This blog is defunct

Thanks for stopping by! All the archived content here, plus new 4-each-days, will be now over at http://foureachday.blogspot.com. See you there!

8-14-08 For those still paying attention

I found a penny on the subway today, and tried to pick it up while the train was coming to a stop in the station, which may have been a bad idea. Imagine, if you will: me, bent over with my natural-born ass sticking way up in the air, knees bent while I try to maintain some balance, teetering on the verge of total disaster. It must have been quite a sight, and I laughed out loud at myself to preempt any criticisms my fellow passengers might have been thinking as they observed my antics.

Also, never pick up a fortune-cookie fortune that you find just lying on the ground, because you never know what kind of day you might end up having if you take somebody's discarded fortune.

7-18-08 I Went On Vacation...

...and now I'm back, so all of you clamoring for me to get back on the blogging, here is your vindication!

(sound of crickets chirping)

In South Carolina, I saw: alligators (lying like sullen logs on the shore of the lagoon in the backyard of the house we were in, and floating in said lagoon with an air of slightly disgruntled menace), herons (walking through murky water with delicate, mincing steps like fussy accountants who've stepped in something unpleasant), spanish moss (bearding every Live Oak Tree), egrets (orange and black beaked, staring with furious attention at nothing), raccoons (several, baby, all in a row tumbling across the bike path like retarded furry hunchback bandits), very very small crabs, very small clams (burrowing into the sand as the tide went out), dolphins (frolicking in the wake of a boat), pelicans (sailing in lock-formation a foot above the waves and maybe two feet from my head as I floated in the surf), and exactly no sharks.

I come back renewed and revived and feeling much less ill-disposed toward my new adopted boro, so here's hoping that lasts.

6-25-08 I happen to prefer pop.

A thick, short black guy in a white t-shirt and a black do-rag bops along the tunnel between the shuttle and the 4/5 train, headphones buried deep in his ears. He raps along with parts of the music playing in his head: “motherfucker! Shit… and I… cut ‘em out…. Ready ta….”

This is us. We bop along locked off in our own little world, regurgitating the tapes we’ve chosen as they play over and over in our heads, barely recognizing each other, barely even aware we’re repeating the words we heard, feeling safe, thinking we’re free.

6-24-08 ack-cent-ewe-ate the positive

A man who works in payroll at my day job, Santiago, has one arm, and he brings me cheese from a relative of his who apparently is involved with the manufacture of cheese, and who has extra. All of these seemingly unrelated facts are true.

He saw me making a cheese sandwich from cheese and bread I had brought to work and he asked me, "you like cheese? I'll bring you cheese," and that was that.

When I explained this situation to Katie she said, "One-armed Santiago who works in payroll brings you blocks of cheese? That's awesome."

6-23-08 Central Park, hot as balls

A hot day, and Central Park has a green, growing smell that takes me back ten years to the first month I was in New York. Having spent most of my life in the desert, I was amazed at this smell, the moisture in the air, the different quality of life, everything.

Right now, I'm wandering through the park, looking for the area where I'll be rehearsing a Shakespeare Play I'm writing the music for, sweating balls and carrying my guitar around. I finally get tired of looking and sit down on a rock, reading the novel I'm also carrying around like a brick in my back pack, while the mosquitoes feast on my flesh.

6-22-08 Seriously, is it just me?

I'm walking out of the bodega with my laundry over my shoulder as someone is trying to come in. I don't want to accidentally bump into him, and so I say, preemptively, "Pardon me."

Dude turns around and follows me out the store and a few feet down the street before stopping and watching me walk away. I make it about half-way down the block before turning around, and he is on the phone, occasionally looking my way as I continue to my apartment building.

6-21-08 That's Mer-MAN!

Went to the mermaid day parade - my first ever, and maybe the last ever, too. Watched the cars and various freaks walking by in their self-involved finery, until about three-quarters of the way through, we got bored and decided to go on rides.

The Cyclone Rollercoaster is (still) a rattling, rust-bucket death-trap, but the Wonder Wheel may be one of my favorite rides ever. The height, the perspective, the swinging cars that give small, occasional thrills instead of the overstimulation of the Neck-Breaker or whatever the hell that ride was I went on that almost made me throw up (it was the Breakdancer).

6-20-08 Up on the Roof

Katie and I go to a couple of roof-top bars, just to do it, see what they're like. We go on top of the Library Hotel - they organize their rooms by the Dewey Decimal System (this is true) - and it's crowded but nice, expensive drinks, douchey tourists from France, and us.

Then we go to a place on the top of the Roosevelt Hotel (phone number 888-TEDDY-22, which for some reason made me smile) and I recognize the bartender from a bar where my friend Eliel DJ'ed a few months back. She recognizes me, too, and we smile, and Katie comments, "You always want Easter European girls as your bartenders, because they're pretty, and they have a work ethic. They will muddle some mint!"

6-17-08 The Party Boat

The company I work for rents a boat to take the employees out for a night. The food is decent, the company pleasant, the drinks free, and the music a (very small) step above a wedding DJ.

A full moon rises above the city, one of the greatest cities in the world. We pass beneath Brooklyn Bridge and I stand on the top deck, watching it all pass by, the city and the bridge and all of it glittering in the sunset while a huge orange moon slowly lifts into the sky, and I think, "I am so lucky to live here, so lucky to see this all right here and now."

6-16-08 echoes

Still furious and raging over last night's mugging. I tell the story a few more times to family members and whatnot, keeping the embellishments to a minimum.

The cat refuses to take to her new litter, and has taken to peeing under the coffee table. We argue about it, but she's so old I hardly have the heart to be too stern with her.

6-15-08 Well, thank god I got THAT over with

I could see them coming over a block away - three guys, one crosses the street, the other two come on. "Here we go," I think to myself.

Hoods up, they're within striking distance, I try to go around, the one blocks my way, the other saying, "Gimmie your money."

They leave with 20 bucks and a couple of bruises, while I leave exhilerated and furious, but otherwise unharmed (details will be found here when I get around to writing, but suffice to say, I'm fine, and feel that I acquitted myself rather well).

6-14-08 Cyberdyne and Swedish Decor

Katie and I ride our bikes out to Red Hook, looking for a farmer's market we've read about. After a brief incident with another popped tire, we find the farm, but no market.

Across the street from the farm (Red Hook seems like the edge of the world, no tall buildings, just waterfront, then water, and then what feels like next stop Europe) is the new Ikea, its hulking and monstrous bulk disguised in primary blue and yellow paint in much the same way that one would attempt to disguise a rhino by dressing it in a party hat.

Katie stares up at its sprawl and vast, lunatic cheerfulness for a few seconds before saying, in a terrified voice, "on August 4, it becomes self-aware!"

6-13-08 Strangers

Go to see the movie the Strangers and spend most of the film with my hands over my eyes. The ending actually was easier to watch as it just devolved into simple slasher fare.

Back at Katie's house I wander through the rooms with the lights off, daring myself to feel afraid. We play Lego Indiana Jones and let the angst of the film dissolve in cute, square-ish looking pixels.

6-12-08 Why Do You Think I'm Living Here?

Mary greets me as I arrive home with her usual peculiar mix of friendliness and class hostility. "Exterminator ain't come yet. I thought you was powerful, get them to take care of it, but you just like me!"

"Yeah," I say, "don't let this pretty face fool you, they don't listen to me," all the while thinking, "Listen, just 'cause I'm white don't mean shit; I'm still poor!"

6-11-08 It couldn't be more perfect

Riding my bicycle to see Katie, it feels like a burden I've been carrying is lifting from my shoulders. The air is cool, the sun setting as the sky fades to pink, it's my favorite time of day, and riding is one of my favorite things to do - I'm completely happy in an uncomplicated way.

Suddenly there's a sound like a snake has climbed onto my bike, and the front tire goes rapidly flat. A shard of glass, almost 3/8's of an inch long has punctured my front tire in a way that I couldn't have planned if I'd wanted it.

6-10-08 Nature says fuck you, too!

We sweat and strut and suffer on the un-air-conditioned stage through the hottest night so far this year, and in the middle of the show, a storm roars up outside, and the wind is so high it sounds like someone is dumping buckets of shot on the roof of the theater.

Walking the long walk after the show down Classon from the G train (a straight shot down through the brownstones of Ft. Greene to my home, about 12 minutes), the storm seems spent, but suddenly I see that my way ahead is blocked. A tree has split in half, crushing a Volvo beneath it, and the branches and leaves of the severed half completely block the sidewalk, up almost two stories high.

I sidle around tree and flattened Volvo into the street, flirting with death beneath the wheels of the oncoming cars, the drivers of which seem too busy gawking at the (admittedly amazing) sight of a squashed car to notice me, and as I come around the corner, immediately to my left is another, equally ginormous tree, equally split in half, and beneath the top half is another car, equally squashed.

6-9-08 Kill, Chat, Kill

After work, while I'm playing video games, Stephanie stops by to drop off some power tools I let her and the Nosedive boys borrow. She hasn't seen the place since she helped me move in, and she is appropriately impressed with the work I've put in to make it livable.

The cat seems to remember her, and in contrast to the caterwauling that Her Furry-ness has been subjecting me (and the entire apartment building) to this week, she settles down and purrs at us while we sit and chat about our mutual friends.

Eventually she heads out, and I go back to playing Jedi Academy, wasting time killing artificial enemies.

6-8-08 Some days, it's just easy

I'm writing songs for an upcoming show, lyrics by a certain Mr. William Shakespeare, and the music flows easily from me today. Nothing is forced or difficult. My hands end up pleasantly sore, my fingertips aching from pressing the guitar strings. I finish one song, and pleased and delighted with the feeling, walk around the house, laughing to myself and shaking my head.

6-7-08 Playing the Ponies

After a day of drunken equine-centered revelry, Belmont Racetrack stadium looks like what I imagine the Superdome looked like after hurricane Katrina - disastrous, wrecked, filthy with trash and bottles and drunken, pink, sunburned bodies in various stages of undress, only the folks here did it to themselves. The concrete is wet and slick with some unknown substance, and drunken fools slip and fall, their bodies hitting the pavement with an alarming thud, only to stand up again, oblivious to their own pain: "I'm OK!"

The tickets from misplaced bets on Big Brown begin to thicken in the muck into a slurry of paper mush. Meanwhile, the horses run by on the track, swift and magnificent, clean and glorious in their speed, uncaring of the hopes pinned on them, the only truly happy beings in the stadium.