clever, capable, and competent word slinger like me - the rebel writer/editor with a professional focus and a cause.

Of course, another anthology awaits in the near-future, but that's on my own time (just like Falling From the Sky). There is also work on my own writing, such as edits for my novel "Ache."

Meanwhile, we've entered the final stage of copyediting the forty-seven stories for layout. We have to ensure that all punctuation is correct, that there are no "hanging words" (a huge waste of page space), and as a method to double-check my original edits. I am preparing my editor's introduction to the collection. That goes in, we secure an ISBN number from the Library of Congress, off to the printer we go.

And then this spectacular volume of stories will be in your hungry little hands. Well, after you order it, that is. At 340 to 350 pages, it's thick, but you can handle it.

So support Another Sky Press and support your occasionally humble editor™. Thank you.

renewal

2007-03-12T19:57:00.001-04:00

I felt this stream of consciousness coming on all day, from the moment I woke up. Two straight days with a blog entry. Get out of my way, world - I'm back in the writing groove.

This morning, naked before my shower, I noticed I've lost weight. I see the number on the scale and I am not displeased. I look in the mirror and my cheekbones seem slightly more defined. My face lean. I smile. Wider. I guess I have a "nice" smile. At least that's what I've been told most of my adult life. I'll take the compliment.

I look into my hazel eyes. Clear eyes. Clean conscience. Destructive old habits inhaled, exhaled, and gone. New dawn fades. New day dawns. The cycle of life. Renewal.

It was dark when I walked to the train today, half-moon in the onyx sky. But somehow, I did not feel as lethargic as usual. I did not dread the commute, the office, the people who would surround me on the streets, quite as much. I felt almost above the crowd. It was some existentialist reverie, I suppose - among the people but alone, never sure of my place. And that was okay. I don't need to belong, or be accepted, or become like all of them. I'm not sure I will ever be fully comfortable in my own skin. Insecurity? No, just an adjustment to the circumstances of my life. Confidence, swagger, and an intermittent sense of dominance might be construed by some as hubris. I can understand that, but see it as acclimation to who I am.

And who I am has been adrift in a haze of diffidence and renunciation. I am not the classic "nice guy," and my words can often be harsh and... too honest, I suppose. I don't always regret my words, though I realize I can be a little more tactful and act less on impulse. But I will not play games, I will not use or manipulate, and I will not fill anyone's head with banal mantras or circumspect advice meant to serve my own ends. I expect honesty in return. Usually, I brood on feelings and thoughts for too long a time. I push them away, but they linger and gather with a redoubtable persistence. To reclaim oneself is to feel a corroded iron halo lifted from around the head. To feel a threadbare shroud of antipathy open and lift and drift away. To feel scorn and derision wrenched from me like the parasites they are, replaced with an empathy - a benevolence. I toss childish grudges and destructive malice aside.

It's the new me! How will the world react? Okay, so...

I went about Monday with a convivial detachment. The office was business-as-usual. The noise, the chatter and clatter, the vicarious stress, the gossip. It didn't faze me. I strode among the cubicles and desks, seeing and knowing that this was simply a fraction of who we are.

Coming home from the train, now before sunset, mellow music in my ears, and seeing. I mean, really seeing. I know it's a romantic notion, but I looked beyond the skyline to the great stratus-streaked blue and smiled. Now, that should have proven an exigency for a nocturnal creature like me. I am so accustomed to my own darkness, my own introspective and brooding nature, that to see and enjoy and feel the light on my skin was almost a revelation.

I don't know where all of this came from, especially on a Monday.

Perhaps it was the sense of accomplishment I had earned with the completion of the short story anthology. I felt I was justified to take a moment to enjoy my own cocksure self-satisfaction. In the moments after I knew it was done - through all the late nights and early mornings, through all the personal turbulence, the ceaseless voices in my ears and inside my head, the words across computer screens, phones, text messages, crowds, work, and the overload of it all - something inside me shifted. A village idiot's grin spread across my face as I realized the last story was finished - that the book would be on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and several other online outlets, as well as available in independent bookstores, in roughly a month. And there is my name - as the editor. But despite what I felt, this wasn't just for me. In the land of reality, it was for thirty-eight other writers, for a burgeoning independent publisher, for a discerning and intelligent readng audience who would be offered something different than, and superior to, the usual pseudo-literary fodder.

And now Ache edits await. A new manuscript idea. Short stories, perhaps. More editing. A new résumé. New people. New projects. New prospects.

Maybe my next blog post will simply be my résumé. Without my phone number or address, of course. I must have my stalkers somewhere out there.

I will now firmly place my tongue-in-cheek, not only because it's something I quite enjoy, but because it seems I've discovered a "pro-life" outlook. No, fear not, my steadfast and affectionate readers, your trenchant guide to this side of the city will always have that misanthropic edge - it's inherent. But now I feel it tempered with... hope?

editor

2007-03-11T21:39:00.000-04:00

Editing. Words, sentences, paragraphs. Punctuation, spelling, grammar, syntax. More words.

The editing is finished. 47 stories. 38 authors.

It was a weekend of words and a certain newfound wisdom in those words. On the couch, music and the lava lamp, blanket draped on my shoulders, computer in my lap, focused on the prose arranged across the screen. Sure, I'm awaiting a few author approval responses, but the editing for Falling From the Sky is essentially complete. The contracts are in and there are no more stories on cue. There is a huge sense of accomplishment, and even a degree of relief, but I also feel a bit... doleful. Over the course of the past several months, a great deal of time and effort has gone into this omnibus, by both author and editor alike. From different corners of the globe, the hearts and thoughts and ideas of dozens of people have built something wonderfully original and creative.

I find that it's difficult to let go. But I have to send it out into the world to find its wings.

Enough of the lachrymose. I'm much better at editing others than editing myself.

After a solid four-hour block of edits and Another Sky Press related work on Friday, R. called me and asked if I was coming out. I was reluctant at first. After all, I was on a roll, absorbed in stories and author bios and marketing ideas. But R. insisted - he informed me that I needed to be out. He was right - it had been a long week of daytime work, night time editing, and obdurate illness. But my cold had receded, and I needed a few cocktails beyond the confines of my apartment. Thus convinced, out I went. It turned out to be a restorative evening. Some friends I'd not seen in a while showed. Drinks went down, much conversation ensued, and the mood was upbeat.

Saturday morning, the sun through the blinds awakened me, cottonmouth and heavy head. But after food and self-medication, I quickly recovered. It was back to work. I rolled through the afternoon, one story after the other, but a break was necessary. My eyes felt as if they were about to drop from their sockets. Daylight Savings brought Saturday night to an earlier close than I expected, but at least there was no hangover today. And late this afternoon came the last story. The last one. It didn't quite seem believable. With all those hours of focus logged behind me, what would the hours ahead bring?

Regardless of any evasive ontological questions I couldn't quite answer at the time, I knew one thing for certain...

Your occasionally humble editor™ now has his first book to his credit.

Sure, in the past I'd rewritten papers and essays for my college classmates. I'd taken a mostly useless creative writing course where we evaluated each others' work. I'd proofread several screenplays and the intermittent short story or manuscript, usually as a favor, over time. I'd proofed and corrected a (successful) college admission essay. I edited the online newsletter for the law office where I work.

But this was a book. A real book I'll soon hold in my hands. And it's well over 300 pages long.

I believe I shall toast myself with a glass or two of red wine this evening.

My heartfelt thanks go out to all of our writers for their first-rate work. Overall, the editing was a delight. Not only that, but it was also a learning process for me, from inception to completion.

Back in the spring of 2006, Kristopher and I bonded over the Press, and the ideas behind the Press. I'd known Krist for a fairly long time, since when he'd lived in New York, and our beliefs ran a similar path. I suggested a short story anthology. In my opinion, this would be a perfect method with which to introduce the Press to a mass audience. Whereas a single book might have a theme that appeals to a more concentrated, narrow readership, a story collection would showcase an array of writers, each with their own unique talents, ideas, and voice. I joined up, and it was a go. In a burst of inspiration, the title came to me - "Falling From the Sky." I envisioned the stories as a random assemblage of creativity, pieces of prose from beyond the limited scope of the mainstream, tumbling into the Press and onto the printed page. And the title incorporated a part of the Press name. Cool, huh? I have my moments.

The stories filtered in, and the majority were of terrific quality - proficient and imaginative. We were on our way. I sorted through every submission in the approval/rejection process. The approved authors were informed of their acceptance into the book, and an edit of their story would be forthcoming. I consulted with the lawyer at the office where I work and got Krist a boilerplate literary contract which he tailored to the needs of the Press and anthology. Contracts were sent and returned, my edits were approved by the authors, and final text versions of the stories were submitted for layout. Soon we had a thick volume looming.

Encapsulating the editorial process in a couple of paragraphs might make it seem easier than it actually is. No, it takes an appreciable amount of time. From submission to editing, it requires a keen eye, attention to detail, patience, and time. It is a system of evolution. Plus, as I discovered, any worthwhile editor will treat each story almost like one of their own.

I've now developed my own method, which I will streamline to create a nearly seamless process when I undertake editorial chores for the upcoming Sci-Fi/Cyberpunk anthology (tentatively titled "Digital Sky.") We already have submissions for that volume, with a release scheduled for sometime in the autumn.

No, your occasionally humble editor™ did not contribute a story of his own to "Falling From the Sky." Writing is my first passion, my true talent (though I might add editing now), but it is not usually the editor's place to use the book being edited as a personal platform. I was fine with that, and I will be adding the two or three page introduction. Good enough, and I will submit my stories to future volumes I am not editing.

So. Next comes copyediting for layout, and the volume goes off to the printer, but that is on the production end. With the long timeline for the Sci-Fi/Cyberpunk anthology submissions, approval, and editing, I now have time to devote to some of my own writing. I have a couple of story or book ideas, some manuscripts I've started, and I'll also concentrate on an overhaul of my first novel, "Ache." Plus, there is always something to evaluate for Another Sky...

I should perform some social interaction exercises. Time to press the flesh. This Friday I will be attending a National Small Press Month Reading Marathon at Mo Pitkin’s House of Satisfaction at 34 Avenue A, here in New York. I'll be armed with Another Sky bookmarks and promotional materials, as well as my dazzling smile and magnetic personality. Ahem.

The editing is done. I crouch down by the open window next to couch, hold my hands at my chin in what might be called a pensive gesture. Contemplation, thoughts, a hint of the melancholy, looking out across the night. I usher out negative energy. There's been too much of it built up for too long. My focus is on the positive now. Strength. Integrity.

And words. Always unedited words through my head.

crank

2007-03-03T18:51:00.000-05:00

I love to steal this living steam
My head in someone's dream
I'm tired of sleeping
--Crank

Friday night, Rob Dickinson appeared at the Mecury Lounge on Houston Street here in the New York. For friendly purposes, I am simply going to call him "Rob" rather than "Dickinson." I think he'd want it that way.

It was an intimate show, about two hundred people in the Gen X age group, all of us apparently ardent Catherine Wheel fans and curious to see that band's former frontman solo and acoustic. That's right - no backing band and no stacks of Marshall amps. There was only Rob on a stool with his guitar and a harmonica.

This was quite a change of pace for Rob. One of the best concerts I have ever seen was Catherine Wheel at the Fillmore in San Francisco back in the dark ages of 1995, on tour in support of their third album, "Happy Days." I recall that the amps were stacked, but Rob took the stage alone, explained that their drummer was under the weather, and began to perform the song Pain acoustically (foreshadowing, anyone?). I remember I so hoped this wasn't going to be an acoustic set due to the drummer being ill. The band was renowned for their "wall of sound." I wanted that Catherine Wheel thunder. My fears were allayed when the rest of the band came out, with the drummer for the previous act that evening, Belly (remember them?) filling in - he did double duty.

Belly had put on an energetic show. Superconnected is still a damn poignant and fierce tune. And, the opening act that evening was an up and coming singer-songwriter named Jewel. Mallory and I arrived for the tail end of Jewel's set. We wondered if Sean Penn might be there since they were rumored to be dating at the time (a bit of archaic gossip column fodder there for those of you who didn't know or don't remember or don't care). Well, no Sean Penn was out and about in the Fillmore that night. Mal and I liquored up at the bar while Jewel and her yodel finished up on stage.

So the rest of Catherine Wheel (well, with Belly's drummer) took their positions and blasted into the chorus of Pain, amps at full roar. From there the band just crushed. Tanya Donnelly from Belly came out and shared the microphone with Rob for Judy Staring At the Sun. They covered the newer tracks from "Happy Days" (Heal being the highlight), as well as classics, of course, like Black Metallic, Crank, The Nude, I Want to Touch You, and Flower To Hide.

And I know
The sunlight bleaches you
It colours everything you do
And I know
A flower's fading far too soon

Now, here I was, many seasons and a city later, feeling good. And the Catherine Wheel singer/guitarist was back, by himself. Much like me, he had a decidedly different vibe in his life from the time of that staggering Fillmore show. He came out, said hello, took the stool, strummed the guitar, and launched into Heal ("It's how high you are/and the time it takes to heal"). An auspicious start indeed. His voice was pristine, and unlike too many contemporary "singers," it was immediately noticeable that his vocals had rarely, if ever, been tweaked or modulated in the studio. This guy can sing.

And what a stirring set. He interspersed songs from his recent solo album, "Fresh Wine for the Horses" with several timeless Catherine Wheel numbers, as well as one brand new tune called The End of the World. The solo material was perfect for the intimacy of the Mercury Lounge. Intelligent People, Handsome, Oceans, and My Name Is Love (which is, according to Rob, a conversation with the goddess Venus) came across well. I glanced around and people were absorbed in it.

Oh, I say
that my life has changed
in many ways
If your name is love
show me some grace
When everything you know
falls apart when the wind blows
When everything seems so tough
My name is Love

Rob bantered with a loose friendliness and a keen sense of self-deprecation. He gave background on a few of the songs, and threw in a humorous story involving his cousin Bruce Dickinson, the singer for heavy metal band Iron Maiden. The only letdown (and it wasn't even a "letdown," per se) was when he did one song off Catherine Wheel's final release, Wishville. I hoped for Mad Dog, my favorite from that album, but instead it was Ballad of a Running Man - which is groovy, but it's no Mad Dog.

At the close of the set, as expected, he performed Black Metallic. It was a briefly sententious moment for me to finally hear it live again. Much of the audience sang along with Rob ("It's the color of your skin"), including me, but luckily no one could hear me caterwaul and warble over the din of the show. Nah, I ain't much of a vocalist, but that won't stop me.

I think of you when you're sleeping
Of all the secrets that you're keeping
You can't stay all day under the covers
Cause under there you'll discover
It's the colour of your skin

The music opened the heart, attenuated emotion, built into a series of ebullient peaks - imparted a keen sense of momentary catharsis. After one more song, the set ended.

We wormed our way to the restrooms, then outside and onward to another place where the positive spirit Rob Dickinson had instilled continued into the small hours... but that's another story.

It was an inspiring evening.

I'm tired of sleeping.

subtext

2007-02-25T20:25:00.000-05:00

Fumbling. Trying not to fall. But sometimes we do fall.

Yes, we fall. We slip on ice and dislocate, say, the pinky finger of the left hand.

We fumble through life. Sometimes we stumble. We trip. We look the fool. But we do the best we can with what we have and with what we can salvage. Or what we find, no matter how unexpected. The unexpected can be salvation - what you always wanted. But often unexpected is when everything seems to crash down at once. We find ourselves in predicaments and situations that we don't necessarily desire. Between the good times, the glow of love or the warmth of friends, there is the struggle of life. We hold close those we trust and love - those who will always be there, no matter what.

Work. Some are fortunate to have a career they enjoy. Others have jobs of which they might not be particularly enamored, but is a necessity. Others, well, they don't want to work at all. It might not be out of laziness (though often it is), but because corporate servitude isn't remotely near the top if any list of personal priorities. But we work, and we pay the bills, keep food in our bellies, and we survive.

Goals. Not everyone has lofty goals for themselves, and there is no foul in that. Sometimes love and family and a circle of friends is enough. And perhaps it should be. Others strive for achievement - those who know what they want. The goal of professional success is noble. As long as a person stays true to the ideal, and does not damage anyone else in the process of attaining their goal, then there should be no question but to act. It can take time, so much time, but to give up truly, as has been stated in theatrical fashion by others, is to die. At least partially. To wither and lose part of yourself.

And sometimes, along the way on this path of life, we do lose those pieces of ourselves. We sacrifice belief, reason, love. We can succumb to doubt and fear and empty vitriol. There is the possibility that the reasons might be beyond our control. But if they are conscious choices, then we have to answer to our reflection and the accusation, disappointment, and guilt looking back. Occasionally we have to swallow that pride and concede. We have to realize our fumbles, our errors. And not just simply... give up.

Maybe that's why I can never give up on the written word. I could never not read, not have a book in my hand, or waiting by my bedside. It's why I could never not write. It would be too much to bear. Constant self-flagellation or maintaining grudges or clinging to spite are far from beneficial or gratifying. They're instruments of self-destruction and they ostracize what truly matters. I know this and I've been guilty of these shortcomings. They kill you inside and can damage those around you, even those you ardently profess to love. You don't alienate and exile those who care about you, whom you profess to care about. Where is the sense and love in that?

Words are a part of what makes me the person I am. Like emotion, sometimes I am overwhelmed and consumed. Unglued. Often I have to write for the release. Writing acts as a form of self-induced therapy. Some might tag me as a bit of a lunatic (a generally good-hearted lunatic, mind you), so extracting the words from my brain and putting them down in some kind of coherent form helps to preserve a semblance of sanity. No, I could never eschew or forfeit words. Even if no one else ever read them, or enjoyed them - found meaning in them - I would always be pounding the keys or scrawling across paper, regardless.

But my writing has meant something to some people over time. And no, I'm not talking about paying freelance work, which means something to an editor because I am under a deadline. Sure, that merits importance, but it's the words I write that... help me. More so, it's the people who care about my words that save me (hmm, a bit dramatic). Sure, some of these people I might never know or meet. But I cherish those who have told me that they found a sense of... beauty... in my words. Is beauty even the right word? Maybe the proper word actually escapes me. But as long as the words stir something, it doesn't matter if it's the beautiful Princess isolated in her tower or the solitary pauper lonely in his own little apartment, both of them somewhere out there across the miles. Somehow I know that the abject, naked honesty of the word strikes something inside. "You write beautfully." What greater compliment to my words could there be?

So, with words as constant companion, I fumble through life, doing the best I can. There is the inherent desire to be a good person, to do and say the right thing. It not always a smooth process, and I certainly have a great capacity to fumble, but I try, and I also try to admit when I am wrong. People and friends come. People go. True friends stay. Love comes. It goes. True love stays, no matter the circumstances. There is an unquestioning vulnerability in love, much like so many of the words I write every day and every evening. We open up, we close ourselves off, we concede, we fight, we forgive. For many of us, on some level, we acknowledge and overcome differences and laugh at the foolishness because those differences, in the end, do not matter. It's our flesh and blood and bond and the fragility of emotion that matters. Somehow, we find a way to fumble through, not necessarily unscathed, but hopefully stronger. Love will fix any troubles? Yes, if that love is real, and strong. The stories of our lives unold across pages as they unfolds across the world.

The world and me. The words and me. My heart and me.

How does one exist for me without the other?

terrain

2007-02-15T20:03:00.000-05:00

Winter arrived in December, but it paid its first actual visit the past couple of days here in New York. Snow, sleet, freezing rain, wind, slush, salt, and the sidewalk slip 'n' slide.

An array of cell phone pictures capture the urban tundra:

W. 46th St., Feb. 15, 2007

W. 45th Street, Feb. 15, 2007

Times Square, 46th & Broadway - Feb. 14, 2007

Times Square - Feb. 14, 2007

23rd St., Astoria - Feb. 15, 2007

Astoria under the subway tracks, Feb. 15, 2007

Astoria Alley, 23rd St. - Feb. 15, 2007

Rooftop view toward 47th St. - Feb. 16, 2007

Midtown view - Feb. 16, 2007

coiled

2007-02-10T00:55:00.000-05:00

My face feels drawn. Tight. Lips pursed and cheekbones protrude and forehead creased. I'm a coiled snake in the corner. Hiss and rattle and menace. Maybe it's the fatigue. Maybe it's the bottle of wine I drank. And please excuse typos I don't catch - I will try and perform repairs later. I only dream in infrared. Who wrote that?

Should I even be making a blog entry at this hour? With this fatigue? This buzz in my skull? I take another pull of wine. I should just take it from the teat of the bottle and not this glass. I should also concentrate on the editing, but... but bleary eyes do not lend themselves to what is required. Another bottle conquered, like Hannibal over the Alps. Or something like that.

Hello - is there anybody in there?

What's this nonsense on the television? It's muted and music plays right now, Poe. I should turn it off. Blank dead screen. But somehow, these nothing images keep me company.

I did watch "The Departed" earlier today. Oh, yes, I enjoyed it. I also saw the original upon which it was based, "Infernal Affairs." The Nicholson leer. The Ballahus cinematography. And Mr. Scorsese bringing out the best in every actor he nears - the Midas Touch. Give him an Academy Award already. His moment of glory. He should have beat "Rocky." And "Ordinary People." And, for the love of every child spawned by Noah, "Dances With Wolves." Do your own research.

But, until the world realigns itself, I cannot watch "Little Miss Sunshine."

Just nod if you can hear me.

I've moved on to vodka. Oh, numb, novocaine brain. Quiet thyself! What does it take? Must I read the late works of Shakespeare to cease your humdrum oppression? Could William ever top Titus Andronicus? Methinks not.

I glance at the clock next to the lava lamp next to the 'relative comfort indicator' and realize it's early. Well, early for a Friday night. Late for my work nights. But, awake since 5:15 on restless sleep with a 45-minute nap this afternoon, and the booze.

No, I should not be writing this. But perhaps my fanbase will appreciate the veracious stream-of-consciousness of a compassionate, misanthropic madman. Come to think of it, making spelling corrections on this entry might detract from its, uh... purity. But, the editor I am, I will fix the mistakes of clumsy fingers and two-sided eyes.

There is no pain, you are receding.

I find myself smiling. No, grinning. Big wide grin of exposed teeth because I know how silly silly silly it is for me to jab these keys as storms rumble near the back of my braincase.

I am a nocturnal creature by nature. Do not read too deeply into that. I am not a goth kid. I'm close to middle age. Well, closer now to middle age than to halcyon youth. College and Darrien Lake and supermarkets and cross-country trips are a part of my withering youth. Yes, I will always be that gawky, geeky teen punk metalhead alternative geek in my head and my heart. Ripped jeans and trenchcoat and concert shirt and no game with the ladies. The kid tooling around small town nowhere in a black mustang with some music screaming from decrepit car speakers soothing his youthful soul. 1986. 1989. The creases on my face will merely reflect my physical age.

You are only coming through in waves.

Perhaps I will leave the house tomorrow night. Yes, slither and slide from these walls and into public, where I always feel like a stranger.

This path I've tread to this moment, it's the reason I smile. How could a sixteen year old kid have envisioned himself here and now, lovestruck in life and lost and a little loopy on a Friday night in 2007, far from the world he grew up in, pumping words such as these into a "blog?"

I have become comfortably numb.

But it's honest. All of this before your narrowed, quizzical eyes as you read this - it's simple honesty from one soul to another. Sure, when you read this, my mind might be in a different, and hopefully better, place than this. But it's the honesty of the moment.

That's all I have to offer.

pasquinade

2007-01-27T12:22:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I found this pretty humorous - a motley assemblage of has-beens, no-talents, and one hit wonders. But, admittedly, there are a few - and just a few - decent bands listed on this parody poster:

Even with the authentic Coachella lineup, you'll never top the early Lollapalooza festivals, kids. Sorry.

combustion

2007-01-14T19:40:00.000-05:00

Work. Too much of it this past week, clocking in at around fifty-seven hours. Oh yes, this included two training sessions, which constituted all of Friday afternoon and a good portion of Saturday. Does this sound like a scenario that might send me wide-eyed and screaming? Of course it does, but I expected much worse (and I was paid for the time).

Here in the apartment, with the company of the lava lamp, music, and my words, my own work continues with the editing of the Falling From the Sky anthology (which is now available for pre-order). I'm excited about this collection of imaginative and unconventional short stories, and happy to be an integral part of the project (er, yeah, that makes sense since I'm the editor). The release date has been set for mid-March. After the book is finished, I will take some time to work on sporadic edits for my own novel Ache, and continue with the other two manuscripts I have on the hot plate. Later this year, I will embark on my second editorial project with the Another Sky, this one a Cyberpunk anthology.

As these words remove themselves from my mind, I set aside my overlay of cynicism and acerbity. An inspirited, buoyant soul emerges. I turn away from the jagged, turbulent path of 2006, and in front of me I see the open artery of 2007, profuse with possibilities of renewal.

Well there’s a light in your eye that keeps shining
Like a star that can’t wait for the night
I hate to think I’ve been blinded baby
Why can’t I see you tonight?

And the warmth of your smile starts a-burnin’
And the thrill of your touch gives me fright
And I’m shaking so much, really yearning
Why don’t you show up, make it all right?
-Led Zeppelin, "Fool in the Rain"

spark

2007-01-05T23:56:00.000-05:00

I'm here, yes I am. Here on the fringe, outside the bright lights and neon reflection. Drunk on red wine and alone in a warm, empty room of January night. Warm, you ask? Yes, 63 degrees and raining in winter. Rain. It placates and lulls and stirs my passion. Passion reigned in like horses at the gates. Drink helps to wash it away, temporarily - like the rain. Wash away conflict and indecision and all that self-flagellation of the mind.

And I am going to post a Charles Bukowski poem again, whether you, my unknown readers, like it or not. Because he runs in the blood. Because he was a scarred warrior and a survivor and genius and he deserves tribute. Because only he has ever been able to reflect my moods and emotions with any degree of accuracy when I need it.

So I pour more wine. I scowl to hide my ache. I clench one fist, and with the other I raise my lonely, half-filled glass to the ceiling, to the wet sky, to the flaxen heavens, and I thank Bukowski for helping me survive with his words.

Who the hell is going to save me? "You're going to have to save yourself." My thoughts, as I picture the drugged, the drunken, the diseased, and the derelicts, and I drink to them, as well.

From "The Last Night of the Earth Poems":

"Spark" by Charles Bukowski

I always resented all the years, the hours, the
minutes I gave them as a working stiff, it
actually hurt my head, my insides, it made me
dizzy and a bit crazy -- I couldn't understand the
murdering of my years
yet my fellow workers gave no signs of
agony, many of them even seemed satisfied, and
seeing them that way drove me almost as crazy as
the dull and senseless work.

the workers submitted.
the work pounded them to nothingness, they were
scooped-out and thrown away.

I resented each minute, every minute as it was
mutilated
and nothing relieved the monotonous ever-
structure.

I considered suicide.
I drank away my few leisure hours.

I worked for decades.

I knew that I was dying.
something in me said, go ahead, die, sleep, become
them, accept.

then something else in me said, no, save the tiniest
bit.
it needn't be much, just a spark.
a spark can set a whole forest on
fire.
just a spark.
save it.

I think I did.
I'm glad I did.
what a lucky god damned
thing.

perspicacity

2006-12-29T22:53:00.000-05:00

"question and answer"

he sat naked and drunk in a room of summer
night, running the blade of the knife
under his fingernails, smiling, thinking
of all the letters he had received
telling him that
the way he lived and wrote about
that--
it had kept them going when
all seemed
truly
hopeless.

putting the blade on the table, he
flicked it with a finger
and it whirled
in a flashing circle
under the light.

who the hell is going to save
me? he
thought.

as the knife stopped spinning
the answer came:
you're going to have to
save yourself.

still smiling,
a: he lit a
cigarette
b: he poured
another
drink
c: gave the blade
another
spin.

-Charles Bukowski

transpose

2006-11-17T17:16:00.000-05:00

Cookie cutter crescent moon against a taut sky of immaculate liquid blue. The small hours fade in that limbo between night and daybreak. Too early, this isolated trek from front door to subway door. Too little sleep and too many divergent thoughts grapple for lucidity through tangles of sleepiness. Too early to adopt my usual swagger, or my detached, slightly amused expression. The life of this neighborhood is drowsy behind sporadic lighted windows of the houses and apartment buildings I pass. My footfalls are nearly silent.

Card swipe to the platform, again I gaze up at the impassive smile of moon. The reverie ends after a minute or two when the train clatters into the station. Seated, my serene sleep gaze through the nicked and scuffed windows and across the east of this borough. I consider all of those disparate lives and stories out there across the sprawl.

Swept under the river and through tunnels, it’s generally a trouble-free jaunt at this time of the workday. The trains are not yet ready to veer off schedule or break down. The masses have not yet emerged from their cocoons to cluster and shove. No crowds – just the usual suspects heading to the morning shift of somewhere. Some of these faces have even become familiar.

Dragged from stupor at my exit, through the gate, up the stairs and into the heart of the city. The detritus of another city night greets me. Stray night owls, loiterers, insomniacs. Hacks lean against their yellow cabs, lined along Broadway in front of the fast food joint, waiting for their dawn fares, coffee clutched like a defensive weapon. Traces of last night’s deluge of rain are collected in polluted curbside puddles.

The storms had pummeled the house, lashed the windows, gusted across and over and around. Locked out. And I was locked in, sheltered in solitude, words at my fingertips, distracted only by the din of the storm and the passive slow motion flow of the lava lamp.

My demeanor shifts to express lassitude, but beneath the guise lurks bemusement and perception. I observe, scrutinize, discern – it’s inherent. It’s what I always do. Convey life and memory and impression into something on a page resembling coherence. Put it here for anyone, anywhere to read. I keep so much to myself, but I put as much here as the ego’s comfort level allows.

Outside the office, a morning forager beats on a discarded pipe array. This is kind of amusing – a momentary distraction from contemplation, theory, fatigue, hope, tomorrow. His wheeled cart is loaded with the scraps and trophies and treasures of his life. He beats on this insulated pipe arrangement, the jarring clang of metal-on-metal in an attempt to loosen the conduit box and… I’m at a loss. Maybe the pipe is fitted with copper. That’s the ticket. He can sell it for a few dollars to get him through a few more days.

In the office now, alone in silence. Fluorescent sunshine-substitute across this tiny company-owned planet. I almost enjoy this calm before the workday’s controlled chaos. Soon enough this place will be crawling with our regularly scheduled players, and I will be scheduled for my usual desire to exit the stage, discard my role in this sideshow. There are so many other places I yearn to be right now, but at this moment, in a blink of existence, I am only here. So, for now, I slouch in this ergonomically correct chair, rub the sleep from my eyes, insular, huddled into myself, and I wait.

symmetry

2006-11-09T21:44:00.000-05:00

The voters of America have rejected the status quo. They rejected lies, corruption, and the consolidation of power. They rejected propaganda and the politics of fear. It seems they even rejected the agenda of Fox News.

I've had a taut, sinking feeling about the negative shift in the political and cultural makeup of the United States for several years. I think it initiated when the rumblings of an invasion of Iraq was first considered in 2002. The apprehension was exacerbated when administration lackey Colin Powell performed the heinous Republican wardance before the United Nations in February 2003, where he presented the flimsiest of evidence regarding "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq.

And for over three years now the citizens of the United States have watched the country's respectability and standing, both at home and abroad, slowly and steadily erode. We who wanted to somehow save the country, to return to common sense and American ideals of freedom, stood angrily bound on the sidelines as the warmongers, liars, and thieves stole the United States away from the people.

These withering feelings did not ebb until the night of the mid-term elections on November 7. The feeling gradually lifted throughout the day on the 8th. Finally, the system of checks and balances was back in place after too many years of sanctimonious and misguided one party rule.

One party rule is China. Cuba. Syria. Iran. It conjures images of the Soviet Union. That is not America. And if I might place tongue-in-cheek and borrow a hackneyed term from the duplicitous neo-cons, to espouse and champion the warped ideal of one party power is tantamount to treason.

Please don't read too deeply between the lines here - I'm not even a Democrat. I'm an Independent whose political views lean toward the Libertarian, and that is usually where my votes go. We must allow additional political parties and disparate voices into the current system - offer viable alternatives to rote methods - for true progress to become attainable in this country. To have Presidential debates between a mere two candidates who too often are mirror reflections of each other is absurd - and even insulting.

This exhortation is not declaring the Democratic Party saviors of the American soul. Their claim on both houses of Congress is probably not going to fully mend bitter rifts or heal the lesions that have been inflicted on the country by the callous shortsightedness of Republican rule. There is the chance the Dems could accomplish nothing. But for now I want to avoid cynicism and not state that it will be political business-as-usual in Washington. I want to hold on to this sense of sanguinity, at least for a while. There is the chance that the Democrats could push the U.S. in a positive direction. And as mentioned, the crucial scheme of checks and balances is restored.

And that, not only for the people of the United States but also for the citizens of the world, is a prodigious relief.

CBGB

2006-10-15T12:13:00.000-04:00

What an amazing dump that place was... a "ramshackle shit shack" (to borrow a phrase). Yes, CBGB was a run-down dive with frightening bathroom facilities, but that was a part of its allure and legend. It is, and always will be, an immeasurably important aspect of not only the New York City music scene, but the music world in general. It cultivated the beginnings of punk rock. It was implicit in the rise of New York Hardcore, nurtured by its showcase Sunday matinees. It hosted speed metal and crossover metal groups, experimental bands, and underground acts from a variety of genres. It was quite a remarkable mélange.

For those poseurs who wear the oh-so-fashionable CBGB shirts, but never bothered to support the venue and attend a show there, please refrain from ever wearing your accessory again. You never earned the right.

The last time I was there was a few years ago to see a trio of industrial/electronic bands. Little did I realize it would be my final visit. Sentimentality drains into me from the gutters of the Bowery. CBGB should have been deemed an historic landmark. Alas, as New York continues to transform from what it was and into what it has become, CBGB falls.

The blood, the honor, the truth
Thought it would never end
The blood, the honor, the truth
Can be part of our lives again

--Agnostic Front, "Anthem" (1987)

scarecrow

2006-10-08T19:49:00.000-04:00

There's an open dumpster directly across the street, chock full o' garbage, presumably from a nearby apartment renovation where scaffolding has recently been erected. But scaffolding, dumpsters - that's not a strange sight in the city.

What is peculiar, however, is the scarecrow that has appeared next to the dumpster.

Just another incongruous but amusing diversion that keeps life in the big city interesting.

idyll

2006-10-01T18:40:00.000-04:00

A Sunday evening in Astoria.

Anesthesia

2006-09-27T18:41:00.000-04:00

Twenty years ago today, the music world lost virtuoso bass player Cliff Burton of Metallica. A hippy in bell bottoms who happened to play technical speed metal, his loss is still mourned by fans, especially those of us who were there at the band's beginnings. Back in my hazy teen metal/punk years, early Metallica albums were a listening requirement. And they still get spun on a regular basis today.

The subject line of this entry is the title of Cliff's bass solo song from Metallica's debut album. Well, its proper title is (Anesthesia) - Pulling Teeth, and it's a track that demonstrates the madness and magic this guy could coax out of a bass.

"Living on your knees - conformity
Or dying on your feet for honesty"
RIP Cliff Burton

it

2006-09-25T16:53:00.000-04:00

So, I stepped out of the office here on 46th Street to drop into the downstairs deli and buy some trail mix. It was about that time of day when my belly grumbled at me with common annoyance. Once outside, what to my wondering eyes did appear? A "hip logo t-shirt dude" astride "It." What is "It?" It is a Segway. The gizmo was known solely as "It" during its clandestine development and production stage a few years ago. And when "It" was finally unveiled to a kind-of-bewildered public, nearly everyone seemed generally underwhelmed. People shrugged, yawned, and life went on.

How does one act when confronted with an "It"? Well, in my case, I slowed my pace and stared at the spectacle with bemusement and mirth. It seemed the Segway dude was a "group leader" in some sort of "cool camp counselor in the city" manner as he was surrounded by a gaggle of perhaps a dozen chattering teenagers. From his mount he sermonized them with their schedule and walking directions. Of course, he was not walking. He was the leader. And he stood tall and proud (and geeky and alone) raised above the rabble on his heteromorphic mode of transport.

And on that zany metal contraption, he performed an awkward k-turn and proceeded to motor ahead of his charges. The herd of kids milled and followed behind their idiosyncratic Segway Pied Piper as he took them toward Broadway and beyond.

I returned to the office, poured a cup of water from the cooler, opened up the trail mix, and wrote this. Something seems so absurd and pointless about a Segway in the city. In my mind, it fits in much better within the sprawl of suburbia. The Segway is almost as silly as having trail mix for lunch.

sonic

2006-09-10T16:48:00.000-04:00

Friday night was a concert night. It had been, well, ages since I'd seen live music. As a matter of fact, the last show I'd attended might have been Luna's second-to-last career performance at the Bowery Ballroom back in February 2005. Yeah, it had been a long time. And I still miss Luna. They were such a substantial and embedded staple of the local scene here in New York. Luna could always be counted on for a few shows a year. That provided a sense of comfort, knowing that this dependable band would always be around for a concert. Well, always was not always, and there is no more Luna, unfortunately.

Pan Sonic (formerly Panasonic, and that is what I generally still call them) still exists, however, and unlike Luna, this pair of experimentalists from Finland bring an entirely disparate musical sensibilty into play. No guitars, bass, or drums - it's pure electronics all the way. Rob, Rich S.P., and I met up at the Northsix venue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and enjoyed a few pre-show beverages. The concert started late with opening act “Invisible Conga People” (a pretty cool name and actually a very good duo with their sound collage of tribal beats and guitar drone). Pan Sonic took the stage shortly thereafter and put on a riveting minimalist display of esoteric, pseudo-industrial structured noise (how's that to describe their sound?). Rob and I secured spots in front of the stage. The "ripple effect" of Pan Sonic's sound caused our clothes to flutter (seriously) as we basked in the vibration across, and even through, our bodies.

Post-show, our tipsy trio hopped a taxi into Manhattan and made our way to a birthday bacchanal at the Bouche Bar on East 5th Street. There the beer consumption (and spillage) continued. All of the usual suspects were present. It was quite the late night, but I made myself eat and down some water when I arrived home. These days, hangover prevention takes priority despite fatigue and the overwhelming urge to collapse into bed. Though I still felt kind of lousy on Saturday morning, I managed to get my laundry across the street.

And now the weekend winds down as temperatures descend toward autumn and the new week awaits.

grind

2006-09-04T22:35:00.000-04:00

It's Labor Day, which marks a three-day respite from the workplace. And right now the day, and the extended weekend, is winding down. It will soon be too-early-to-rise tomorrow, hike to the train, and return to "the grind." Strike up the band and break out the champagne. Er, maybe not - I must head toward the bedroom soon...

Maybe it was the contrarian thing to do, or I felt the need to employ myself in irony, but I did "labor" today. I swept out the (hardwood floor) living room, discarded some accumulated junk from the closet (it's garbage night, anyway), and mopped the kitchen. All of that had been neglected too long. A bachelor pad is one thing, but a den of dust and dirt is entirely another. And now I look, and it's (gasp) clean.

Now, a sedate Monday night. Solitude here, with a visit from recurrent companion melancholy.

Labor Day weekend was mellow. Friday night I was fatigued and lazy, so I availed myself of some entertainment, including Bill Maher's show on HBO. The rain all day on Saturday could have resulted in a washout, but I dragged myself out of the apartment and into Manhattan. I had several drinks with P. and started to fade around 2:00am. I suppose I had not yet fully regenerated from the work week. Of course, despite the "stay at home" conditions outdoors, I always enjoy the city on holiday weekends because it empties out. After drinks, I plopped into the back of a taxi and headed uptown. Gliding along the rain-damp streets beneath sodium vapor lights and the infiltration of omnipresent neon, I peered out at vacant office buildings, gated shops, and sidewalks devoid of pedestrians, and it was then that I felt a resonant connection to the city.

Thus marks the "unofficial end of summer," as Labor Day weekend is known. I welcome autumn. The comfortable temperatures, the brisk air, and the esoteric feeling of change as the season shifts serves to invigorate and reconnect me to a world I often abdicate during the summer months.

Quaalude

2006-09-01T22:29:00.000-04:00

peregrine

2006-08-27T19:26:00.000-04:00

Gloom and overcast skies bestow an aura of mystery, don't you think? Everything appears enfolded under shaded oyster skies. People smuggle themselves beneath umbrellas and the hoods of jackets. The stormy mantle across the city makes it the kind of day conducive to malaise but also prime to ponder the peregrine. Or if esoteric thoughts regarding being and time is not on the schedule, perhaps there's something else - some recreational pastime easily enjoyed indoors. Like... a movie?

And I did watch a couple movies all the way through this weekend (there were a couple I started, but stopped). One was Red Eye, from 2005, directed by Wes Craven. The first hour was engrossing. Airplane claustrophobia was perfectly captured, and it was exacerbated by the protagonist's predicament. Overall, Red Eye was a taut thriller, though it prolapsed into a boiler plate action flick in the third act.

The other movie was a semi-documentary crime-drama noir from 1948 titled The Street with No Name, directed by William Keighley. This was a solid piece of filmmaking, as so many noir pictures from that era tend to be. Richard Widmark is creepily outstanding as the neurotic, paranoid ringleader of a new breed of gangs hitting the streets of America. Though it is a satisfying picture, it is not necessarily one of the best noir flicks ever made (leave that to Pickup on South Street, Double Indemnity, and Out of the Past). But it is recommended viewing for its capable straightforward storytelling, and especially for the stellar peformance of Widmark. After I watched this, I poked around online and found that Mr. Widmark is still alive. That came as a surprise since so few personalities from that period are still around today...

Movie viewing, computer problems, a few Jim Beam and colas, an effort to catch up on sleep lost during the workweek - weekend activities enjoyed behind the closed doors. My solitary, though not downbeat, state of mind is reflected perfectly in the weather - weather I expressly prefer over summertime heat. The funereal conditions give me the inspiration to spend these minutes here at the machine. As twilight fades, I gaze through the open window in front of me - the portal to the city's mesmeric, noir world. Darkness falls around my solitude.

What if all the world's inside of your head
Just creations of your own?
Your devils and your gods
All the living and the dead
And you're really all alone?

pastiche

2006-08-18T21:28:00.000-04:00

Haphazard thoughts from this side of the city.

It's dark outside, and here at home in the Queens Compund, I sit alone with the breeze from the fan blowing across my bare skin. Yes, I'm in for tonight, but I will be out on the town tomorrow to celebrate friend Rich's birthday. In this moment, though, it's just me, these words, the lull of the fan, and Jim Beam and cola. Maybe a movie later on. After the workweek, and with plans tomorrow evening, I welcome the solitude.

So, without any further skylarking...

Spitting. What the hell is the deal with people acting on the urge to deposit a stream of saliva on the sidewalk? I half-expect it from ignominious teens draped in their hip wanna-be gangsta gear, but older men? Because it was a middle-aged gent today. And yes, it is almost always the male of the species, too, though I've had the questionable privilege of observing females expel their excess saliva in public on rare occasions.

Regardless, today as I strolled along 45th Street in the pleasant early morning sunshine, this older fellow spat across the concrete without missing a step. I could only sneer, mumble, shake my head. I really wanted to spin around, catch up, grab him by the ear as one would an unruly child, drag him to the scene of his malfeasance, point to the wad of spew, and demand, "Why in the name of Dante Alighieri did you feel the sudden need to expectorate on the sidewalk for all to see? Don't answer. There is no excuse. And please, on the behalf of civil society, don't do it again." Alas, the scenario entered and left my mind before I hit the end of the block. If I acted on that urge to castigate the way he'd acted on his compulsion to spritz spit, then I'd be on a similar philistine level. Right? Or the middle-aged sidewalk marksman might feel the impetus to file an assault charge against me for stretching out his ear cartilage.

The spit doesn't sizzle on the cement now that the torturous heat wave has passed. Oh, what an endurance test it was a little over a week ago when the stagnant heat and humidity descended across the city and ensconced us in a vise of clammy calefaction. Summer. No, it is not my favorite season. As a child, oh, summer was glorious. But as a working stiff adult (well, as adult as I can be), I find the season distasteful and periodically intolerable. Grouchy and grumbling under the swampy citywide blanket, I found myself longing for San Francisco, where the high temperature was around 70 degrees and the low under 60. As I waded through the viscous air, I found that a mental state of a foggy San Francisco evening, clad in a light jacket, helped me through. Now, however, the weather has become quite agreeable. I know this because my clothes aren't soaked through with sweat within five minutes of stepping outside. Oh, and if the weather above ground is awful, try waiting for the subway on an underground platform - Dante's Inferno in a literal (not literary) sense. We're halfway to autumn, though, and autumn in the city rules. It reminds of (gasp!)... San Francisco.

I am typing this entry on my new Dell notebook computer, an Inspiron E1505. Yes, a few weeks ago I decided it was time for a technological upgrade. I'd been using my Dell desktop since 2002, and I was running low on space and speed, and my CD burner functioned only sporadically. So, I splurged. I realized I would be using this machine for years to come (hopefully), so I went with prudent upgrades so I wouldn't lament my lack of foresight a year or two down the line. 1GB of RAM, 100GB hard drive memory, Bluetooth, high-end wireless, 15.4-inch display (with the upgraded picture quality option), Sound Blaster enhanced audio, and DVD/CD burner combo. So far, so good, and it's a non-combustible battery (in reference to the recent Dell recall of faulty, explosive batteries). It's gratifying to have speed and the room for all of my programs and my ever-expanding music library. Plus, the unit looks pretty spiffy, too.

Recent DVDs to cross my line of vision: Hitchcock's Lifeboat, the classic noir The Street With No Name, Arrested Development Season Two, and Paris, Texas (the brilliant and heartbreaking Wim Wenders film).

Recent music that has assailed my ears in a positive way: New Model Army, Hole, Social Distortion, Blind Illusion, Joy Division, The Damned, SPK, Shinjuku Thief, Token Entry, Sabbat, TOOL.

And the book you must read: King Dork by Frank Portman. Find it. Buy it. Love it. Now.

Well, that's all that comes to mind right now. The thoughts are expunged for the time being. The moment has arrived to pour another drink, so I bid adieu for now...

Buffalo '93

2006-07-04T13:13:00.000-04:00

The screenplay I've been editing and punching up the past couple of days is based on the year of my life living and working at a residential hotel in the Tenderloin of San Francisco ('94 to '95). As such, I've been reflecting on my past for the sake of the story, and this tremendous, awful heat and humidity here in New York City brought up the memory of the summer of 1993 in Buffalo, NY.

Yes, this was a time when San Francisco was the echo of an idea bouncing someplace in the base of my mind. I was post-college and locked into a McJob. I'd attempted to find employment in my field, but no place in Buffalo wanted an aspiring television reporter or another disc jockey. I had no luck with the city's daily newspaper, either. That's Buffalo, though - the best of luck can go bad on the turn of a wooden nickel. I briefly wrote unpaid freelance for a local arts-oriented weekly, but I found the publisher/editor quite disagreeable. He probably felt likewise about me. I considered him as an obsolete, out-of-touch hippy and he probably regarded me as a cynical Gen-X'er who nourished himself on irony and sarcasm. We were both right. But I do still occasionally include that gig on the resume, if it seems appropriate.

So, where was I? Oh, Buffalo. The summer of '93. And my, what a summer it was. I'd been in a turbulent on-again, off-again relationship with a vacillating young woman through the previous autumn, winter, and early spring, but by summer it was kaput. So summer as a single guy in his early-twenties awaited. I lived on my own (well, with a roommate) in a slightly crooked house near the corner of Grant and Forest (across from Wilson Farms, for those of you who just might know the area). There on the second floor, we had a balcony! On sweltering summer nights I would sit out there with my legs resting up on the wrought-iron railing, a Zima in my hand, and watch the traffic and life of the Buffalo night pass by below.

Wait.

Zima?

Yes, Zima. Why Zima? Because Zima cost $6.50 for two six-packs at the local grocery store. Count 'em - that was twelve bottles of Zima for $6.50 (plus, er, tax and deposit). So, it was a deal too good to pass up.

There I would sit on the balcony, with or without friends, but usually with a Zima. I think it was on one of those intolerably humid nights that I formulated my idea to move to San Francisco. Looking across Buffalo, gazing upward into the sky, where I could just discern pinpoints of stars, I knew I would have to move on soon. I needed someplace to take my life.

The last time I visited Buffalo was in May of 2004 for my friend A.J. and Denise's wedding. Coincidentally, it was exactly ten years since I'd departed the Queen City. I had A.J. drive past the old place. I needed to remember. And there it was, dilapidated, abandoned, and boarded up. I took a few pictures for posterity. I looked up at the balcony, and beyond the windows was where I'd spent almost two years. Fully furnished, a stack of newspapers in the corner. The television atop an old red chair, a Ren & Stimpy poster on the living room wall, the Dali print of The Hallucinogenic Toreador above the inoperative fireplace, my typewriter on the table in the dining room (typewriter? Dining room??), the five-dollar coffee table with one bad leg, the four-cup coffeemaker on the kitchen table, boom-box in the bedroom.

Taking those photos, I still thought of the house and the questionable surrounding neighborhood as mine. My place. My 'hood. We'd had numerous maniacal, debauched parties just down the street at T.'s old place - the infamous purple house on Grant. A part of this still felt like home.

Back then in those days and months of halcyon youth, I was a rebel - a club-hoppin', hard-drinkin', post-collegiate industrial boy paying his dues at a simple nowhere job and making plans to get out of Buffalo for good. It wasn't that I disliked the city, but I was in transition. I needed adventure, I needed the unknown, I wanted to see the country and experience diverse new people and surroundings. I had to find my future. I still have amazing, fond memories of my time in Buffalo - the Icon, the Edge, North Park Theatre (where I saw El Mariachi and Reservoir Dogs), the Towne Restaurant, Mighty Taco, Pano's, Home of the Hits, Record Theatre, the $1.50 second-run cinema on Elmwood, free concerts at Darien Lake, and on and on.

Seeing the old house again, I reflected with bittersweet affection on those long drunken nights that only now seem they must have been too short. If I concentrated, I thought I might see the ghosts of friends, women, and visitors who came and went. Faces, smiles, conversation, dreams, drinks, intimacy. Now ghosts of my past.

I always look forward to my occasional, sporadic visits, but there was no future there for me in Buffalo, and there still isn't. That's why I can only visit now, and cruise the streets and observe the sights of the place I once called home.

incalescence

2006-07-02T20:22:00.000-04:00

The city is fractionally vacant for this extended holiday weekend. But I remain, here in this place I know with nowhere else to go. And right now, that suits me fine. Oppressive summer heat pounds into the pavement. It curves and coils like a parabola across the sprawl of the city. Grit seems to hang and rotate like infinitesimal planetoids in the stagnant air.

I finally had to concede to the weather and install my air conditioner. Yes, it provides the sleeping experience with the ability to actually sleep, and not lay spreadeagled atop the sheets with a fan blowing a cascade of humid air across my body. Ah, and I have experienced that - my first couple of summers here in New York City I was sans air conditioning. It wasn't pleasant, and yes, I know I should have knuckled under and bought one back in those dog days. But I have one now, and though it shuts the bedroom off from the outside world, the trade-off is comfort.

So, here on this hot, humid holiday weekend, I have swung between lethargy and puissance. Sure, I found myself sprawled across the couch at around 7:00 on Saturday morning following a night of cocktails and bowling. And after I stumbled to my room (and fired up the AC), I slept several more hours. But I also managed to get some work done on Falling From the Sky, the short story anthology I'm editing for Another Sky Press. Plus I've put a sizeable dent in the book I'm currently reading, Polaroids from the Dead by the preeminent Douglas Coupland (he of Generation X repute). I also got through the rest of my Fawlty Towers - The Complete Collection DVD set. With John Cleese as a negligent, abusive hotel proprietor, Fawlty Towers is British absurdist comedy at its best.

However, the writing, reading, editing, and relaxation ends in about ten hours. Why? I am one of the unfortunate chosen who must work tomorrow. Nay, there's no four-day holiday weekend for this proletarian. This doesn't bother me too much, because I had no definite plans for the next two days, except to continue doing what I've been doing. And I also expect the city (and the subways) will be comparatively empty. I know that many city dwellers have made tracks to parts unknown - to anywhere but the here and now.

gelid

2006-06-17T17:40:00.000-04:00

Summer haze descends before summer has even officially arrived. Moderate June temperatures so far now shift toward the hot and humid. Thankfully, the weather is not intolerable yet. I want to avoid putting in my air conditioner for as long as possible. A minor part of this thought is the electric bill. Of course, when the AC is humming for hour after hour, the ineludible Con Edison bill goes from an inconvenience to a burden. But it's more than that.

My view will be blocked by the clunky machine in the bedroom window. After all, the bedroom is where I spend much time -- here at the desk, on the computer, writing. I read in here. I listen to music. And, of course, there's the other central purpose of the bedroom -- sleep. The living room and adjoining kitchen go without the AC. I'd like it if I could afford it, but a cold living room is not a necessity (though sometimes it feels as if it should be).

It's about disconnection. Once I've placed the unit in the bedroom window, there is the sense of severance. I am sealed in. No more opening the window. No more box fan blowing the outside in. The view is gone. I am in a box that lends itself to an increased feeling of isolation and solitude. I know, it's all psychological, but those feelings exist. I need the AC to remedy the heat, and to keep a degree of rationale and sanity while the city endures the swelter of summer. But the trade-off is the idea that I have just completed my own cozy, comfortable cell. As if I don't already cut myself off enough from the outside world whenever possible. Self-imposed exile. A provisional gulag with chilled air.

I don't want to miss myself too much. I need to feel as if I keep a connection to the flow of life, even if I only observe through an open window.

paean

2006-06-11T21:36:00.000-04:00

Tell her I'll be waiting
In the usual place
With the tired and weary
There's no escape

To need a woman
You've got to know
How the strong get weak
And the rich get poor

You're running with me
Don't touch the ground
We're restless hearted
Not the chained and bound

The sky is burning
A sea of flame
Though your world is changing
I will be the same

The storm is breaking
Or so it seems
We're too young to reason
Too grown up to dream

Now spring is turning
Your face to mine
I can hear your laughter
I can see your smile
-Bryan Ferry, "Slave to Love"

evolve

2006-06-04T00:09:00.000-04:00

Angels on the sideline,
Puzzled and amused.
Why did Father give these humans free will?
Now they're all confused.

Don't these talking monkeys know that
Eden has enough to go around?
Plenty in this holy garden, silly old monkeys,
Where there's one, you're bound to divide,
Right in two.

Angels on the sideline,
Baffled and confused.

Father blessed them all with reason.
And this is what they choose.
Monkey, killing monkey, killing monkey.
Over pieces of the ground.

Silly monkeys give them thumbs,
They forge a blade,
And where there's one they're bound to divide it,
Right in two.
- Tool "Right In Two"

We keep killing each other. Through all of human history, we seem to have been unable to find the "civil" in "civilization." We empower thieves, liars, and murderers to guide our lives. We foolishly place our trust with elected idiots who only perpetuate the ongoing entropy and discord. And we tolerate it. Well, not all of us. Not yet.

We can recline in comfort, open the newspaper or turn on the television or computer, and experience the world filtered through our eyes and into our minds. We see the atrocities around us, but they seem so secondhand and distant -- surreal or unreal. They seem such a part of another place, another time. Though they're here in the present, we don't necessarily have to attach those tragedies to our own lives. Yes, vicarious. I don't want to lose hope or faith in the general kindness and lenity of people, but complacency, apathy, and even a sense of misanthropy can drown us in the torrent of constantly updated "bad news." In most instances, some of us who are beyond the strife succumb to a feeling of helplessness. How we would like to do something to end a murderous and unnecessary war. How we would like to consign every crooked politician on the planet to prison. How we'd like to prevent genocide. How we would like to provide food and housing and medicine to the malnourished masses. How we like to see the culture advance beyond battle lines of avarice, intolerance, and corruption.

And if you don't, you have no place among the elite. For example, if you are actually callow enough to believe that "they hate us for our freedom" then I suppose it's okay when soldiers die for a pointless political war. Just because a few delusional and bloodthirsty fundamentalist parasites fly planes into buildings does not adequately justify an international multimedia brainwashing and manslaughter extravaganza, especially when it serves absolutely no greater goal to quell further violence. Yes, violence breeds violence until it blossoms out of control. That is why the shadow of terrorism looms larger by the day. There are ways to deal with the current climate of antagonism without falling into the morass of propaganda-supported mutually assured destruction. Look deeper.

For all of you esteemed elected public officials, here ya' go... it's not too complicated. So pay attention to someone in the proletariat for once. Stay off their hallowed, allegedly sacred "holy ground" and cease interference in their affairs. You suits can continue to purchase the precious black sludge so the folks in the city and the 'burbs can fuel up the Ford Excursion. Admittedly, it's slightly more complicated than that, but I'm not going into my foreign policy plan here and now. This is a blog, after all, not a manifesto. Any politician who wants a face-to-face sit-down can feel free to contact me. If I have the time and energy, I might deign to give you a civics and policy lesson. Does that sound elitist? So what?

Elitism, a term too-often disparaged. No, the word should not to be shunned, though it is often misused -- as if "elitism" should carry a negative connotation. Lose your preconceptions, because elitism is not defined by wealth or social status (despite what the tabloids attempt to tell you). Elitism is a state of mind, when one can rise above mere acceptance of the whatever the mainstream and the propaganda machines direct at you. When you hold yourself to a higher standard, destroy myopia, and ask questions not only of what we're told, but ask questions of ourselves. We must advance and evolve beyond "choosing sides" (be it borders or patriotism or facsimile public officials spit straight out of the corporate copy machine).

You don't have to be liberal. You don't have to be conservative. Or Libertarian, socialist, federalist, anarchist, or a Whig. You just have to be a human being, with compassion and desire. Desire to see change for the better. Revolution begins one mind at a time. Open your eyes. Evolve.

recess

2006-05-26T13:02:00.000-04:00

A muggy afternoon, an opaque sky, the feel of early summer encroaching on spring.

I'm secluded - even docile - as a lachrymose alt-rock song from many years ago plays from my desktop speakers.

Outside now, sporadic traffic on secretive streets. The Super of the building across the street sprays away the grime and garbage in the alley. From the other building adjacent to the alley, a guy in workwear hauls out chock-a-block bags of trash. Construction across the way and on the avenue around the corner. A car service driver in a tie waxes his black sedan in front of the house. A couple of older ladies stroll down the sidewalk, happy, dressed as if for religious service. A young dude in shorts with his iPod hangs a right into the alley. Only one customer was at the laundromat when I picked up my clothes earlier. Idle neighborhood chit-chat with the venerable woman who runs the place. It makes me feel as if I still have a place here after all this time - like I somehow belong.

Here I am at the keyboard, in front of the box fan in the window, with a Friday off from work. Memorial Day weekend is upon us, and I observe this fraction of city life. People begin to clear out for the holiday and the city seems to widen. I enjoy staying around, when the crowds thin and the noise pollution loses a few particles. When the subways are less crowded. When it is easier to get to the bartender and order a drink. Or to secure a pool table. It's the amelioration of the odds in the urban waiting game.

R. is apparently out of the hospital today after his two week ordeal of rib-removal surgery and blood clot excision. The times I've visited or spoken with him on the phone, he's generally sounded "chipper" and appeared healthy. I'm simply relieved that he's pulled through without any serious complications. So tomorrow evening we plan a "welcome back" poker game of sorts.

I relish these long weekends. I am mainly with myself, which is often how I prefer it. Humanity can make me cringe and retreat - and I need these self-imposed gulags. Here with my thoughts and words I find a certain restless contentment. Yes, I realize that's an oxymoron, but that's the only way I can explain it. And during the passage of the weekend, I will venture out to see friends, to imbibe a few libations, share some laughs, and lose a few dollars at five card draw.

And later, in the small hours, I'll watch the streetlight swim and skim across white bedroom walls. And here in the half-dark I'll find a spark.

malachite

2006-05-14T22:51:00.000-04:00

Green. It is such a lush green here in upstate New York that it might actually be described as malachite. Here I am surrounded by wide open sky and billowing, burgeoning green, far from the congestion and pollution of the city. The season is past the vernal equinox and we reside in the heart of spring. Here nature thrives amid the forests, fields, and flowers and the scent of pollen. The hum of insects. The chirping of birds. A deer in the distance at the edge of the woods. The thunderstorms came on Saturday. They were brief but furious - torrential - and soothing in their turbulent grandeur.
I do feel as though I still belong here ensonced within this gentle green, but there is always that part of me that becomes restless. The components inside my brain long again for the concrete beneath my feet and the interminable hum of white noise in my head. The clatter of the subway. The sound of elevator doors closing. The din of bottles clanking at a bar. The sirens and car horns. The countless voices and accents merging into one.

Here in my old desk I found the key for my room at the Pacific Bay Inn from when I lived in San Francisco. It's a memento I decided not to take along when I moved to New York, so I left it here. Room 707. I felt the need to keep it when I moved out of the hotel way back in the summer of '95. And now, in some odd way, it reminds me that my life out there actually happened. No, it was not all an elaborate fantasy I constructed in my mind. The Pacific Bay Inn, the Tenderloin, and those three years of my life 3,000 miles away was once tangible and very real. Now it is a vivid memory, like a waking dream. And yes, I still miss it on occasion, but part of the blame there is fleeting youth as it escapes through the clutching fingers of age.

Back here in the now, but far from the routines of my day-to-day life, my nephews give me hope. They temper my recurrent misanthropy and give me hope for the future. They make me want to be a better person. And they make me want to change the world one lost soul at a time.

And now I prepare to return to the cluster and the noise of my world. I leave behind the woodland and wildlife for a different kind of habitat and creature. I'm just one who dwells among the concrete and grime and the dense accumulation of life. And I need them like nature needs the storm.

slate

2006-04-23T19:40:00.000-04:00

Slate sky, rainfall, warmth inside. Is there anything quite as satisfying as spending a dreary, rain-soaked morning in bed? No alarm, no schedule, no pressing obligations. To just mummify yourself in sheets and blankets, let yourself tumble into the lulling pattern of rainfall, and find a few moments of absolute contentment. It's ephemeral, of course, because it won't be long before alarms ring and Metrocards are swiped and subways clank and the noise of the city and the office dictates yet another day. The rigors of everyday life make those sporadic rainy mid-morning moments of equanimity precious.

I spent some of Saturday watching a couple of my latest DVD acquisitions. The first was By Brakhage: An Anthology, a superlative collection of short films from preeminent experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage. This is highly recommened for those interested in the art of cinema and all of its strange and wonderful possibilities. The other DVD I tried to watch was The Phantom of Liberty(Le Fantôme de la liberté, 1974) by surrealist extraordinaire Luis Buñuel. I say I "tried" to watch it because I passed out on the couch quite early into the picture (from fatigue, not because of the film). I had seen it before while in film school, and was elated that it was released on the Criterion Collection last year. It's a darkly humorous free-form surrealist masterwork consisting of loosely connected vignettes. The film contains an abundance of the social and cultural satire and criticism one might expect from Buñuel. His disgust with the ruling class prevails. You must avail yourself of the dinner party sequence where people sit on lavatories around a dinner table and retire to a small, nearby room to eat. Yes, it is that weird and brilliant. For the Buñuel novice, start with That Obscure Object of Desire (also on Criterion), probably his most accessible film (though still surreal). For the Buñuel veteran, well, I hope you've seen L'Âge d'or by now...

And I implore Criterion (or Kino) to please put out The Exterminating Angel (El Ángel exterminador, 1962) on DVD. This is Buñuel's finest film - an indisputable masterpiece.

As I perused my DVD library last night, it was raining outside. And I realized that I still need to see Lina Wertmuller's The End of the World in Our Usual Bed in a Night Full of Rain. At the same time, I realized that it also needs a DVD release.

“The artist creates his own moral universe.” - Sheldon Flender, Bullets Over Broadway

No, Bullets Over Broadway might not be Woody Allen's best film, though it is not his worst. I do frequently abide by the quote, however. I am not going to launch into a dissertation of morality, ethics, or Kant's "Categorical Imperative." It does so happen, however, that an artist (a writer or otherwise) must accept, and occasionally withstand, the decisions of morality as it fits into the personal archetype. Got it? Great. If you have any questions about the Categorical Imperative, just grab a Kant book or two for this year's summer beach reading.

That said, I have taken on the position of "Freelance Editor" with the wonderful new publisher Another Sky Press. No, there was no moral quandary in this decision. I am excited to be a part of the organization at its fledgling stage, and to be involved with its evolution and impending success. As you will notice from their Press page, I will be helping out with some of their "top-secret new projects." I look forward to this new responsibility and relish the chance to exercise my editorial muscle. Simultaneously, I continue with my own freelance writing, as well as my Small World screenplay.

Create your own moral universe. Be your own hero. Tabula rasa.

sifting

2006-04-08T14:40:00.000-04:00

Twelve years ago today Kurt Cobain killed himself, and a segment of Generation X lost the potent voice from a reluctant leader. We did not look to politicans or too many authority figures for a degree of guidance or inspiration. Perhaps some members of the next generation, those behind us, feel likewise, but it is now a vastly different social and cultural landscape, not only in the United States, but across the globe.

Gen X (once known as "baby busters") came of age in a time before the Internet, cell phones, iPods, and DVD. Information came from the television or newspapers, generally. We listened to records and cassettes for part of our lives, and used turntables and tape Walkmans. Movies were rented on VHS, but we remember Beta. Cable television was actually still inventive. Going to the movies was still a relatively inexpensive, enjoyable (and commercial free) experience. And radio was still relevant.

With the influx of MP3 players (particularly the iPod), satellite radio, digital cable music channels, and cable TV music video channels (excluding the drivel on the original MTV and the pointless VH1), AM/FM radio is becoming obsolete. In a way, it's a sad occurrence, because for decades radio was a fertile ground for music both new and old. But the manifestation of corporate monopolies and the homologous programming of mainstream radio (as well as the debilitated state of popular music) has led "terrestrial radio" to a crossroads that leads to its marginalization and insignificance. It does not exactly cause me to brim with joy to write this, as I worked for several years in radio, both college and commercial, and I enjoyed it.

College radio is still home to "avant-garde" ideas and music, but it, too, has lost much of its edge and audience. The glory has faded. When the "alternative" rose in the charts and topped national playlists in the early '90s, those weird college radio stations and quirky DJs at the lower end of the FM dial suddenly became elements of the mainstream, whether they liked it or not.

It was largely through college radio, as well as the Sunday night MTV video showcase "120 Minutes," that Kurt Cobain and Nirvana became a massive part of the pop culture mainstream. And when they burst out onto worldwide scene, they brought this new generation of "slackers" (ho-hum, what frivolous nomenclature) to the forefront of international consciousness. Gen X'ers were in college, or just out (by its narrowest definition, anyone born between 1965 and 1975 is an X'er). We were trying to get a foothold on our future. This latest generational entry in a constantly shifting culture, coupled with Douglas Coupland's milestone novel "Generation X," gave this segment of society an identity. Whether we agreed with it or not, well, we'd often shrug it off with sarcasm and a smirk. That's Gen X for you - frequently aloof, seditious, and disaffected.

Times change. The paradigm is altered, generations grow up, and even "sell out" (just look at the Boomers and the hippies). But we always maintain a distinct cultural stamp, and are remembered for certain sweeping ideologies. Much of what Gen X is and was perceived to be is on display in films like "Reality Bites," "Singles," "Clerks," "Before Sunrise," and (the appropriatley titled) "Slacker." It was reflected in our music, from lesser knowns like Dinosaur Jr., Bad Religion, and Ministry to phenomenons like Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails, and, of course, Nirvana.

And on the morning of April 8, 1994, the news came in from Seattle that Kurt's body had been found, shotgun at his side. I was living in Buffalo at the time, just a few weeks from my move to San Francisco. I turned on the television, and the spectacle was splashed across every network. I watched with a heavy heart, but I wasn't surprised. Kurt had been a troubled man with a host of physical (and mental) ailments, and he decided to put it to an end. Some might claim that he "took the easy way out" or "did not appreciate what he'd earned," but that is immaterial. Kurt was dead, and with his demise, a huge segment of Generation X lost a timorous voice.

It is specified on the home page of this blog that "Generation X survived." Of course we did, despite Douglas Coupland's declaration otherwise in the New York Times Magazine that "Generation X is dead" (I believe that he was simply tired of the hoopla surrounding the title of his extraordinary book). We moved on in our lives. In our pop culture, bands split up, other musicians died (Layne Staley of Alice in Chains, Dwayne Goettel of Skinny Puppy, Tupac, Shannon Hoon of Blind Melon, Eazy-E), movies seemed to get worse, DVD and MP3 became the standard, the Internet exploded. Gen X navigated these changes like anyone else, we adapted and assimilated. Hell, boatloads of X'ers probably own iPods and use cable modems and have extensive DVD libraries (it can't just be me).

Yes, Generation X survived. We matured into adulthood, and we are still a force to be reckoned with, no matter what the naysayers or contrarians might claim.

Twelve years gone, blown away down the dusty trails of time. But we're still here, Kurt. And your music still serves us well.

daylight

2006-04-02T16:17:00.000-04:00

I know that much of what I post on this blog concerns the night, because it is then when I find I am more attuned to the world and myself. The daytime is, well, that by and large concerns the workplace. And there isn't often all too much exciting or sexy in discussing the office, unless I somehow discover a long-dormant fax machine fetish.

Sometimes I feel like a stranger in the daylight.

And yes, it is daylight right now - a Sunday afternoon as I type this and gaze out the front window at the sunshine day, a cool breeze across my unshaven face. I did remember to "spring forward." I found myself drifting off on the couch quite early last night. It was early for a night owl like me, at least. One minute the clock showed 1:00 and the next it was 3:00 and I summoned the energy to trudge to bed.

Friday night our merry assortment of friends, acquaintances, and miscreants gathered at one of our usual destinations on the Lower East Side for Brian's birthday. It was a relatively mellow evening of a few drinks and genial conversation. Of course, one highlight was Robert at a phony octave descanting the Queensrÿche song "En Force." How this musical tangent occurred I can't clearly recall. It's not like Queensrÿche is in regular rotation with any of us. But I found it hilarious, nonetheless. Yes, you had to be there.

So the night dwindled as people trickled out onto the streets. I was soon to follow. Shortly after three o'clock I hailed a cab and clambered in for the long ride uptown to the 59th Street Bridge. I happen to enjoy the solitude of a cab in the small hours. Tipsy, I observe the city of neon and night creatures just beyond the windows of movement, the surge through green lights and thinned traffic. I leave the nocturnal world behind in that last bottle, left in that twenty I slip to the driver, and I head toward slumber as the night draws toward its end.

I embrace the end of the night in sleep, but I smile to know that she will be back.

dipsomania

2006-03-18T01:44:00.000-05:00

Befuddled, bashed, boozed up. Stewed.

Funny, isn't it? I should add the disclaimer, funny as in weird, not funny "ha ha." Isn't that what they say? You get five hours of sleep a night, maybe less, over the course of the week, including today. You don't eat much as Friday progresses. That biological urge to consume seems suppressed. Bad week? Yeah, maybe. Bad because government extortion (also known as taxation) slams home like a missle the harsh reality that the lies and the thievery of "elected officials" strikes point blank inside the bank account.

Damn you taxes!

Money. I always put on that Bohemain facade and proclaim, "Hey, it's only money." I know better. Living within this corrupted capitalist system, I've learned too well. And here, in one of the most expensive cities on this mud speck of a planet, money is all too important all too much of the time. And, no, I do not desire to relocate my living space to my beloved (ahem!) N Train. I work therefore I pay taxes. There's a tariif, so dear citizen, quit the whining and cough up a hefty portion of those earnings.

Back to the issue-at-hand.

In the evening (a classic Led Zep song), you imbibe a little bit o' the old liquor. The Irishman in you calls for it. Yeah, yeah, you may not have an iota of the Irish in you, and you may be a female, which negates the "man" in Irishman, but count this as an allegory. Or something.

Ah, the spirits. As "The Tale of Dusty & Pistol Pete" by the Smashing Pumpkins plays, I sit here and play my fingers across the keys and I feel warmer than I actually should. Again, it's the sauce. The hooch. The inebriant. A slice of life plays out here and now and it seems so important to me to write this but as I pull back from my sotted self I see one small life among these millions ensconced in neon and streetlight and that constant underlying hum of white noise here in the city. I propel myself further and I picture the city below me, and there I see myself within that inconsequential, incandescent dot right there across the river from that slender central island. Further up, spinning and spiraling into the atmosphere, I see the world, this earth, and I have to smile because I see, I know, how small and trite this all can seem and can be.

But right now it's, like, a big deal. So I descend back into the limitations of my flesh and blood case of a body and the words come and come like a sneering keyboard deviant. Slather tongue across teeth and lick too-red lips.

Yeah, I thought I'd try my hand at posting an entry here when "the demon alcohol" swims in my bloodstream and brain. Tomorrow I will see, I'm sure, how little sense this post makes. But I will leave it up here unaltered, anyway.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day from the 25% Irishman in me to the Irishman in you. Erin Go Bragh. Right?

Let the waste cross the ancient trails to you
Far out beneath the sorrow clouds
Let them taste the bitter lost mistake of you
Let them cry out through your rusted scars

bureaucratic

2006-02-26T17:46:00.000-05:00

“Implement a rating structure on employees.”

"Exceed expectations."

"Interactive evaluations."

There it is - the aesthetic beauty of the corporate mindset via wordplay. Beauty? How in the world is there beauty in that, Mr. This Side of the City, you ask? How is there possibly any beauty within the impersonal bounds of the corporate structure? Please, allow me to explain.

Creative mutation of the language to fit the purposes of a particular entity is generally something to be praised. It could comprise the written word, an artistic performance, or even a business. But it also begs the question on how to grasp it? How does one conform to the workplace vernacular? How do you understand precisely what's being said? For all of its inventive gloss and veneer, it is what comes between words and sentences, in the gaps and spaces, where the true logic (or the lack thereof) of corporate-speak finds its tangible meaning. Yes, there is an aesthetic beauty, but this does not necessarily make doublespeak imperative or vital. Though corporate-speak seems conceived to allay and avoid confusion, it basically constitutes a superfluous professionalism and oddly politically correct-oriented method of word-clutter. It only lends itself to perplexity - fleeting bureaucratic beauty.

"Enhance shareholder value through strategic diversification."

"Re-engineer the length and breadth of the operational paradigms."

"Leverage the expense structure."

With widespread outsourcing and downsizing, as well as an increased detachment between employer and employee (and between employee and employee), within the corporate framework, the good ol' days of "company care" are nearly defunct. Once upon a time, a person could join a company and find an almost familial compatibility. Despite the necessary business configuration and hierarchy, there resided a feeling of belonging - pride, even. As a young man, I heard about it - and even observed it - in older family members. But that's all mostly gone now, washed away by the deleterious spectres of Enron, Adelphia, WorldCom, and Tyco. All are irrefutable examples of power and corruption run amok and the, ahem, "paradigm" of the corporation manifested as monster.

We have few actual "companies" anymore. Now, they are frequently conceived as an "enterprise entity." Employees are bodies with a functioning brain, motor skills, a diploma, and are usually disposable. There are still retirement packages, pensions, and often benefits and sick days. Without something to appease the proletariat, there would be rampant rebellion amid the rank and file. Work stoppages en masse under capitalism gone awry is the stuff of corporate nightmares.

But rebellion can be subtle. I for one can reluctantly acquiese and collect the check while I suppress the smirk and perform the tasks. But the spirit in me will never collapse and conform. It's too late for the corporate savior to rescue my defiant soul.

All I can say in reply to the latest corporate-speak jargon is, "No thanks. And have a pleasant day."

Utah

2006-02-11T18:04:00.000-05:00

Outside right now it is the wait. There are traces of snowflakes tumbling down through the stalled air. All day out there it has been that eerie calm before the storm - no wind and static gray skies. But there is the whispered threat of winter along the streets and sidewalks, sneaking around the corners of the buildings, slinking across the brick, concrete and steel.

The past week of chill winter weather reminded me of my time in Utah a decade back. And why was I in Utah? Sure, my short-term memory is often unreliable, but for some reason, my long-term recollection is often precise and able to recall the finest minutiae with almost uncanny accuracy.

And thus it was that ten years ago this month I was in Salt Lake City. I jokingly referred to my time there as, "I once spent a year in Salt Lake City one month." I know, I should waste no more time and make that career shift to stand-up comedy. Anyway, how it came to pass that I was in Utah began with unemployment. Yes, I was without gainful employment because two months before, I had requested a week off to fly back east and visit the family for the holidays. This request was summarily denied and dismissed. Never one to acquiesce to the system, I promptly wrote up my resignation letter. A couple weeks later I was no longer a front desk clerk at the Travelodge at Fisherman's Wharf and on an eastward bound jet.

When I returned to San Francisco in early 1996, I searched the classifieds for a new job, worked on a screenplay, watched a slew of movies, and hit the bars and clubs. I still had enough money saved to last a while without immediate employment. Then one day in late January my former manager from Travelodge asked if I would like to be the interim manager at the sixty-room City Center Travelodge in Salt Lake City. The company was holding an annual national managers meeting in New Orleans and they needed qualified bodies to fill in at various locations during their great Travelodge Mangerial Assemblage. Hungover and burned out on my typewriter and movie marathons, I said, "Sure, why not?" Plus I had never been to Utah, land of skiing and Mormons. There had been a recent emotional upheaval on the personal front, so I felt I needed to get away and find a degree of solitude. Plus, this would be an adventure, right?

Well, after less than two weeks it was more tedious than adventurous. Delta flew me in and the current manager picked me up at the airport in the blue "Soccer Mom" Travelodge van. I forget his name, but he was an affable fellow who liked "new country" music. He tormented me with Alan Jackson and Garth Brooks for a while until I flipped the dial to the alternative rock station. He didn't appear to enjoy "Self-Esteem" by the Offspring, and I wasn't exactly a huge fan either, but it was preferable to country twang shitkickin'.

I digress. The City Center Travelodge on West Temple was a two-tier motel. No restaurant, no elevator, no pool - just an "L"-shaped building with a parking lot. I was given a second floor room for the duration of my stay. My first night there I wandered down the six-lane highway of West Temple to a gas station and bought a six-pack of beer. Make that watered-down, impotent beer. I drank the entire thing in my room and barely cracked a buzz. Yes, the alcohol content restrictions in the Holy State of Utah were indeed true. See the fine film SLC Punk! for further details. Or click here for additional insight into how to get a beer or cocktail in Salt Lake City.

From my handwritten journal, Monday, February 12, 1996: "I've been here since the 4th now, a week into what I'm considering my vigil... This vigil is good for me. I do get lonely, like I am now, but I almost feel it's necessary right now after all that's been going on in my catastrophe of a personal life."

The next day, not hungover at all, I met my staff, and after a mere two days of training, I took over as Interim Hotel Manager of the City Center Travelodge. Oh, did I mention that we were also short-staffed? I may have had the title of "Manager" but I felt like little more than a glorified desk clerk who had to do payroll, make bank deposits, and create the schedule. I pulled several double-shifts, which was a persistent joy. When the middle-aged biker lady front desk clerk called in sick because, as she so eloquently put it, "It's coming out both ends," I settled down in the front office for another epic eight hours of tedium.

Thursday, February 22, 1996: "Yes, I'm working yet another overnight. P. worked it last night, but she called in sick... so I'm stuck. I've been behind the counter for twelve hours now, with four to go. I'm feeling tired... It has been draining. They really should have hired a desk clerk before I came in."

I was there on serene graveyard shifts, when the ascending alabaster frost of the surrounding Rocky mountains would stab through the pall cast by long night skies. Parked in a desk chair in the anteroom near the front desk, I wondered if roaming interstate bandits would slip through the front door and rob me. That idea was the product of too many crime drama films and television shows. I would dabble in the slim selection of movies that the hotel made available for the guests. I watched Jurassic Park, Dying Young, and Bad Boys (no, not the good Bad Boys with Sean Penn) more than once, I'm ashamed to admit. Yes, I was a long way from my VHS collection of art-house films and foreign masterpieces.

February 18, 1996: "Nine more days here in Salt Lake City, then I'm back on a plane to San Francisco. Salt Lake is a nice place to visit for a person like me, but I could not live here."

And so the weeks passed, and by the end I was exhausted and alternately climbing the walls and crawling along the ceiling in my desire to get the hell out of Utah. Sure, it was partially the job - I worked ridiculously long shifts with a depleted staff. I dealt with the evil ingrate leader of the Phoenix Ski Club, an intolerable lumpkin of a woman I would wish on no civilized person. I usually ate at the same place - the restaurant at the sprawling Little America hotel directly across the street (at least I could get an effective Jack Daniels and Coke there). I'd listened to the CDs I'd brought with me a dozen times over on the boom box I'd relocated from the front desk. I missed my typewriter, the flat on Post Street, my roommates, the bars and clubs, my life as I knew it, and the general vibe of San Francisco.

Saturday, February 24, 1996: "Get me out of here. I've been behind this damn desk for what seems like a hundred hours this week. I'm getting so sick of people. I would die if I lived here. The city shuts down at midnight. I'm ready to go back to San Francisco... just two more long days then the changeover and I'm gone."

No, in retrospect, it wasn't so terrible to be there, and I'm glad I went. I visited the Salt Palace, the Crossroads Mall, the alkali flats, and enjoyed the brilliant architecture of the downtown Temple Square, including the Salt Lake Temple and the Tabernacle. Yes, Salt Lake City is a lovely place, enclosed by the glorious Rocky Mountains, and top-notch for the ski crowd. The 2002 Winter Olympics were held there, so for winter sports it's a prime destination. But any city so severely repressed by religion, that dilutes its booze, requires membership to establishments ("private clubs") that serve liquor, and usually closes shop at midnight ain't the place for a fella like me.

And then I was gone. Back to the airport, in the sky, on the tarmac at SFO, on a shuttle, and deposited at the front door of my Post Street flat. I was home.

Sunday, March 3, 1996: "I'm back in San Francisco, sitting at my desk, writing this, of course... Yesterday I worked at Travelodge from 3 - 11. It was the same old thing, but hard to get used to. I haven't put in an actual desk shift since the day I quit, December 17. Salt Lake City doesn't really count, in my opinion."

Yes, when I returned to San Francisco, the bosses offered me my job back on the Wharf. So, I accepted, strung that noose of a "sleepy bear" tie around my collar, pinned on my brass name tag, and completed the circle.

achromatic

2006-01-29T21:54:00.000-05:00

It was an isolation weekend, but I don't mind. I actually accomplished some writing and I feel that much more productive for it. This latest work-in-progress differs from my previous two novels as I am taking on an entirely new milieu and writing in the third person. It's what I like to describe as noir-cyberpunk. Yes, my film school education and appreciation for film noir unites with Cyberpunk, which is perhaps my favorite Sci-Fi genre. It can still be construed as literary fiction (like Gibson, Orson Scott Card, Clive Barker, et.al.) like my previous manuscripts, only this tackles a divergent theme. So, think Robert Mitchum in Out of the Past meets Neuromancer by William Gibson. I know, that sounds as simplistic as a two-minute pitch meeting at some Hollywood studio exec's office, but it does provide an immediate image of where I am heading with this latest endeavor. And it doesn't get much better than Mitchum in a noir flick or Gibson's hugely innovative and influential award-winning debut novel. Yes, I spent the weekend indoors here at the Queens Compound. Truth be told, I felt a little washed out. Sure, I wandered outside to air myself out and traipse to the corner store. The mild January weather lends itself to being outdoors. But my social calendar was anemic bordering on cadaverous. It occasionally feels like Sarah and Rob's wedding on the 6th was such a prodigious social blowout that spending the rest of the month in isolation is not such a big deal. But I did go out on the 20th, and ended the night at Bar On A (uh, that's a bar on Avenue A). Ah yes, that was a long night full of Jim Beam and cola and friends, and though it was enjoyable, it also served to exacerbate my cold. No, the next day I was not feeling well and had to pass up Contempt (a monthly club event at Remote Lounge).

So where does this stream-of-consciousness lead me? It leads to right now as the clock closes in on 10:00. I blanche at the thought of the new work-week. It beckons like the Sirens on Sirenum scopuli. Oh yes, I want to resist the fluorescents and and phones and stale odor and starched collars, but the call of rent and groceries and bills and a new printer are too overwhelming.

wistful

2006-01-22T23:35:00.000-05:00

Sunday night - the calm before the clank and clamor of the Monday morning commute and the waking commotion of a city. Quiet here, contemplative in this room, music playing at low volume through these speakers. Keyboard at my fingertips. What I write on the monitor. A chill in the air.

Standing briefly, parting the blinds with my fingers, I can look out to see the sparkle of Manhattan's Upper East Side across the water. Private rooms and private lives beyond the fixed gleam of those copper pinpoints of light. Turning my gaze to the left I see the office buildings of Midtown, aglow against the night, cold sentinels cutting the air.

I see the time and know that dawn awaits me. Soon I shall be here in darkness and silence to find a fragment of contentment through my unremitting restlessness.

"Got no reason for coming to me and the rain running down.
There's no reason.
And the same voice coming to me like it's all slowin' down.
And believe me -

I was the one who let you know
I was your sorry-ever-after. '74-'75.

It's not easy, nothing to say 'cause it's already said.
It's never easy.
When I look on in your eyes then I find that I'll do fine.
When I look on in your eyes then I'll do better.

I was the one who let you know
I was your sorry-ever-after."

below

2006-01-14T01:02:00.000-05:00

Isn't it strange how sometimes events in our lives can become such a part of the past -- seemingly so distant -- that we become detached and it feels like another life? It's almost as if we have to wonder whether or not we actually lived through that period or not.

Now, here on a Friday night at the Queens Compound, I remember the Tenderloin. It's like someone else's disturbing waking dream. But it's mine and it does not faze me. No, I will not use the term "nightmare" because the Tenderloin of San Francisco never seemed that horrific to me (though it often was). I knew the names of some homeless, some pimps, some prostitutes (at least, I knew their street handles). Once upon a time I tread its streets with caution, not fear.

There I lived and worked in a residential hotel near on Jones near the corner of O'Farrell. My room was on the top floor and overlooked the south of the city. It was an amazing view as the state receded across a hilly horizon line. The beauty of that view was also a dichotomy with the squalor below. One of the windows in my room looked straight down on the intersection of Jones and O'Farrell.

Long ago now, it seems. Distant. Could it have been someone else and not me? Do we lead lives where a foreign soul slowly overtakes what we call ours and tangible memories become illusory?

Oh, yes, even I find my speculation doubtful.

I remember.

Once, she was at the open window. I was nearby. In that room, I could not help but be nearby. I write this based upon memory, and memory cannot revive the exact words of the conversation. Thus, I improvise:

She: "Hey, come here. Take a look at this."

I wander over to stand next to her and look.

Me: "Whoa. What the hell...?"

In the building across O'Farrell a man is half out a window. From the waist down he is inside an apartment, and the rest of his body limp and dangling against the facade of the building, arms stretched downward. Unmoving.

She: "Do you think we should call the cops?"

Me: "I don't know. He's probably not dead..."

She: "But what if he is?"

Me: "Well, if he is, then there's probably not much we, or anyone else, can do about it now."

She: 'He's not moving at all."

Me: "He's probably drunk. Or drugged-up. Or both. Look at the neighborhood."

There was further exchange, but in the end we let it go. And, lo and behold, hours later, the man draped out the window in the building across the street was gone.

Maybe it was all an illusion.

holidaze

2005-12-24T19:10:00.000-05:00

San Francisco, nine years ago, Christmas Eve, 1996. It was a damp, cool evening, but far from the bitter winter chill so familiar to me from my former life on the east coast.

Mallory, Pat, and I were stuck with each other for the holiday. I had been home at the end of October for my sister's wedding and could not get the time off from work to fly back to New York again. That night the three of us were the renegade orphans of the City by the Bay, and together we created our own unorthodox version of Christmas.

We lived out on Post Street in a "limbo" area that I cheekily referred to as "Lowest Pacific Heights." More accurately, it was on the outskirts of the Richmond and the Inner Sunset. Regardless, it was December 24, and in lieu of sitting around the flat and drinking away our holiday spirit, we hopped MUNI to downtown. We started out with food at Sotano Grill, a Mexican restaurant on Powell near Union Square. I recall that the staff was happy to serve a trio of wandering Christmas Eve dipsomaniacs full of trenchant glee. Yes, we enjoyed the food even as we got lit on a couple pitchers of margaritas.

From there it was an uphill stumble to the Tonga Room at the elegant Fairmont Hotel (950 Mason Street). That was a trip. The Tonga Room features indoor thunderstorms, an easy-listening cover band on a floating stage, and strong, fruity (and pricey) drinks served in imitation coconut half-shells. It was definitely not the hip scene, but for Mal, Pat, and I, the Tonga Room provided a delightful evening of unhip merriment. We sat at a "lakeside" table where we were occasionally lightly sprayed by the rain as the female Asian singer and her piano-playing companion entertained us from the floating stage.

Afterward, full of Christmas spirits and Mexican food, we clambered onto the California-1 MUNI bus and headed toward home. But before that, if I remember correctly (and I might not after the heavy alcohol consumption), we rode the Fairmont's glass elevator up and from above we caught a glorious Christmas Eve view of our city.

stoppage

2005-12-20T17:21:00.000-05:00

The trains have stopped.

Transport Workers Union, Local 100 has abandoned the people of New York City. The union leaders suck like leeches. The union members adhere to a sheep-like herd mentality and obey their masters call to strike.

This union revolts me with their irrational greed. But, to a degree, I am almost relieved they went on strike, and I'll tell you why. If they hadn't, it would have given them more of an excuse for continued slipshod subway and bus service, defended with a rationalization along the lines of, "Hey, we didn't go on strike when we should have, so you riders shut yer traps about the shoddy service." Now they have no excuse. They have also managed to corrode much (if any) sympathy the riding public had for their so-called plight. Ask anyone forced to walk to work this morning in bitter weather on this final day of autumn.

Now, the suits at the MTA are by no means saints. As a matter of fact, they have much to answer for regarding questionable financal record-keeping, deficits that raise fares, and a surprise surplus. But the MTA did concede to nearly every demand the union had, and offered ample raises over the next three years. These TWU workers have it much better than many -- not only in this city, but across the country (as far as benefits, salary, pensions, and retirement age are concerned).

MTA Average Salaries:

Bus operator - $62,551 annual, $23.65 hourly
Bus maintainer - $68,152 annual, $25.85 hourly
Train Operator - $62,438 annual, $25.02 hourly
Station Agent - $50,720 annual, $21.91 hourly
Conductor - $53,959 annual, $22.01 hourly
Cleaner - $45,596 annual, $20.39 hourly

So, to the leadership of the TWU, continue to whine and wring your hands. Stalk the picket lines uttering inane slogans. Claim there's a dire lack of respect for MTA employees. Your television spots on New York 1, meant to invoke commiseration, are simply ludicrous.

I will not argue that, yes, there should be a contract, but there is also no question that the TWU had a suitable offer from the MTA. So look beyond your own blighted, vainglorious posturing and see that police and teachers (also two professions that, unfortunately, lack proper respect) continue with their duties to society whether there is a contract in place or not. And here's the absurdity - they make less than MTA employees.

So TWU, you've had your moment of infantile apostasy. Congratulations.

Now get back to work.

wisdom

2005-12-12T20:35:00.000-05:00

“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command, or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us." – Charles Bukowski

Docs

2005-12-10T10:53:00.000-05:00

As anyone who knows me will attest, not only am I a snappy dresser, I am also an arbiter of high-fashion.

So, I declare now, for all who see this blog to know, that I am singlehandedly responsible for the resurgence in the popularity of Dr. Martens footwear -- especially since I got my new pair of boots last week (8 Eyelet Boot Leather: Greasy is a full-grain leather with integral oiling which gives the surface an oily feel and robust nature).

Okay, I know, I'm giving myself far too much credit, even though I've worn Docs for the last twelve years of my life. There is no way I could ever be responsible for a fashion trend. Contrary to what I wrote above, if anything, I'm anti-fashion trends. This might be one reason why I still wear Docs a decade after they allegedly became passé.

But in the past two weeks I've seen Docs on more people than I have have in the past two to three years. And why not? They're comfortable (once you break 'em in, that is), and always stylish with that yellow stitching, the Air Wair tags, and the air-cushion sole. They're even still a little (dare I say it?)... edgy.

And perfect for winter in New York City.

evergreen

2005-11-28T22:06:00.000-05:00

Yes, I spent some time among the Balsam and Fraser evergreen conifers in the hinterlands of upstate New York this past weekend. And I enjoyed every snowy moment.

libertine

2005-11-21T17:05:00.000-05:00

So, I am currently reading The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists by Neil Strauss. It's highly misogynistic, occasionally pathetic... and completely engrossing. And I don't want to admit it, but I must -- the book strangely makes me want to try "openers" and "elicit values" on "targets" and "sets" at bars, restaurants, and clubs (well, if I actually still went to clubs) and get the coveted "IOI" (Indicator of Interest). But being the generally decent human being I am, I think I could only skim the surface of the lifestyle that absorbs and obsesses the (factual) people described in the book. And here in the big city, there are so many outlets and possibilities for "sarging" (community lingo for picking up women).

It is a way of life that consumes the author, Mr. Strauss, who admits he was always an "AFC" (Average Frustrated Chump). So, he reinvented himself by shaving his balding head, joining a gym, and getting Lasik for his poor eyesight and his teeth laser whitened. This bolsters his confidence, and between his new image and the tricks of the trade he learns from a variety of PUGs (Pickup Gurus), he becomes a master of the game and eventually "closes" on the ladies almost without fail.

What I think so many of these lost 'n' horny male souls fail to realize is that once they have attained a sense of self-confidence, and sure, even remade their image (within reason), then meeting "HBs" ("hot babes," "honey bunnies") does not necessarily have to become about "running patterns" while clad in a tacky shiny shirt and a shit-eating grin while performing rune readings or magic tricks for the ladies as a way to "elicit value." Though that does seem to work as a tactic in many cases...

This book is not only intriguing, but it is a learning experience. I now know how to spot a pick-up artist almost anytime, anywhere. And it seems there's a surfeit of them out there. From the look to the moves to the patois, I know that if I am out with a lady (a "target"), or a group of people (a "set") with an "HB" and she is "sarged" by a tanned, smiling dude in flamboyant duds, glowing jewelry, and a creepy grin (or some garish combination of recited lines and meretricious fashion), I can just toss some PUA terminology back at him (sure, I suppose I'd use a "neg") and tell him to find another set or target. That's the beauty of the book -- anyone outside the expansive PUA community who reads it will have detailed insight into the inner and outer workings of the PUA. And at the same time it is a fascinating study of a sometimes bizarre and deceitful, always lustful, and often sad subculture.

Tom Cruise's Magnolia character of Frank T.J. Mackey was allegedly based upon one longtime legend in the pick-up artist community for his manipulation of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) to, uh, "hypnotize" women and get them to do his carnal bidding. And apparently, film rights have been bought for The Game.

The book even includes a comprehensive glossary of the pickup artists community language, slang, and jargon. The Game provides detailed insight into the lifestyles and patterns of a compelling subculture of shiny-shirted contemporary Casanovas -- lecherous Lotharios who might very well be lurking at a bar or club near you.

anima mundi

2005-10-23T21:18:00.000-04:00

It’s a brisk Sunday night, and I have enjoyed the recent cool weather immensely. One thought of those humidity-induced doldrums of summer and I shiver – not from autumn‘s chill but from not-so-treasured memories of sweat and stagnance.

Today, after irritating computer complications, I accomplished a little writing, interspersed with research into competitions and festivals for my screenplay. Yes, it’s time to hop back on the screenplay horse and gallop it into the world like a celluloid Pony Express. Okay, yeah, that was a horrible analogy. Anyway, it was satisfying to be productive after a relatively lazy Saturday.

It was also a “minor blast from the past” weekend. I heard from my buddy Eugene on Friday. We’ve been out of touch for too long, and he called during my first Jim Beam and Coke (so I was still coherent). We caught up on recent events and plan on a poker game sometime soon. Then this evening I went into an e-mail account I check infrequently, and there was mail from my old childhood and high school pal Steve. The body of his message recalled a particularly disastrous party back in ’86. Ah, the fallacies and "trauma" of youth. I filled Steve in with my life on this side of the city - the abridged version. His mail brought back memories, and I realized that I am so far out of high school that it seems like it was another life, as if someone else’s dream - or nightmare. Nah, I’m being too harsh on high school. No, it wasn’t the best experience, but overall it could have been much worse. All those years behind me now – it will be two decades since graduation next year – and quite possibly dozens of years to go. I say “possibly” but I don’t want to seem pessimistic and such. However, I am aware of my own mortality. Oh, and am I considered an old man yet? To the kids, there's no doubt. But back in those teen years, to me, thirty years old or (gasp!) even older, was something that would never happen to me. How many people have asked, and how often, "Where did the time go?" I look back and see graduation, local college, supermarket jobs, WEOS and WSFW, the crushing angst of doomed teen amour, then moving out and moving on to Buffalo. From there came independence and self-reliance. Sure, I toiled in a couple of McJobs over the course of my twenties, but I made it on my own and I always managed to get the bills paid.

From the college dorms to Elmwood Avenue and then the corner of Grant and Forest in Buffalo, from the squalid Tenderloin to Post and Lyon Streets in San Francisco (with a brief foray into Salt Lake City inserted in there), and now the City of New York, I’ve blazed my own anomalous trail around the country. Scattered behind me is a crooked path dotted with a surfeit of people and places and incidents and events. It is littered with immeasurable ideas and countless conversations and late nights of intimacy and friendship. It is strewn with the triumphs, joys, gaffes, blunders and the simple heartache of life. I like where I have been - in both a literal and metaphorical sense - and there is little I regret. There are always some regrets, of course, and occasionally the past may dog my heels, but I know that somehow I will always move forward.

And remember that no matter where you go… there you are.

music

2005-10-16T16:34:00.000-04:00

I always receive a small thrill to rediscover a song I'd enjoyed in the past, but for one reason or another, I haven't listened to in years. One reason could be the new music I purchase on a regular basis - the immediacy of fresh sounds takes precedence over older material. Or, it could be that a particular genre has not appealed to me as much as a different style for a certain period of time. Regardless, when I "find" a particular song again, it brings enjoyment renewed.

In recent months a few of the songs I have rediscovered include:

1) Barbarism Begins at Home by The Smiths from their Meat is Murder album (1985). A loping, repeated, and almost hypnotic extended riff from guitarist Johnny Marr. Superb and catchy bassline. Morrissey's always-plaintive vocals. Put this one on "repeat."

2) So What? by Ministry from The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste (1989). Wow. What can I say to impart the brilliance of this track? The Mind album overall is an industrial-metal classic without a weak song, but So What? is the scorching highlight. Why? For its brillaint use of sampling ("Assassin"). For its undeniably catchy chorus and blistering beat. For lead screamer Al Jourgensen's unbridled rage. For the song's unrepentant nihilism. Hell, it even had a San Francisco club night named after it back in the '90s.

3) Sick of Myself by Matthew Sweet from 100% Fun (1995). This is an addictive alt-rock nugget from the heyday of the alternative explosion of the 1990s. The guitar riff is impossible to erase from memory and Sweet's self-deprecating lyrics cause me to smile every time I hear it.

4) Disappointed by Public Image Ltd. from the album 9 (1992). Ah, for all of the Sex Pistols naysayers, those who claimed they were a low-talent gimmick (they weren't), John ("Johnny Rotten") Lydon made a return to the scene in a huge way with his subsequent band PiL. From one of the their final albums, Disappointed is a perfectly infectious and humorous alternative rock song. And you have to love when Lydon rolls the "r" off his tongue as he wails out the lyrics with his insolent high-pitched vocals.

5) Bruise Violet by Babes In Toyland from the album Fontanelle (1992). Kat Bjelland was one pissed off "riot grrl," and it shows on Babes In Toyland's best release. Kat snarls and spits over the relentless, "bruising" rhythm ("You were born with glue instead of spine!"). The first single was Bruise Violet, a full tilt blast of thrashing punk rage. Hailing from the Pacific Northwest, the band was vaguely associated with the grunge movement, but let there be no mistake - the Babes could whip the tar out of any grungester.

6) Wildflower by the Cult from Electric (1987). Ah, this is the breakthrough Cult album that put them near the top of the charts back in 1987. It's a muscular rock record, and features the impossibly catchy Wildflower, a riff-heavy boogie rock-metal ode to rapacious lust ("I'm the wolf child, baby, howlin' for you, Wildflower").

7) In the Evening by Led Zeppelin from In Through the Out Door (1979). No, this is not Zep's best album, but it features three classic songs, All My Love, Fool in the Rain, and of course, In the Evening. Sure, with this release, Zeppelin suddenly had synthesizers, which rattled the anti-disco rock 'n' roll purists of the day, but keyboards do nothing to diminish the swagger of the opening track, In the Evening. And swagger is what the track entails. Jimmy's Page's guitar is bluesy rock-metal braggadocio while Robert Plant's crooning seems to consist entirely of vowels. Your body can't not sway to this song.

8) I Sit on Acid by The Lords of Acid from Lust (1991). Unadulterated sensuous techno-sleaze tailored for the dimly lit club and black nail polish and fishnets crowd. Makes you want to writhe on the dance floor and do "bad stuff" - and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

9) Downtown Train by Tom Waits from Rain Dogs (1985). Unfortunately, most people tend to remember Rod Stewart's butchery of this track and are probably unaware that Tom Waits originally wrote and performed it. Forget Stewart and grab a copy of Rain Dogs, and not only for the urban-noir yearning of Downtown Train - it is one of Tom's finest albums.

And last but definitely not least:

10) Idiots Rule by Jane's Addiction from Nothing's Shocking (1988). The timeless Nothing's Shocking is one of the finest albums in music history, and sure, there might be better songs on the album, but Idiots Rule is the one to which I am constantly drawn back. Why? It's fun. It makes me smile. It's irresistible. It has a horn-driven, boisterous groove that reflects the sardonic humor of Perry Farrell's caustic lyrics. It almost makes me appreciate idiots. And idiots rule. Well... maybe not so much, but the song does rule.

There you have it. I'm sure, in a few months time, there will be a new list of "rediscovered" songs to post. Until then...

"Disappointed a few people
When friendship reared its ugly head
Disappointed a few people
Well, isn't that what friends are for?"
- PiL, Disappointed

season

2005-10-08T14:19:00.000-04:00

With the season comes the rain, it drizzles across a dappled, cinereal city. Rain induces mood, sanguine but not somnolent, simultaneously inspiring and lulling, and here steeped in my thoughts engendered by its anodyne pattern and sound.

I've endured a summer of repressive, energy-sapping heat in wait for autumn. I lay down and wait like a forbearing animal for the equinox. In wait for the autumn breeze and the harvest moon. In wait for the trees to turn and nature to strip the branches bare. For the jacket across my frame, the chill across my neck, the damp on my face.

Now comes the turn of the season here in the city. The mood and the energy shifts. Gone is the lethargy of heat and the drone of the air conditioner and the sweat-sodden clothes. So ends sleeveless days and nights. Now as we wrap ourselves in layers we retreat inside, covered. We direct inward.

Cloudburst, haze from rain, pellets against the umbrella, and the waxy static gray sheet of sky over everything, above this cluster of millions and this city called home.

frequency

2005-09-15T22:30:00.000-04:00

So in my humidity-induced languor I was sprawled on my couch with television remote in hand. Yes indeed, I am being highly productive this evening. But cut me some slack - I worked all week, and on Tuesday night I had to assemble a new futon frame (for the couch upon which I've been slouched). The old frame was caked with the gunk of years and literally on its last legs. When the furniture place delivered the new (black metal) frame, I expected it assembled and ready to go. Oh, how guileless was that? The delivery dude carried the frame up, all right - in a box. So I spent an hour-and-a-half in the heat piecing together the new frame. And I also dismantled the old frame. And afterward, glazed with sweat and dirt, I needed a shower. Okay, so I enjoyed a sense of satisfaction at putting together my own couch, but that task was nowhere to be seen on my list of Tuesday night priorities after 9 1/2 hours on the job.

I also put up new blinds in the living room. The old blinds were... well, they were decrepit and god-awful grimy. But home improvements are underway (painting soon), and let's leave it at that.

Okay, my litany of woe is over. Where was I? Oh, right - I was splayed on the couch earlier, flipping the channels, passing by insipid programs and some guy called Bush on the networks. And there on VH1 Classic was the music video for the Information Society song "What's on Your Mind (Pure Energy)." Like much of the popular music of the time, it's an upbeat synth groove with Brit-inflected vocals and ostentatious '80s fashion and hairstyles, featuring the catchy chorus:

I wanna know
What you're thinking.
There are some things you can't hide.
I wanna know
What you're feeling.
Tell me what's on your mind.

No, it was never a favorite of mine, but it does cause me to nod my head and tap my foot. And it also brought back memories of my time as an employee in professional radio. Anyone who has read earlier entries here (particularly "transmission" on December 10, 2004) will know that I was a disc jockey in both college and commercial radio back in the glory daze of my elusory youth. Yes, I dealt with faders, microphones, carts, PSA's, commercial production, transmitters, records (remember those?), listener calls and requests, faulty equipment, and a couple of cramped studios.

As for the music, well... at my college show I could play anything I wanted. It was my block of airtime and I assaulted the airwaves with punk, alternative, industrial, and metal for five hours on Saturday nights. But at my commercial job at WSFW (frequency 99.3 FM, 1110 AM), there were guidelines and restrictions. I had to read blurbs of world, national, and local news at the top of every hour. There were several weather breaks every hour, as well as designated times to run the commercials and PSA's. The music was already pre-recorded on large tape-to-tape reels and played on an oversized deck stacked three high. One song would end, that reel would stop, and another would start. The housing for this was a bulky hunk of machinery that looked as if it had been stolen from the set of a 1950s science fiction B-movie. One of the songs that was occasionally played was, yes, the Information Society tune.

So here on my newish couch, over fifteen years away from my métier in the broadcast industry, I remembered that facet of my bygone youth with more than a whiff of nostalgia. Despite the Adult Contempoary music format at WSFW, I still miss that job. It was... fun. My short-term memory may be capricious at times, but erstwhile recollections often infiltrate my mind with an almost frightening clarity.

nocturnal

2005-08-21T16:33:00.000-04:00

"I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day." - Vincent Van Gogh

I am not a morning person. Nope, not by a long shot. Sure, I have to arise at the dreadful hour of 6:00 a.m. five days a week, but that only serves to reinforce the fact that I am not cut out for the world before noon.

I am a night owl. One of the reasons I often drag through the work days is not out of boredom (though that is sometimes the case), but because I stay up too late. I could be writing, reading, watching a movie - whatever. Usually, I am reading (and right now it is Lunar Park, the latest from Bret Easton Ellis). I become engrossed in the book, or the movie, or my writing, and the minutes seep away and suddenly I am looking at under five hours of sleep. The nighttime stimulates my imagination, resuscitates my mind, invigorates my spirit. Sleep is not a priority despite its necessity. I cope, however. I make it through the routine of the workday with the occasional longing to doze off across a stack of paperwork, but I make it. And when I exit the office at 5:30, I feel reanimated. I usually end up going home as my friends are stuck at work, and we also tread separate paths, so it is generally inconvenient or difficult to gather for post-work drinks and banter.

I once worked overnights at a tourist hotel on Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. It was me alone at the desk doing the audit from 11:00 until 7:00 - the graveyard shift. From my handwritten journal entry of August 28, 1995:

"It's funny when you work all night. You seem to get out of sync with the world. The light spreads across the city. Downtown is cloaked in fog. The traffic stirs. People rise, put on the coffee, open the newspaper. In the middle of it all I sit on the bus, a few other people on board, but alone with my thoughts and my fatigue. We night creatures retreat to shelter. These creatures are few now in the daylight, but I know them. Something in their eyes, what they wear. I accept them... Here I sit in retrospect on another night as minutes slip slowly by, as my life recedes. The creatures are out there in their many disguises. They shed their skin and eat their young."

Even during my formative teenage years I was partial to the night. I worked late at a commercial radio station. I did my volunteer college radio show at WEOS on Saturdays until 2:00 in the morning. Other nights I would be out with friends, partying at someone's house or, in the summer, carousing at the lake. Sometimes I would simply drive the small town highways and backroads by myself, contemplative and seeing the world in a different way.

Beneath street light. Swathed in neon. Displayed in headlights. Under the starless city sky.

I have lived in three different cities since I moved away from the parental unit. The world of neighborhood bars, favorite watering holes, and dark nightclubs opened up to me. My friends and I would spend hours at some tavern or club engaged in drunken persiflage and discourse. After enough alcohol had coursed into my bloodstream, and the right song was playing, I might even strike out on the dance floor and perform my unpolished drunk-dance. With enough booze as mental lubrication, the courage to make a slight spectacle of myself seemed unimportant. Then again, maybe I was actually dancing well - it could be that the cocktails I'd imbibed had served to loosen me up. Probably not, but... maybe. The dark little clubs with their eccentric (and sometimes macabre) attendees and the aggressive music always made me feel like I had found a comfortable little niche in the world for a while.

I will never be a "morning person." I will never be sprightly and alert when I wake up. I won't find the spark of life until the work day is half over, usually. But as the night falls, I come alive.

prodigal

2005-08-10T22:59:00.000-04:00

So, I was upstate this past weekend - the prodigal son on one of his periodic return visits to the small, unpretentious Finger Lakes town where he grew up.

And what is there to do in that little town and the surrounding area? Sure, there's always something. Contrary to the occasional specious belief, agrarian areas beyond the concrete canyons are not always uncultured hinterlands in need of indoor plumbing, more oil for their lamps, and a new butter churn. No, there are the state and county fairs, numerous carnivals, the Empire Farm Days, recreation and fishing at one of the numerous Finger Lakes, an outdoor concert or event, and of course the movies (if you find yourself in Geneva, NY, I highly recommend a visit to the glorious Smith Opera House). Okay, fine - compared to the city it seems like there is little to nothing of interest going on. I suppose that could simply be a skewed perception of we blasé, hedonistic urban dwellers. Anyway...

There's always Wal-Mart.

Every time I amble into the local Wal-Mart, there is a congregation of elderly folk gathered in the quaint, bantam café just inside the front entrance. All the aged eyes turn to the newcomers for a moment, linger, and return to their coffee and conversation. I find that whimsical. And then I proceed into the well-lit depths of marked-down merchandise. This past visit, it was razor blades, a 16-pack of AA batteries, socks, and cheap DVDs - Heathers and Less Than Zero for $5.50 apiece. Oh, I also needed an annoying little calculator battery for my watch. Ah, ye malcontents (like myself), denounce and condemn Wal-Mart's alleged monopolization and apocryphal business practices - child labor violations, failure to pay overtime, the largest sex discrimination lawsuit in history, and employees who often shell out 40 percent of their health insurance premiums. These are infractions and transgressions I find reprobate, but I also live in New York City and have zero oppostion to saving a few bucks now and then. I frequently find the cost of living in New York iniquitous - even criminal.

Yes, you can take the boy out of the small town, but you can't completely remove the small town from the boy, no matter how long he's lived in the city.

Related links:

The Finger Lakes: http://www.fingerlakes.org/index.htm

Empire Farm Days: http://fltimes.com/Main.asp?SectionID=38&SubSectionID=121&ArticleID=9216

New York State Fair: http://www.nysfair.org/state_fair/2005/

The Smith Opera House: http://thesmith.org/NewFiles/main.html

My DVD collection: http://www.dvdaficionado.com/dvds.html?cat=1&id=urbanoutlaw

avant-garde

2005-07-30T20:08:00.000-04:00

Last night I attended the 2005 Latino Film Festival for a screening of Iván Ávila Dueñas experimental film, Adán y Eva (todavía), or (in "Americanese"), Adam and Eve (Still) (2004).

It had been a long time - years, in fact - since I had sat in a theater and watched avant-garde cinema projected on a movie screen. The last time might have been when I was in film school and went to one of Dominic Angerame's informal screenings for some of his experimental film work. He was my History of Film professor at the Academy of Art College - thoroughly knowledgable about a multitude of cinematic styles, from straightforward narrative to the abstract and surreal. In his class I was exposed to directors of which I knew little to nothing, such as legends like Andrei Tarkovsky, Ingmar Bergman, Werner Herzog, Lina Wertmüller, and numerous others.

So it was with moderate excitement that I entered the Two Boots Pioneer Theater on East 3rd for the 6:30 showing. I'd looked forward to seeing it after reading its description, and I was not disappointed. It was a remarkable picture – brazen, meditative, and unafraid to discard commercial film sensibilites.

An eternity from the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve are condemned to immortality (it would seem a condemnation given the misanthropic tone of the film). They reside in the slums of modern-day Mexico City and Buenos Aires. They are like vampires who feed their appetites on society's fringe but lack the blood habit or aversion to direct sunlight. They exist without end in a sort of lethargic transfixion and seek thrills through sexually deviant behavior to enliven the deadness of their permanence. Adam finds new flesh in a night club. Eve undertakes prostitution but does not accept money. They often change their hairstyles and wardrobes. Eve clips photos from tabloids to create wall-sized montages. Adam instigates a mutual suicide - obviously it does not kill him, and he appears to feel nothing for his victim. The pair dwells in languorous moral detachment. Theirs is an interminable quest for something new, something they have not yet experienced. They are not opprobrious - they're just bored.

Director Dueñas prefers static shots to convey this panoptic ennui. His panoramic shots from rooftops scrutinize the modern world which Adam and Eve now perpetually inhabit. Delayed camera pans communicate insouciance and relate to the loss of time - when days, years, and decades have been rendered meaningless. There is sanguine acting from the two leads (as well as much of the supporting cast), with nudity and some, er... uncomfortable situations.

All said, Adam and Even (Still) is a film worth seeing for the adventurous cinephile. An education in film is not a prerequisite, but it certainly it is not for general audiences. Also, those who have difficulty navigating their local Blockbuster Video might want to skip this one, too.

miscellany

2005-07-10T13:31:00.000-04:00

Random thoughts, part two.

One of my favorites scenes from recent cinema (recent as in the past ten years or so) is from the extraordinary "American Beauty" (1999, written by Alan Ball and directed by Sam Mendes). The scene occurs in Ricky Fitts' (Wes Bentley) bedroom as he shows a videotape to his neighbor Jane Burnham (Thora Birch). The video footage is a simple, steady shot of a plastic grocery bag "dancing" in a wind gust:

"It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing and there's this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. And this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. And that's the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and... this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video's a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember - and I need to remember... Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in."

Succinct, moving dialogue and such an incredible scene. It always cuts through me like a spirit slivering my soul. And a few minutes ago I trekked up a block to the corner store for half & half and a Vitamin Water (go ahead and chortle - I drink Vitamin Water). And lo and behold, a white plastic grocery bag emblazoned with a red smiley face was caught in a wind gust off the East River. It "followed" me about a half block up and I could only recall that scene from "American Beauty." The memory brought me a plaintive smile. The bag skipped along beside me, or a little in front of me, smiley face pointed upward - "Like a little kid begging me to play with it." The wind gust died and the bag fell behind and for a solitary moment I felt just a little... dejected.

So I bought my half & half and Vitamin Water, and returning home, I did not see the bag anywhere.

Here at the Queens Compund last night there was an informal reading for the screenplay I recently completed. Four New York actors took time out of their lives to take on various roles and read and discuss, and It went well. I received a fresh perspective on the dialogue, continuity, and script flow. It's one thing to sit here in front of my monitor and pound out the words and read them to myself. It is something else entirely to hear those words dramatized by real actors. I received a few helpful suggestions in the constructive criticism vein, but much to my surprise the screenplay did not seem to need a lot of fixin' (or so I hope). Now comes the next step - to get this thing to an agent and sell it. I presently have a credible possibilty to at least get the script into the hands of an established industry writer (and/or his agent). I should know soon...

I like margaritas. Sure, I'm generally a beer (Bass, Heineken, Harp, Sam Adams) or Jim Beam and Coke kind of guy, but I have a weakness for margaritas... and fast-talkin' dime store noir dames ("Noir dames love tragic alcoholics. Show up at 2 a.m. drunk with a bullet wound and watch the sparks fly."). Jane Greer, Liz Scott, Anne Savage, Joan Bennett, Ida Lupino - where are you? Gee, ya' think I've been watching too much film noir lately?

I have a camera in my cell phone but I hardly ever use it. I think that's because I forget it's there...

And what quote shall I leave you with this time? I know - a song I was just listening to:

Well there’s a light in your eye that keeps shining
Like a star that can’t wait for the night
I hate to think I’ve been blinded baby
Why can’t I see you tonight?

And the warmth of your smile starts a-burnin’
And the thrill of your touch gives me fright
And I’m shaking so much, really yearning
Why don’t you show up, make it all right?
-Led Zeppelin, "Fool in the Rain" (Jones/Page/Plant)

dialogue

2005-07-03T17:28:00.000-04:00

Random thoughts.

My grandmother smoked. I remember it quite well. One invariable mental image of my childhood is sitting on the family room floor of my parents' house while my gandmother reclined in the red-cushioned rocking chair. She would light up, and that odor of the struck match aroused and delighted my sense of smell. I would breathe deeply through my little boy nose in an attempt to inhale every lingering trace of that acrid-sweet phosphorus and sulfide combustion. That odor and gasoline have always been my favorite smells. And I still miss my grandparents.

I enjoy staying in the city on holiday weekends. Sure, I've left town in the past to visit one place or another (generally the family unit upstate), but it so happens I am here in New York over this July 4th. The city is half-empty. Much of the population has hit the road for their relaxation destinations. Their exodus thins the traffic, the sidewalks, and (most importantly?) the bars. Though it was crowded on the Lower East Side on Friday night, the rest of the city seemed somehow abandoned. On my soused taxi ride home at 3:30 in the morning, straight up Third Avenue through the Village, Murray Hill, and Midtown, the sidewalks were particularly barren. Not the norm for New York. But it provided for a welcome, albeit spectral, change of pace. Tonight it looks like it might be pool with the boys. On a Sunday night on a holiday weekend there shouldn't be much of a crowd. We might as well take advantage of the absence of the masses while we can.

I finished the first draft of my "commercial" screenplay last night. Roughly two months of research, writing, formatting and the creation of a little written world in my Final Draft program and it is basically complete. Sure, there will be editing and revisions, but the story is there. I must say, despite its commercially viable nature (which my art house and foreign film instincts want to reject), I am proud of this script. It was also as if I rediscovered my ability to write a cohesive, feature-length screenplay. I had few problems with continuity, characters, or scenes. Whereas many screenwriters will hit snags and roadblocks with the middle act (usually pages 30 to 90), I had a comprehensive outline that pushed the action and conflict forward. No wasted space and no superfluous content. I have high hopes for this one. Now comes a test reading with a group of New York actors for dialogue and flow, and of course, their ideas and suggestions for improvement. Constructive criticism is always advantageous. Then, I get the damn thing out there and sell it. And after that? Well, maybe I'll go back to my hallowed film school roots and write something that would make Bergman or Buñuel proud.

Ah, Stand Inside Your Love, one of my favorite Smashing Pumpkins songs, just came on.

Earlier today I watched The Set-Up, an intense noir from 1949, starring Robert Ryan and Audrey Totter, and directed by prodigious Robert Wise (he also directed Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Sound of Music, The Sand Pebbles, and The Day the Earth Stood Still, among numerous other pictures). The Set-Up plays out in "real time," and it is a masterwork of film design. It's the brutal story of a pugilist on his last legs and the sacrifices he must make to finish his career on his feet. The film presents scenes of feral human nature - cruelty, avarice, and bloodlust - so it's not always easy to watch. But it comes highly recommended, obviously. Pick it up in the "Film Noir Classic Collection" DVD boxset along with other classics like Out of the Past, Asphalt Jungle, Gun Crazy, and Murder, My Sweet. It's worth every dime, see?

I realize that I am drawn to the damaged, or perhaps they are drawn to me. They lure me into their lives and I welcome their souls and hearts and eyes and baggage. I can only listen with rapt attention and a scintilla of empathy, and hope that the words I return strike with the sincerity I intend.

I run with joy to the great and imperfect ones, their confusion nourishes me; their stuttering is like divine music to my ears - Henry Miller

victual

2005-06-25T21:38:00.000-04:00

I just had the best B.L.T.

That's right, bacon, lettuce, and tomato on two slices of Stroehmann flax and grains bread. I had fresh tomatoes and lettuce in the crisper, a plastic jug of mayonnaise, and a package of bacon. But since I do not eat pork (I love pigs and they should be pets) I instead used turkey bacon (turkeys should not be pets). Bread in toaster, four slices of turkey bacon in frying pan, two slices of tomato, and a thick layer of lettuce. Good eatin'. I even did the dishes immediately afterward because I am somewhat O.C.D.

So, in summation, on this too-humid June evening, it was a delicious B.L.T. for one who is slightly O.C.D.

Why am I sitting here writing this? Despite the wretched weather, I must get ready to go out. Last night it was an excellent time with the cabal at 'Bar on A' (between 10th & 11th on Avenue A - duh). Tonight? Not sure yet, but with the summer heat, it will truly a hot time in the old city - let's hope that aphorism works as a metaphor, as well...

solstice

2005-06-21T21:47:00.000-04:00

A full moon of coruscating amber hovers over the city tonight.

Its luminescence subdues my inner dialogue and humbles me with its somnolent majesty. Just a glance through the kitchen window and to the sky in the southeast, and for a moment I am drawn away from whatever thoughts afflict my mind, be it the toil of the creative process or the entanglements of conflicted emotion. The lambent glow makes me realize how minuscule we are here, as if this mortal strand is a hallucinatory whim. We lead our lives beneath vast skies and beyond those skies stretch millions upon billions upon trillions of years of existence. We here on Earth are but the blink of an eye. We percolate in our own fragile lives and deal with events that can shatter and mollify and despoil and uplift and destroy. Occasionally, our place in the echelons of immortality can feel certain. However, the sheer incomprehensible nature of our place within existence evokes the realization that we are but a transient creation. We are a drop of sand through a measureless cosmic hourglass.

Yes, the moon is sublime on this first day of summer. It radiates an entrancing summer solstice topaz across these delicate lives we lead. Beneath it we are children.

spirit

2005-06-16T21:42:00.000-04:00

If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it. - Arthur Schopenhauer, 19th century philosopher

There are times when I feel like a ghost wandering through the physical world. It is a curious detachment of my mind from tactile surroundings. I become absorbed in thought and quite suddenly it consciously occurs to me that I have become disengaged - a spirit who sees everything around him but remains unseen. I don't exist. I become a spectre, a phantom... an observer. Still in present tense, I more acutely feel the life of the city effloresce around me, but for those ephemeral moments I don't feel like I am a part of it.

On the city street, in a crowded bar or restaurant, in the cramped cattle car subway, there is uneasy physical contact with the nearest strangers, but my mind is unfettered and independent of the environment. It's all esoteric and abtract.

And why this weirdness, you might inquire...

Sometimes it is an emotional catharsis - an event or circumstance that has summarily altered me in some manner - that has brought on the feeling. It doesn't have to be anything as dramatic as an epiphany, though that has occurred a couple of times. An epiphany can be life-changing and carries far more exigency than simply spacing out on the train and briefly losing touch with the tangible.

Perhaps it is an expurgation of emotion that results in a temporary removal of my mind from the world. Maybe I could just attribute it to fatigue and be done with it.

But "it" is a facet of who I am, and it's happened on numerous occasions in my adult life. Call it ethereal or rarefied or tenuous. I can describe it as a juncture where I reach a recondite form of transitory enlightenment. Not that the experience makes me any wiser, but it does take me away from the physical realm long enough to enjoy a certain understanding of the indiscriminate sequences of life - and to grasp a pattern and a purpose. I am here and I live among this structured chaos - random events and encounters prodded and fomented by emotion and necessity and logic and desire. My emotion. My desire. My lack of logic. The necessity to fill gaps of emptiness.

A Thursday night in June, the prolonged heat wave passed, cool air on bare skin, I feel as I have always felt.

decade

2005-06-05T18:46:00.000-04:00

It was ten years ago this month when I again found myself at a transitional moment in my life.

I had lived in San Francisco for a year. The previous August I had found work and living space at the Pacific Bay Inn on Jones at O'Farrell, and had begun film school at the Academy of Art College in September. I inundated myself with a heavy class load, with a concentration on screenwriting and film history. Two semesters were completed successfully (and I had shot my five-minute short, Top Floor, for the final assignment of my Motion Picture Language class). The job at the PBI, though a fruitful learning experience among the forsaken detritus of society, was coming to an end. The hotel had been sold, and the present staff was being cleared out to make room for the new regime.

Luckily, my manager Dave had found new employment at the Travelodge at Fisherman's Wharf, and he recommended me. One interview with the front desk manager, and I was in. I began there as my time at the PBI dwindled.

Meanwhile Dave, our co-worker and pal Mallory, my ex-girlfriend, and I needed a place to live. The search began. Thankfully (and surprisingly) it wasn't a lengthy or arduous quest for a new home. We found a beautiful flat down Post Street near the corner of Lyon (right off the 38 Geary line at Kaiser Hospital). Sure, that wistful side of me understood that I would miss the Tenderloin and my room at the Pacific Bay Inn... just a little. But the flat we moved into was spacious and included 3 1/2 bedrooms, a working fireplace in the living room, baroque woodwork throughout, and a laundry room in the back with washer and dryer. There was a backyard as well, though we rarely utilized it.

There I was, now ten years in my past. I was 3,000 miles from everyone and everything I'd ever known and I had found a measure of achievement in San Francisco. I was ready to enter this new phase of my life there. The hotel and my room there became a memory I have consistently revisited over time, in both my writing and to relate stories of the 'Loin to friends. The "corporate" job at the tourist trap known as Fisherman's Wharf was underway, and though it was something I did not necessarily want to do, it could have been worse.

I had accrued enough knowledge (and enough credits for an Associate of the Arts) at the Academy, and I had to decide if I wanted to return in September. Okay, yes, I wanted to, but I did not want to fall further into the fissure of student loan debt, and I also felt I had learned what I needed.

Sometimes it feels like my life there was a dream - as if it was a step toward change in my life that I would never have had the audacity to ever really take. I suppose that time and distance - and the fact that I have not been back since I departed in August 1997 - have created this illusion. But occasionally I recall so vividly an intimate moment with the sounds and sights of the city. It could be the bray of the Sea Lions sprawled on their wooden planks at the Wharf as the sun rose and I finished a graveyard shift. Or a chicken-steak dinner at Mel's Drive-In. Or a preternatural 'Loin mutant I had to deal with at the front desk of the Pacific Bay Inn. Or the clangor of a cable car bell. Or seeing The Pillow Book, Dead Man, The Crossing Guard, and Dream With the Fishes (among dozens of other films) at one of the city's many independent cinemas. Or a particularly memorable evening at the clubs So What! or Roderick's Chamber. Or that commute to an overnight shift at Travelodge when I was alone on the 42 Van Ness bus the entire time.

I found my direction in San Francisco. I left reluctantly and not without reservation, even if I tried to not let it show. I left behind something that had blossomed, but I departed before anything could wilt. I had to move on and discover my future here in New York City. Ten years down the timeline of my life I have not yet fulfilled each promise and goal of that sanguine, unhinged youth, but strides continue every day. The same optimism that filled my soul when I lived in San Francisco may wane on occasion, but it is never irretrievable.