The remnants of the hurricane are passing over as I write. It's raining like crazy. Streams of water directed toward sewers by concrete curbs, carrying a nights worth of trash left by young girls who moved here to wear party dresses and meet boys who are not very interesting.
New York is like a vampire. During the day people in my neighborhood go about their business and at night swarms of creatures descend, looking for some mischief . By midnight the population triples. The mating ritual has begun . Get dressed up, get drunk, get laid and have a day of regrets when waking you realize the man you went home with is a loser. Alcohol. A mans best friend.
I prefer the neighborhood the way it was, sleazy, over run by junkies and crack addicts. At least there was a soul to the place. A vibe. At least you knew exactly where you stood. Now it's another extension of the over marketed, over branded, over consume America that years of Conservative policy created. Exploit everything as much as possible, squeeze every cent out of it and toss it in the trash.
Now that the economy collapsed maybe the illusion of what this New York is will follow. One can hope.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
The Pretty Girl I Saw Last Night
I want to write your name because it's lovely. When I saw you last night you looked so fragile, at any moment you may fall apart. You're so beautiful that I couldn't help but notice all the men had their eyes fixed on you. I tried to imagine what they were thinking, what they would say if any had the nerve to approach you.
No one did.
When she told me about you naturally I was intrigued. In my time things were different but the end result inevitably is the same. There's still a part of me that would like to be in that bar every night and not care about anything . Why does it seem so appealing still after all this time? Funny how there is still this darkness inside me.
No one did.
When she told me about you naturally I was intrigued. In my time things were different but the end result inevitably is the same. There's still a part of me that would like to be in that bar every night and not care about anything . Why does it seem so appealing still after all this time? Funny how there is still this darkness inside me.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Pop
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Today is my fathers birthday. He died 2 years ago. He would have been 81. It was strange watching him disappear. He literally shrank the last few years of his life from his illness. The year before he passed I was at my brothers for Christmas . I went outside to his car to helped him walk over to the house. I had no idea he had become so frail.
Sometimes I feel bad because I don't feel anything about his death . Maybe I should thank him. I like my life and if he wasn't suck a bastard I may not have left home when I was so young. Hey pop. I wish we had become friends sooner than we did. I will always wonder why you didn't like me. You were not such a bad guy the last 10 years.
Friday, November 14, 2008
The Start of it All
How different would I be if I thought more about you? How am I to know if what is now is what was meant all along? Are you truly as I thought you to be or am I another dreamer wishing for things that cannot be. How am I to tell you I love you when I don't even know if you see me? Are my memories fading into nothing or are you collecting them so I can one day see them again?
Friday, November 7, 2008
The past week or so
On Halloween I was asked to cover a show in Montclair NJ. My friend Laura has a store there that I haven't been to yet so I decided to do both.... At 10AM I met her at her place and we drove out through the Holland tunnel and into the depths of New Jersey. When I was a boy I would try and hold my breath when we went into a tunnel. I would imagine that a hole opened up, water would rush in and I had to hold my breath all the way otherwise I would drown. I never could make it the whole way and I always changed the rules allowing myself to take multiple breaths until we cleared the tunnel. I still do it. It's a big secret but I really do.
When I leave the city and go places where nature is abundant I find myself in awe . The magnitude of it and all it's perfection. Something as simple as a tree can have me spellbound. So tall and mighty but they can't move unless the wind blows and they start to sway, big heavy limbs lumbering back and forth. I think they have feelings and emotions just as we do. I think everything in nature does actually. Every year a scientist releases a study on the intellectual curiosity of a giraffe or a chimpanzee. If they can reason why not have feelings? I've seen countless shows where an animal carries it's dead baby around for a week. It's doing that because it's so distraught with grief it just can't let go. We are all part of the same thing, all us living and breathing things. The unexplainable ever present feeling that we get , that feeling that I am part of something, where for a moment everything makes sense even though there is no actually confirmation of anything tangible, you just know all is well, all is meant as it should be. Doesn't it seem possible that they are no different than us?
Work was finished at 12 and I called a car service to drive me back to New York. The dispatcher said the car would be there in 10 minutes. The driver shows up 45 minutes later. I wasn't very happy. The driver tells me his name is Mike and said he was going to take Route 3 as it was faster. I grunted and sat in silence. . We start to drive and he starts to talk. He told me he moved to New Jersey when he was 2 from northern Italy. His family settled in Montclair and when he was 7 both his parents died within 9 months of each other. The neighbors, a black family took him in and raised him. They were the only family he knew his entire life. I asked him who he was voting for. Without missing a beat he said Obama. He also said it had nothing to do with growing up with black people. He is so sick and tired of the Republicans and how they screwed up the country that he will never vote for a Republican. He had 2 children and both died from heroin overdoses and like me he is alone with no immediate family. Near the beginning and the end of his life he lost 2 family members. Two parents and two children. I can't imagine what that must have been like as a 7 year old or as a grown man. He has heart problems and said he is on borrowed time now but he's glad he's still around, wanted to make it through the election to see a black President be sworn in, drive his taxi and talk to strangers. I want to say he reminds me of my father but he doesn't. I also want to say that I was tired and didn't feel like talking to him after a long day but I didn't mind. Mike just kept going on and on and I can't remember what else we talked about. I just wanted to get home.
We arrived in the city 1:30 or so and I forgot about Halloween. The traffic was horrible because every street corner was full of people in costume, drunk and doing I don't know what. It took 20 minutes to get across town and I became so frustrated I asked Mike to drop me on 4th Avenue and 8th Street by the cube. Every street someone was doubled over vomiting from a night of fun. When I got to 7th Street an old man was in front of the Ukranian church with a hose washing the sidewalk I presume of all the urine and vomit. I can't remember when it began but 20 or so years ago the Halloween parade was a small event, small compared to today's standards. It was actually fun to see everyone marching up 6th Avenue in costume. As with everything else once the masses get wind of something than everyone is involved. That's not necessarily a bad thing but usually when that happens other forces become involved and something that began as a fun thing to do becomes something to make money off of and thereby loses it's soul. I guess this being a big city people need stuff to do and I'm not trying to sound like a party pooper but most people I know tend to stay far away from the parade. Another event losing it's edge. I wonder if this is why Lady Bunny stopped doing Wigstock. The first few years when it was in Tompkins Square park it was great but it became this big event and it lost it's vibe. It ended and Lady deserves credit for killing it.....
When I leave the city and go places where nature is abundant I find myself in awe . The magnitude of it and all it's perfection. Something as simple as a tree can have me spellbound. So tall and mighty but they can't move unless the wind blows and they start to sway, big heavy limbs lumbering back and forth. I think they have feelings and emotions just as we do. I think everything in nature does actually. Every year a scientist releases a study on the intellectual curiosity of a giraffe or a chimpanzee. If they can reason why not have feelings? I've seen countless shows where an animal carries it's dead baby around for a week. It's doing that because it's so distraught with grief it just can't let go. We are all part of the same thing, all us living and breathing things. The unexplainable ever present feeling that we get , that feeling that I am part of something, where for a moment everything makes sense even though there is no actually confirmation of anything tangible, you just know all is well, all is meant as it should be. Doesn't it seem possible that they are no different than us?
Work was finished at 12 and I called a car service to drive me back to New York. The dispatcher said the car would be there in 10 minutes. The driver shows up 45 minutes later. I wasn't very happy. The driver tells me his name is Mike and said he was going to take Route 3 as it was faster. I grunted and sat in silence. . We start to drive and he starts to talk. He told me he moved to New Jersey when he was 2 from northern Italy. His family settled in Montclair and when he was 7 both his parents died within 9 months of each other. The neighbors, a black family took him in and raised him. They were the only family he knew his entire life. I asked him who he was voting for. Without missing a beat he said Obama. He also said it had nothing to do with growing up with black people. He is so sick and tired of the Republicans and how they screwed up the country that he will never vote for a Republican. He had 2 children and both died from heroin overdoses and like me he is alone with no immediate family. Near the beginning and the end of his life he lost 2 family members. Two parents and two children. I can't imagine what that must have been like as a 7 year old or as a grown man. He has heart problems and said he is on borrowed time now but he's glad he's still around, wanted to make it through the election to see a black President be sworn in, drive his taxi and talk to strangers. I want to say he reminds me of my father but he doesn't. I also want to say that I was tired and didn't feel like talking to him after a long day but I didn't mind. Mike just kept going on and on and I can't remember what else we talked about. I just wanted to get home.
We arrived in the city 1:30 or so and I forgot about Halloween. The traffic was horrible because every street corner was full of people in costume, drunk and doing I don't know what. It took 20 minutes to get across town and I became so frustrated I asked Mike to drop me on 4th Avenue and 8th Street by the cube. Every street someone was doubled over vomiting from a night of fun. When I got to 7th Street an old man was in front of the Ukranian church with a hose washing the sidewalk I presume of all the urine and vomit. I can't remember when it began but 20 or so years ago the Halloween parade was a small event, small compared to today's standards. It was actually fun to see everyone marching up 6th Avenue in costume. As with everything else once the masses get wind of something than everyone is involved. That's not necessarily a bad thing but usually when that happens other forces become involved and something that began as a fun thing to do becomes something to make money off of and thereby loses it's soul. I guess this being a big city people need stuff to do and I'm not trying to sound like a party pooper but most people I know tend to stay far away from the parade. Another event losing it's edge. I wonder if this is why Lady Bunny stopped doing Wigstock. The first few years when it was in Tompkins Square park it was great but it became this big event and it lost it's vibe. It ended and Lady deserves credit for killing it.....
Monday, October 27, 2008
Indian Larry
Tonight I was walking home and as I turned from Bleeker Street onto Bowery there was a portrait of Indian Larry next door to CBGC's. CBGB is gone, been gone for a year but for those of us who live downtown it remains a reference point. If I am meeting a friend in the area and say it's across the street from CBGB's they know where to go. Nothing more need be said. The fact that it is gone is meaningless to me. I was there a bunch when I was a younger man but it long out lived itself and when Hilly died it seemed silly people wanted to keep the place going. Everything is so different now about New York. There are a bunch of ways of looking at this. There is the longing for the past. When I came of age New York was a filthy dangerous place that fostered an extraordinary amount of artistic development as well as infinite misery for the less fortunate, the addicted and the have nots. Still I preferred the old New York because it was an enviornment I am famaliar with. I'm not at all saying I am opposed to the way things are now. I was not wise enough to see where things were going back then but now I can look back and understand that New York has managed to survive itself as have I. I do at times look at all the change and it is disappointing but what it really shows is that I live in a city who's soul is still vibrant and alive. The New York of now is as beautiful as the New York I knew when I was a young man. It reflects the way culture and society has evolved. I am not at liberty to say we are the cultural center of the United States. I might have said so at one point in my life but I don't live anywhere else so I can't say with certainty that the soul of Chicago or San Francisco is any less vibrant than what I see here every day. The pinnacle of a society of consumption. It should be interesting to see what happens now as the financial system continues its descent into the abyss. Today is October 27 and it has done nothing but fall for weeks now. It seems as if the playing field is leveling itself out and I find it amusing for not really ever having much I find myself pretty well equipped to survive this. I've managed to live through worse. Funny how Indian Larry was the catalyst for this. He was a motorcycle guy. I would see him around but we were never friends. We had mutual friends but we had no chemistry so we never spoke. His career seemed to be going pretty well and from what I understand he was doing his trademark trick and fell off his bike. He would get it going and stand on the seat. I've seen this done on television but I never attended an event he preformed at. I may be wrong so if I am forgive me but what I heard he simply fell off the bike and that was it. I wonder if he ever felt that something could happen to himself. I think about all the times I have suddenly found myself in a situation wondering how did I get here. I think it's part of being human to believe something horrible would ever happen to me. Every kid that signs up to go to Iraq believes in their heart that nothing will happen to them. I think in a way it's part of the human condition. The other guy gets it not me. Who knows when the hand of fate will point my way. For now I feel as though I've lived a full life. I wonder how I'll feel tomorrow.
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