Reflections From the End of the Night

2010-08-01T09:35:00.000-07:00

Unlike Ian and Guy, I've done a fair amount of thinking on dying before. There were days of being wild, when I held death in my mouth, when I licked the dying. I've been incredibly lucky, to have survived my youth, and not to have lost anybody close. To have not yet lost anybody close, that is. I suck on the dying, and the taste of it steels my nerves for the inevitable.

I think about what people might say at my funeral. There's a certain pleasure that comes with considering that people may be hurt to see you go. All my best friends and lovers, I've thought about them dying, and what I would say, how I would memorialize them. I don't think this is conceited, or morbid. I believe it brings into stark relief just what is exceptional about that person, what separates them, and attracts you. You have to be close to a person before you can begin to imagine their eulogy.

The dead live on in the memories of those they've touched. But we strive for immortality, to live on when memories have faded, when no witnesses remain to tell stories of our exploits. We live for the glory of a fitting epitaph. We live so that graduate students on holiday will take snapshots of our headstones.

When we are young we expect we will live forever. Or rather, when we are young, we expect to die young. The young have no concept of aging, and so live as if death is imminent, as if there will be no interval between their youth and their end. If death doesn't soon come, they are left to age with the unshakable feeling that they didn't live enough. Did we not suck enough out of life to be left with death in our mouth? Is this not the tragic realization of Dmitri Karamazov? His failure was a failure of his youth, and having unexpectedly survived years of tempting death, he would now have to learn how to live.

We live for the tribute. The young die good, and they will be remembered as good. But if we've survived our youth we realize that a proper tribute can only be made on the accumulated wealth of a life's achievements. The young are good, but that is all they are: young and good. That is all they will be remembered for. Those who are lucky enough to make it through their youth, to have gotten old, know deeds mark a man for immortality. The young die full of vigor, possibility, and that is tragic. Dying young may mean you get a punk rock anthem written for you, but it almost guarantees you will soon enough be forgotten.

2010-07-14T19:06:00.000-07:00

I've never been hunting. I've shot guns, and I've shot at and possibly killed some frogs, but I've never gone hunting the way my grandfather did. He lived in Flagstaff, Arizona, on some land up in the mountains, from where he used to set out for days hunting elk, antelope, bear. Bear hunting will make a man.

I didn't know my grandfather very well, but I knew him well enough to know he was a hard man. Once, while in the mountains cutting down trees for the winter, only two months away, grandpa got caught by a portion of tree that had split from the trunk while falling. He was pinned, unconscious, his back broken from the impact, the trunk lying across his broken legs. He was alone, and he hadn't told anybody where he would be.

By the time night fell he was hallucinating. He told us of looking up into the branches and seeing birds looking down at him, crows, talking to him, and among themselves. He could hear the coyotes. It was quite cold, so he did his best to bury himself, digging his own grave and covering himself with leaves.

I imagine his wife, Joy, began to worry by sunset. By the next morning they were looking for him, on land and by helicopter. Apparently, he had parked his truck in a way such to make it invisible from the air, and had gone where nobody thought to look. It was clear by nightfall that Grandpa Bill was in some serious fucking trouble.

He had slipped into a coma by the time rescuers found him, sometime on the third day. Everything that could be bruised was bruised; the rest was lacerated, contused, concussed, ruptured, or collapsed. He was kept in a coma for I don't know how long, but he survived, and he walked again. Not a miracle, but a helluva recovery by one tough sonofabitch.

He was 76 years old when he went up into those mountains to cut down trees. Clearly not the most brilliant man, but possessive of an impossibly hardened individuality, tempered through a youth in want, war, and work. He was a boss in the Heavy Machinery Operators union, and he wore a gold union ring and had a huge wardrobe for union duties. He was a hunter, but he also drove a Cadillac. If he was not strictly monagomous, he was, from all I've heard, a decent husband, maybe as good as a hard man can be. The cruelties I remember I dismiss as anachronisms. I knew him as kind, but I know very little, almost nothing more about him.

My mother really didn't have a relationship with the man, and she made sure her two youngest children never got too close their grandfather. She had her reasons, but I believe she regrets not having given me the chance to be closer to Grandpa Bill. She regrets even though she loathed the hardness, the meanness, the masculine irrationality. He was the only grandpa I had. My father's father had died when I was still and infant, and she regrets not giving me anybody but my father to really know as a man. While she loves my father, she knows he has never hunted bear.

2010-07-04T14:48:00.000-07:00

It's been really fucking hot lately. The apartment has no air conditioner, and it's sweltering. The other night, as I lay sweating in heavy air, I had a vision of my midlife crisis.

Suddenly I could see that the personality I have developed will be the same at 40, 50, 60, and that that will entail a crisis. For the first time I could clearly perceive that the range of possibilities I have to choose is pruned with each passing year. And it seemed completely natural that as this realization developed I may be driven to seize upon one of those ever dwindling possibilities and drop off, drop out, disappear.

I think I'm well positioned to have an epic midlife crisis. I'm childless, terminally single, and diabetes-free. I'm not gonna be the sort of guy who buys a sports car, or gets a motorcycle for weekend runs. I'm gonna move to the Pacific Northwest and plant trees. Just dig little holes for saplings. Or maybe Indonesia, where I can probably find work cutting 'em down.

A kernel of messianism has begun to take root in my thinking. Not really having accomplished all that I believe I'm capable of, not having developing any binding relationships, I have to have faith that if I continue with my eyes wide open, and take pains to be ready, an opportunity will show itself. I think about redemption, about the possibility of redeeming myself through performing a penance. Guilt arises in the space between actuality and potentiality, and there are often times I long for punishment. There are times when I am envious of the prisoners. Perhaps this is what Eric sees in the men he teaches: men taking hold of the possibility for redemption.

So I prepare for my midlife as though I am preparing for prison, preparing to be a prisoner. I do pull-ups, and push-ups. I don't overly spice the foods I prepare at home. I go without sex for periods of time. And regardless of whether that's a matter of choice or not, I'm gonna be ready to take hold of my redemption with an iron grip. When the day comes that I take a left turn, when until then I've always taken a right, I'm not gonna look back. Hell, maybe that'll even mean getting laid.

The Boss, indeed. Incidentally, I ran into Little Stevie Van Zandt at the newspaper stand this morning.

2010-07-01T18:17:00.000-07:00

She's terrifying. She looks at the camera, or perhaps the cameraman, with, what is it? Contempt? Is it curiosity? Something predatory, unnerving. Something masculine. She is a beautiful woman.

She's the novelist Christina Stead.

2010-06-30T18:01:00.000-07:00

When I'm home alone and just want to relax, I like to instant watch old episodes of Law and Order. Netflix streams right to the TV, so even though they only offer the 'Criminal Intent' and 'Special Victims Unit' versions of the program, it's nice to just press play and instantly have something to ignore. It is precisely because these series are retarded, truly retarded iterations of the original series, yet the same, insofar as they ape the form of the original Law and Order, that they are so goddamn easy to ignore. I play a couple of episodes and pretty soon I've answered emails, done the dishes, watered the plants...It's brilliant!

The head of the Philosophy department at Stanislaus was a Deadhead like few others. While this may seem laughable to some, he is a truly original thinker of the Grateful Dead phenomenon, and one hell of an administrator, having brought together a serious group of Continental thinkers in a fucking cowtown in Central California. Well, anyways, we were talking about the Dead, and I said something about the richness of the lyrics, and the rewards of focusing on the lyrical element in the music. Jim agreed with the point, but pointed out, with a smile, that he often found himself ignoring the music altogether. It was what he put on when he needed to work, which is to say that he had reached a level of familiarity with the music to the point where he no longer needed to pay attention to it. He could just be with it, without that being a thing. Is that what love is, the blissful ignorance of the beloved's existence, objectless and indifferent? Am I in love with Law and Order, SVU?

2010-06-25T03:50:00.000-07:00

Every year on my birthday I get a card from my Grandmother, each holding a check written for however old I'm turning, and the inscription, the same every year, "Eat light, drink light, and have a happy, healthy birthday." Good advice from a woman who displays the vigorous stamina in old age that only accompanies the temperate, a trait clearly lacking in my nature, in my generation, but intimate with the children of the Depression.

2010-06-21T17:11:00.000-07:00

The first day of Summer is the longest day of the year. Tomorrow will be shorter. There will be less time for cold drinks on hot days, less chance for hours wasted prone under the sun on Saturdays at the beach, less of the early Summer moonlight perfect for finding a Summer love.

I once began trekking to a remote wilderness in the Mojave desert to celebrate the summer solstice with some friends. We made it as far as Leucadia, about 50 miles north of San Diego on the PCH, where my sister had a place within smelling distance of the beach. Having driven through the night we rolled in to town about 4:30 in the morning. and headed straight down the cliffs to the beach, where we stumbled upon a record low tide, the water breaking 50 yards from where it would normally reach. The shore was littered with shells, beautiful shells, large and intact. Shells everywhere, exotic in their wholeness. Gleaming white Conch shells. Large, elaborately colored scallops. I found a sharks tooth. We ran and ran, laughing, jubilant with our discovery. It was an hour before sunrise on the first day of Summer, the longest day of the year, and the fucking earth had given us a gift.

2010-06-11T17:44:00.000-07:00

Hey Stoli, you were the meanest sonofabitch in town, but I loved you for it. I'm gonna miss you, buddy.

2010-06-09T09:12:00.000-07:00

The J train was awfully crowded this morning. No matter. Got to hear this:

“…well, you know, I lost three, had three miscarriages before my son was born.”

“Oh, Lord.”

“But God is good, and I got pregnant with my son, and it stuck.”

“Mmmm-Hmmm.”

“And I was real careful during the pregnancy, got all kinds of tests, and sonograms and such, and when the doctor wanted to give me a shot of ___ I said no, I will take what the good Lord gives me, retarded, or missing something, it doesn’t matter. Because, you know, that shot leads to miscarriages in some women, and I wasn’t going to risk that, to risk what the Lord had given me. If that boy’d come out retarded or handicapped, well, we’d just have to work through that, as well.”

“Mmmm-Hmmm.”

“And then, a couple of weeks before I was due, I started feeling real bad. And the baby, he wasn’t kicking around, or moving much at all.”

“Did you drink some cold water? They say that helps.”

“I drank some orange juice, all that, trying to wake him up, but he wasn’t moving, and I was feeling real bad, so my husband and I got to the hospital, and praise the Lord, it’s a good thing we did, because the doctor said we was about to lose that child.”

“Oh, no.”

“Mmmm-Hmmm. So they cut me wide open – oooh, that pain! – and pulled my baby boy out two weeks early, and he was sickly, and this was up in Hartford, where we was staying at the time, and the doctors say that they’re goin’ to have to keep him for a while.”

“Oh.”

“So my husband and I, we stayed in a Ronald McDonald house for the time that boy was in the hospital, for about 2 months, and this was about 14 months ago, and we just got back and settled in the city, got a place right across from Highland Park, sure did, and this weekend we’re goin’ to do it up large, to celebrate a year outta the hospital and a year back in New York, and Father’s Day is comin’ up soon,”

“The 20^th, I believe.”

“Mmmm-Hmmm. So we’ll celebrate Father’s Day as well. Imma goin’ to get out there early, and get a bench, and get the barbeque out there, and we going to do it up large, have a real celebration, praise the Lord.”

“Oh, that’s nice.”

“Mmmm-Hmmm. But my husband, well, you know he’s got diabetes, and the other night he comes home all swollen. His legs is swollen. His arms is swollen. His face is all swollen. So before he even has a chance to say otherwise I say we goin’ to hospital, and we get there, and the doctor runs tests, and he says that there ain’t nothing wrong, that everything is negative. And I say No, nah-uh, I know my man, I can tell when something ain’t right, you know what I’m sayin.”

“Mmmm-Hmmm. I sure do. We can tell.”

“That’s right. So the doctor, he run some more tests, and it turn out that my husband got something wrong with his kidneys. They ain’t working right.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“God is good, and we’ll work our way through it, but for now we just gonna have a celebration, and celebrate what the Lord has given us, my baby boy.”

“Yes. That’s right.”

“But the Lord, well, you know, He giveth and he taketh away. Just last month, my man’s sister was hit by a car as she was crossing the street.”

“Oh. Mercy.”

“Well, I’m at home with my girlfriends, and we get the call, so we rush to the hospital, Jamaica Hospital.”

“That’s a good hospital.”

“Mmmm-Hmmm, well, it wasn’t good enough to save this girl.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Every bone in that girl’s body was broken, she was crushed, all swollen, couldn’t even recognize her. But she held on, she fought, but in the end, she was just too damaged.”

“She’s gone to her Lord.”

“Yes. Yes. She was a good woman, a good child. She will be missed, but we will celebrate her memory. We gonna celebrate her, and we gonna celebrate my baby boy, and we gonna celebrate a year back with our people.”

“And Father’s Day, too.”

“Yes, that’s right. Praise the Lord, Father’s Day, too.”

Hepcat (I Can't Wait) Conan O' Brien Show sometime in the late 1990's

2010-06-05T16:39:00.000-07:00

"Go on and treat me like a jerk, well when he comes to play, girl if I'm so bad why don't you go his way? Aw, but there's nothin' like your lovin', I can't wait to hear you say..," baby, you skank like none other.

2010-05-17T17:34:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday, Dad. Thank you for coming to every practice I ever had, even those times that I had to drive you home. And thank you for being such a sharp dresser.

And you know how you like to tell the story of when you and some friends got hammered one night, and you all decided to get tattoos of the Playboy bunny, so you drove to Venice Beach but you were third in line and by the time the first two got their tattoos you had sobered up to the point of knowing better? Thanks for not getting that tattoo, Dad. That would have changed everything.

2010-05-09T05:55:00.002-07:00

I remember it being my father who did most of the cooking. I know that this isn't true, I know that it was my mother that was day to day preparing breakfasts, lunches for school (she made my little sister and I lunch every day), dinner to have waiting when my father would return with one of us from practice. But Dad had the signature dishes: Chinese Roasted Pork and Chile con Queso on Sundays with the football game; Steak Oscar on New Year's Eve; and for some reason his French Toast always had a bit of fried egg on the edge, which my sister and I found delightful. Mom was American Gourmet 101. Mom would make Pot Roast, and Chicken with Cheese and a can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup. Mom would make Meat Loaf. But I don't associate any of these dishes with my Mom. This is terrible to admit, but I can't imagine sitting at another's table and thinking that Mom could make it better; not unless, that is, the menu features Fried Hamburger Tacos and "Any Pudding" Desert.

But Mom was better. She did not miss a day, did not take a day off, even when it seemed as though the pressures of holding my family together would tear her apart. She was the fucking dark matter, the only one who possessed the strength and fortitude to keep in harmonious orbit a family predisposed to wandering. And her lack of originality in the kitchen notwithstanding, Mom always seemed just a little sharper, a bit more sophisticated, more independent, more of an able woman than the other Moms. I know that she thought we took her for granted. Maybe we did...I'm certain we did. But I was always proud of her.

But Mom has changed in recent years. She is not longer the confident, assertive, force she once was. There now are times when I doubt my mother, doubt her ability, doubt that she is able. I know that she has doubts about herself. So there is just the one thing I would like her to know on this Mother's Day: her children know that she has poured her everything into them, and they know that whatever successes they achieve are reflections of her effort, her patience, her determination. And her children will be there for her, will support her with the power of their self-confidence, their strength of character. Because even if the nourishment we received in the kitchen was largely utilitarian, the lasting example of my Mom is a figure of superabundance.

2010-04-28T05:32:00.000-07:00

There's no question that some of the today's very best writing is to be found in the pages of The New Yorker.

Just this last weekend, I paid to see a film on the power of The New Yorker review alone. The film, as the review had argued, was terrible, a supreme exercise in cynicism, "violence's answer to kiddie porn." But the review was so well written, the critic so clearly animated in his reaction to the film, his argument so cogent, that I was drawn to experience the film for myself.

Even among the uncredited capsules in "Going on About Town" there are jewels to be unearthed. Consider this endorsement of a exhibition of Old Masters at the Frick:

"Savor eight of the nine visiting Old Masters, then pour yourself into Rembrandt's 'Girl at a Window', which will use you up. The unremarkably pretty subject, in an open blouse, leans forward on a stone sill and gazes slightly past us. Rosy-cheeked, against a black ground, she steams with vitality. Is she chld or woman, serene or anxious, innocent or cunning? She is all those things, but not at once. Her aspects flicker in the mind. One hand oddly raised to her throat becomes as tormentingly enigmatic as Mona Lisa's smile. Your response to her induces a responsibility. She has become a person in your life. Your life is different."

Whoa!

I am lucky enough to find myself surrounded by people whose intelligence and facility with words I admire. This is a situation that I do not take for granted; a situation, in fact, which I actively sought to put myself. I have friends who have written for The Times, and friends who have been invited to read at philosophical symposium. I have friends who nosh with famous authors, and others whose work has been lauded and published by prestigious journals. I find their success tremendously satisfying, and share in their glory as a wanderer takes share in the bounty of a desert oasis. Graduate school was my reason for moving to New York, but my motivation was to meet a girl and maybe someday get a piece into The New Yorker. Maybe someday I'll accomplish one or both of those goals, but until then I'll continue to take joy in the intelligence and wit of my friends.

2010-04-24T11:08:00.000-07:00

Six months ago I would have told you that I dreaded going to the Dentist, and hated getting my hair cut. Hell, six weeks ago I would have said that.

Well, I had to go in for a root canal about a month ago, and I approached the procedure with a healthy amount of trepidation. To my lasting surprise the procedure was quick and completely painless. It was so fast, in fact, that I can't even justify complaining about the discomfort. And to make matters worse, or better, I suppose, the dentist and his assistant enjoyed an easy and remarkably high-brow banter, intelligently bullshitting about the political and cultural history of Kyrgyzstan and the fraught relationship between the Persians and the Afghans while they drilled my tooth with a drill that didn't even make any fucking noise!

I walked out of that Dentist's office smarter and better looking than when I walked in.

So maybe I was primed for a revolutionary trip to the Barber Shop. I got wise, this time, and when the young Russian woman who greeted me at the door asked if I'd like to have my hair washed, I said yes, please. Never say no to a girl asking to wash your hair, that's what I say. And as I lay my head back and let her fingers do their thing, I allowed myself to wash into the conversations flowing around me.

I say that I find people fascinating, but really rarely am I able to really take the pleasure of being an anonymous witness. Sitting in the Dentist's chair, I am an anonymous witness because to the Dentist and his assistant I am no longer a person but something to be worked on. To the Barbers and their customers I disappear the moment my head dips and Olga begins to soak my hair. So I listen and find that most people are smarter, funnier, more human than I generally judge them to be. They have something to say.

I don't know why it took me so long to discover that these places have their subtle pleasures, but everybody can expect a better coif and brighter smile going forward.

2010-04-24T09:19:00.000-07:00

Jeff is the baddest dude I know, and one of the best friends I've ever had. His whole existence has been preeminately at odds. We were introduced by a mutual friend after Jeff had returned from a bit at a labor camp in the Cascades. From birth, this guy had total disregard for everything decent. And it wasn't a put on, and it wasn't a show. It was the sincere expression of his being, and making it work in this world, being appropriate to this world, seemed to require more than he was capable of giving. He was born in the desert.

Jeff was a living, breathing archetype. The great outsiders of film only mimic Jeff, and great works of literature have been written about him. He menaced the highways of California in an XL Ford Bronco, mad, Dean Moriarty mad:

"Suddenly I had a vision of Dean, a burning shuddering frightful Angel, palpitating toward me across the road, approaching like a cloud, with enormous speed, pursuing me like the Shrouded Traveler on the plain, bearing down on me. I saw his huge face over the plains with the mad, bony purpose and the gleaming eyes; I saw his wings; I saw his old jalopy chariot with thousands of sparkling flames shooting out from it; I saw the path it burned over the road; it even made its own road and went over the corn, through cities, destroying bridges, drying rivers. It came like wrath to the West. I knew Dean had gone mad again."

He was, is, the perfect expression of the Western spirit, the kind of man that can only be nourished in the vast landscape of North America. He is not cowed, will not be infringed upon. The man follows a code. Merle knows the man I'm talking about:

2010-04-22T18:18:00.000-07:00

Well, I missed wishing everybody a happy 4/20 by a couple of days. Huh. Can't say I have any memorable 4/20s in my past, but being a pretty typical Northern Californian(er), I'm certain I've enjoyed a few.

If I had been around a computer last night, I would have wished everybody a happy 4/21. There's no significance to 4/21 that I'm aware of, but last night I was thinking about how when I was a kid, probably bout 8, I rode with my friends through the early morning of July 5th and collected the previous night's used fireworks. We weren't looking for the accidentally discarded live bomb. We were collecting the material evidence of the previous nights revelry, each of us emptying our backpacks onto the grass and separating the common fireworks from the exploded firecrackers that somebody had smuggled out of the Indian Reservation or across the border from Tijuana. It was awesome, and that memory of 7/5 is more palpable than any of the many 7/4s.

2010-04-19T06:07:00.000-07:00

Is there anything worse for a man than to be called sweet?

A man doesn't want to be known as sweet. A man takes sweetness as a reproach. The word is bitter on a man's tongue. Sweetness doesn't win pennants. Sweetness doesn't discover new worlds, break the sound barrier, or close the deal. Sweetness gets men killed in war.

John Wayne was not sweet. Ernest Hemingway was not sweet. Don Draper is certainly not sweet. Aren't these the kinds of men women want? Isn't the strong and silent type desirable once again? My father is not sweet, but in him I've always considered this a defect, an accident of excess aloofness rather than a positive characteristic, the consequence of a strong willed masculinity.

Sweet is the ideal of bourgeois domesticity. Sweet mows the lawn but does not chop wood. Sweet makes love, but never, ever fucks.

Sweet is, above all, appropriate. I want to be appropriate, I want to fit in, but I also want to stand out. I want affairs, fucking free of sentimentality, but I want a lover even more. This is the conflict that I can't seem to resolve.

2010-04-18T18:21:00.000-07:00

My roommate has beaten me three times in a row, in chess.

Victories in the previous 434 matches had caused me to become accustomed. I considered the outcome certain, predestined in fact, and attributable to the possession of what I gladly reasoned was an ineliminable mental advantage. The matches themselves could be delicate and ornate explorations of the possibilities for dismantling your opponent. They were almost ritualistic. I tremendously enjoyed this state of affairs.

The losses of this weekend, well, they've got me a bit concerned. Early onset Alzheimer's? Mercury poisoning? Sex addiction? There must be some fucking explanation. This shit does not just happen!

...

2010-04-17T07:30:00.000-07:00

There is trouble at home.

"The Situation", which is what I've taken to calling the collection of events that have led to my parent's current predicament, has become a crisis. My family's ability to deal with this crisis depends on its ability to communicate, and determine the contours of a new reality. For a family such as mine, it is a perfectly tragic condition. It's the fucking American pastoral.

So I deal by contemplating la dolce vita. This is a list of my current top-5 to-try Manhattan restaurants, in no particular order:

1. Eleven Madison Park
2. Locanda Verde
3. Degustation
4. Ko
5. Daniel

2010-04-14T19:16:00.000-07:00

I must have a very recognizable face. People who have never seen me know me from somewhere. Like a fine wine, I pair it with a familiar manner...(ewww, sorry for that)

A Fruit Guy gave me a very good, really, a phenomenal deal the other day because I am a 'very good customer.' I had been there only once before, so either I was the only repeat customer he's ever had, or he thought I was somebody else. Maybe several somebodies, who knows? Now that I think of it, I get a lot of people looking at me strangely as I walk down the street. I've always just figured that it was because I must be kinda silly looking, which is why I'm always checking my fly. But maybe it's because they think that maybe they know me, maybe I remind them of somebody...maybe a movie star? Yep, probably a movie star.

But wait, I just thought of a third option. It could be, and indeed very likely is the case, that this otherwise honest Fruit Guy tells every customer, hell, passersby even, that they are 'very good customers.' My fly is down, isn't it? Sigh.

2010-04-13T18:59:00.000-07:00

In my OK Cupid profile I claim that my smile is the first thing people notice about me. It seemed both attractive and reasonable. The pretty Colombian girl who serves my coffee in the morning likes it.

It's nice being greeted by a smile and my name, 'Good Morning, Christopher,' in a heavy equatorial accent. It's nice being told that somebody likes your smile. One of my clients says she does too. Also a Colombian, but with a heavy Queens accent. She's old school, very smart but also very sexy, sexy in a coming up in the seventies and eighties, when women were expected to be sex objects in the office so the successful ones owned it kind of way, owned it and never just gave it away. She's a 'difficult' woman, one of my favorite people.

2010-04-09T19:12:00.000-07:00

The thunderstorms from last night left this morning with a faint smell of summer in the city. It's a smell I will always associate with my first day in New York. I remember it raining for the first weeks I lived here.

There is a different quality to the smell of warm rain in the city. The concrete landscape prevents the rainwater from seeping into the ground. Without topsoil to absorb the rain, it pools on the sidewalk, and the ledges of buildings, beads on glass faces; the city marinates in its rain, and all the smokes, the soots, the smogs that flavor the air of the city concentrate, brew in the rainwater. In the city you smell the rain, and the rain smells like the city itself.

Scent drives to the essence of the the thing. The smell of a girls body, the trace it leaves on your pillow, your sheets, after she had laid with you. It is the smell of the girl, it is the smell of all girls. It is the smell of girl.

Fresh cut grass is what Home smells like. Tobacco is what Dad smells like. My father is the slightly stale but masculine smell of Tareyton cigarettes and Mitchum deodorant.

I remember after high school football games, everybody putting on cologne before seeing the girls. CK1 is the smell of adolescence.

2010-04-08T17:34:00.001-07:00

Far be it from me to doubt the B.I.G., but my money is currently solving a whole lot of problems. It could be that me and Biggie have different ideas on mo and money, but when you've got nothing a little sure as shit helps.

In the last couple of months I've gotten my teeth fixed, gone to the doctor (twice), got my eyes checked. I've painted my kitchen, and made my student loan payments. I've enjoyed several nice dinners, after-work cocktails, working lunches. I've been eating, plenty, and drinking just the right amount.

I woke up in the middle of the night last night to use the bathroom. Usually when this happens I have a helluva time getting back to sleep. There are no distractions at 3:00am, there's very little of anything at all. It's when I'm most anxious, and my mind races over all that might be the cause of my anxiety, but of course there is no cause for my anxiety, so my mind just races over and over again over every shortcoming, over every mistake, over every deception, and I just lie awake. But last night I just went right back to sleep. I even thought to myself, 'nothing to keep me awake, tonight.'

Hey, I've still got my issues, shit just doesn't go away because you've got a couple dimes in your pocket. But I'm dealing with them, and I'm able to deal with them because I'm working hard, and earning a few dollars. It's a taste of responsibility, of the kind of independence that comes after failing to take care of yourself, but never failing to keep open the possibility that someday, you might just figure it out.

So, mo money? In this case, I'll take it. It ain't Biggie money anyways.

2010-04-07T10:37:00.000-07:00

Much of my time at work is spent updating this fucking lame database that Big Brother Sales Manager uses to make sure that the money they give me is in return for some kind of productive activity. Well, the joke is on them, because while I'm sitting at my desk tap-tapping away at the keyboard, I'm not out schmoozing with clients, which is what they really pay me for. Nor am I spending all that much time updating this database with anything but imaginary tasks. What I'm really doing is surfing Blogger, incessantly clicking Next Blog, Next Blog, Next Blog. That's how I discovered this: White Collared Redneck. And boy, is this shit funny!

PS - It's 1:47 right now, and my work day is proceeding according to plan.

2010-04-05T15:36:00.000-07:00

I was never the kind of person who knew what they wanted to do for a career.

When I was in third grade I thought I might like to be a brain surgeon. In high school, a barkeep. Once I discovered philosophy, well, I thought academia might be the thing for me.

But I never had any love for surgery or the brain. Bartending was misguided, youthful exuberance. And although philosophy does indeed occupy a special place in my heart, I don't mourn not having ascended the ivory tower.

Besides, we're talking about a job. Work, for fucks sake. And work is work, right? Now, I know what I like to do: I like to bullshit with people. It's what I'm good at. Sure, I can uphold my end of a serious conversation. Sure, I can get deep. But what I really enjoy is aimless, meandering chit-chat. Gossip. Idle talk about the weather or the ballgame. And so last Friday, when, after lingering over lunch I found myself strolling on the sunny side of the street with a pretty girl at my side, chit-chatting, I realized: I fucking love my job. Because I can do that, and that's pretty much my idea of perfect.

And as long as I can get paid doing that, it makes no difference to me what exactly my job is.

2009-05-31T16:21:00.000-07:00

Henri Rousseau, La Guerre

2009-05-30T12:46:00.000-07:00

2009-05-02T04:55:00.001-07:00

A dose of the Dead for yer Saturday morning.

Oh boy, I am soooo stoked to be breezing back west for next Sunday's show.

2009-04-28T19:56:00.001-07:00

"Yet Being - what is Being? It is It itself. The thinking that is to come must learn to experience that and say it."

It's in your face, but you can't grab it. What is it? It's it. Remember this song?

"But if man is to find his way once again into the nearness of Being he must first learn to exist in the nameless...man must first let himself be claimed again by Being, taking the risk that under this claim he will seldom have much to say."

2009-04-24T17:43:00.001-07:00

"I am a patient boy,
I'll wait, I'll wait, I'll wait, I'll wait."

2009-04-23T17:07:00.001-07:00

Ebbs and flows. This is how I explain to myself the endless vacillation between happiness and homelessness, satisfaction and disconcert, and the necessity for constant reorientation. There are ebbs and there are flows; I try and withstand both with a seriousness appropriate to life. I've consoled myself with Nietzsche: "The path to happiness is subterranean, requiring great seriousness." But it has been Nietzsche that has led me to desolation: "The secret to my happiness? A yes, a no, a straight line, a goal." My goals are obscure, opaque; for this reason my joyousness feels insincere. I have vague ideas of happiness achieved through an active work ethic, a metaphysics of labor. But I fear this is the last consolation of the slavish. I don't want to be a richer man, I just want to be a better man. I want to be a better man. Time to make a ch-ch-ch-change.

2009-04-22T17:27:00.000-07:00

The following report by Channel 4 News, London, shows footage of the incident which led to the death of Ian Tomlinson, a victim of physical assault by a police officer while protesting against the recent Group of 20 economic summit. A British judge ruled Channel 4 was entitled to release the video, despite an attempt by the Independent Police Complaints Commission to obtain a court ordered injunction. The confrontation between Tomlinson and the officer is remarkably brief and of seemingly minor physical violence. Channel Four's reporting utilizes the array of cameras distributed throughout the protest site to spotlight the actions of the offending officer in the minutes leading up to his assault on Tomlinson, who was standing with his hands in his pockets and his back to the officer when he was struck. The video incident bears a striking resemblance to the video of a beat-down delivered to a student, by a cop, at a recent protest occupation at the New School. Both videos speak to the egalitarian nature of information distribution networks in societies where the proliferation of surveillance cameras and personal video devices truly has created panopticonic conditions.

2009-04-14T20:21:00.001-07:00

I've heard that The Ronette's biggest hits began as pillow talk between Ronnie, the tempestuous 'original bad girl of rock and roll', and Phil Spector, her brilliant but completely fucking crazy husband and producer. That's hot. It must have been back when Phil was just crazy enough to be mistaken for passionate and uninhibited. Well, that soon passed, and by the time Ronnie left him in 1973, Phil had left the station.

The good die young; Phil Spector lived long enough to prove the point. Yesterday he was convicted of murdering Miss Lana Clarkson, a beautiful former B-movie star (Barbarian Queen). Shot her dead in the foyer of his mansion after bringing her home from the House of Blues, where Ms. Clarkson played the role of the 'waitress trying to make it in Hollywood'. Amazingly, Phil Spector is the first celebrity to be convicted of murder in Los Angeles in 40 years. His longstanding and well-documented obsession with firearms, along with his penchant for using them in a threatening manner, pretty much sealed his fate.

His stylist should do time as well.

2009-04-13T11:23:00.001-07:00

"Hey, I heard a funny thing, somebody said to me, you know that I could be in love with almost everyone, I think that people are the greatest fun."

2009-04-10T19:28:00.001-07:00

I once broke up with a girl, or rather, she broke up with me. We had a love of this band in common, and together we listened to this song, held each other, and cried.

2009-04-05T15:23:00.000-07:00

I just learned that today marks the 15th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's suicide.

This was a big deal for me at the time, and not just because I was one of the legions of dirty-haired, plaid-wearing Pacific Northwesterners for whom Nirvana's music had become something of reverence. In the days following Cobain's death, there were two suicides at the Seattle-area high school where I was flunking my freshman year. These only added tragic punctuation to the dozens, hundreds, of to-be-expected self-mutilations, tattoos, dropouts, etc. The school went so far as to hold a memorial service on the football field, and make grief counselors available to all students.

You must understand, by April 5th, the skies of Seattle have been constantly obscured by near complete cloud cover for over 6 months. It is life-stifling in a way only climate can be. Kurt Cobain was the product of this climate: withered, deformed, malnourished. Just as surely as such a climate breeds robust natures, it shows no mercy to the weak.

2009-03-30T15:40:00.001-07:00

2009-03-17T16:06:00.000-07:00

For several years I kept fish tanks. I would tend to them at the homes of customers of The Pet Barn, the pet shop I managed with my girlfriend. In our small, second-story apartment, I maintained a striking 110=gallon saltwater reef tank, stocked with over 100 pounds of live Fiji rock, a deliberate combination of fish and coral, and a complimentary selection of shrimp, crab, snails, etc. Being an employee of the Pet Barn entitled me to certain advantages, so I was able to acquire, along with the best filters, lights, protein skimmers and other mechanical necessities, the healthiest, most beautiful captive-bred fish and corals. Every morning before school or work, I would spend up to an hour feeding, checking the water quality, and temperature, scraping algae, studying. Every morning and every evening I was up to my elbows, actively engaged with a living and breathing organism. It was stunning, and something I took pride in. It was something I had a meaningful relationship with...I loved those fucking fish.

Tending to the fish calmed me. Like any other form of gardening, it gave my limbs the opportunity to work out the stresses of the day. I don't have any fish anymore, and my limbs are suffocating! This is why I fucking hate T.V.

I do like Televsion, however.

2009-03-14T09:58:00.001-07:00

2009-03-12T15:58:00.000-07:00

I like things. Things create vistas, provide the stage dressing for affairs and heartbreak. The things you have, your shit...all of it reflects something fundamental about you. I like to keep my space clean, free of clutter; maybe to highlight those things I do choose to be with: several plants; just the right amount of condoms to suggest I may actually be having sex; some books; half a dozen ties draped over a flimsy wooden divider masquerading as a wall.

The just recently re-discovered painting of a handsome, young Shakespeare, the only thought to have been painted in his lifetime, had been in the home of the aristocratic Cobbe family for 300 years.

I believe the oldest things I have are some articles of clothing from each of my grandfathers. From one: an unblemished, cream polyester jacket with a wide, imitation mink collar, two sizes too big. From the other: a worn, pale blue terrycloth bathrobe. They're really the only way I know these men.

2009-03-08T15:36:00.000-07:00

Candace Bergen, I wish we could be friends. I can be affable, and would contribute at dinner parties.

2009-03-02T16:26:00.000-08:00

Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping has been nominated by the Green Party to be their representative in the upcoming New York mayoral race. Oh boy, this is going to be great!

2009-03-01T07:49:00.001-08:00

It's 10:48 on the morning of March 1st, 2009. I just fell in love for the 3,647th time.

2009-02-28T19:03:00.001-08:00

He can make the body rock.

2009-02-27T16:18:00.000-08:00

This is the first time I've been injured in awhile, and although I'm certain it did not happen while drunk, I still can't remember how I BROKE MY FUCKING ANKLE!

2009-02-14T06:27:00.000-08:00

2009-01-20T16:17:00.000-08:00

The Reverend Joseph Lowery, 87, Southern Methodist preacher-turned-early civil rights leader, gave the benediction to end today's inauguration. His prayer concluded:

"Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around ... when yellow will be mellow ... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen."

...

"Eat lightly. Drive carefully"

This inscription accompanied two $50 bills in this years iteration of Grandma's Christmas card. It is the pure distillation of 85 years living with the trauma of poverty and forced migration.

I marvel at the clarity of thought and prudence with words exhibited by the aged; especially those increasingly rare individuals indelibly marked by their experiences in times of great crises.

2009-01-16T17:36:00.001-08:00

2008-11-11T16:25:00.000-08:00

Upcoming at Factory Fresh:

A MAZE

STIKMAN, LA II , CELSO, INFINITY

(& introducing: C-Beauty)

November 14 – November 30, 2008

Opening Reception – November 14 from 6pm -10pm

2008-11-06T19:27:00.000-08:00

I'm stoked to check out Keith Haring's The Ten Commandments at Deitch Projects this weekend. Haring semms to be quite in vogue lately. Earlier this year, Deitch restored Haring's short-lived 1982 Houston Street and Bowery mural:

Then just last week The Universe of Keith Haring opened at Cinema Village. From the Times review:

Keith Haring was not a great artist. He might not even have been a very good one. But he was the right person in the right place at the right time, and he had a seemingly inexhaustible supply of just the right energy: a radiant, joyful enthusiasm that he shared with unflagging vitality first on the streets of New York and then on the world stage.

Madonna called him a friend back when that would have been cool. The guy was like a neon reflection of New York, an illuminated text; the city glowed in and through him. Sometimes this is how the city feels to me:

2008-10-23T06:49:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking bout my roots lately, and some of you may not be surprised to hear that my roots grow towards the shade.

Haddix. I get lots of compliments on my last name. H-A-D-D-I-X. Double D's and an X. Recently a Beautiful Young Lady informed me that it's kinda a rock star name. True.

I've always believed that the name derives from Haddock. The haddock is a medium-sized member of the cod family. A 'sad, English fish,' it is popular table fare througout the UK. The mating call of a male haddock sounds like a motor bike revving its engine.

Haddix. Haddock. Derived from the haddock, a handsome fish, I'd say. So I've got fisherman blood coursing through my veins. Swarthy genes. Like the mythical Archibald Haddock, Merchant Marine, whisky loving Captain of the Karaboudjan, and famous wit. Captain Haddock's talent lied in alliterative insults: Two-Timing Tartan Twisters, for instance.

The maritime connection abides. Haddix, Haddock. Good enough for a Navy submarine, good enough for me. That's right, the USS Haddock, "served her country in the effort to keep the world free of communist tyranny and helped bring about the demise of the Soviet Empire, 1967-1993." But a bit of a shining light for a Haddix, eh? Well, my uncle piloted a boat, mos def.

I don't feel the need to prove the point, but my people are down home folk. We've been around for a bit, but made our way west starting on the South Haddix Trail, West Virginia. South Haddix Trail runs parallel to the Cheat River, no shit. Follow that trail far enough, and maybe you'll end up in Haddix, Kentucky, that great, white beacon of rural poverty. But yo, this is where my people are buried, and we shan't talk ill of the dead.

The W.W. is for William Washington. William Washington Haddix. A strong Appalachian name, no? William Washington wed Orlena. These names! My grandmother's name is Virginia. She has sisters named Ruby, Wanda, Zell, Crystal, and probably eight or nine more I can't recall. Admittedly, she's a Stewart from Missouri, but the tradition for pastoral names is the same. My mother's name is Mary Jane. You'll recall from The Grapes of Wrath the Joad's daughter, Rose of Sharon. Rosasharn.

White, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant, indeed. But you'd never mistake a Haddix for a WASP. Hell, we got men named Moonchild and Leeland Ray, and we shoot on sight. Grifters, you say? Well, I don't disappoint. We came west along the Cheat River and set up shop in the Great Central Valley of California. Bankruptcy troubles in Modesto? Contact my brother at the Haddix Law Firm. This mope's got your back... for a price!

Maybe a bit rough around the edges, but our shining star's a softy. A kitten in fact. Harvey 'The Kitten' Haddix, lefty pitcher for several teams during the '50's and early '60's. He was a three-time all star, and won two games for the Pittsburgh Pirates against the Yankees in the 1960's World Series. Haddix got the victory in game seven on the back of Bill Mazeroski's 'Shot Heard Round The World.'

But Haddix's greatest moment was also his most heartbreaking. In 1959, against the Hank Aaron-led Milwaukee Braves, Haddix pitched what many have come to consider the greatest game in Major League Baseball history. The Kitten retired 36 consecutive Braves batters, 12 perfect innings, before giving up a hit and a run in 13th. His Pirates teammates, despite collecting 12 hits, were unable to score. He lost, 1-0, after 12 and 2/3 innings of one-hit baseball. Don't feel sorry for Harvey Haddix. Since his death in 1994, his legend has grown, and he has even been memorialized in song.

2008-10-04T16:40:00.000-07:00

Are there people who don't appreciate the beauty of small things?

It strikes me that the surrounding surfaces of our everyday world are covered in a language most of us don't understand.

I don't think we could make it without a bit of mystery.

2008-10-03T16:09:00.000-07:00

As you probably already know, Banksy's in town for a gallery opening by his dealer. I like Banksy's work, but I'd like to add an additional 'K' to his name: Banksky. It seems to roll off the tongue better, I think.

Had some time to kill before the debate last night, so I set off in search of clues.

Look familiar?

Last night was Thursday night, opening night at the galleries. I'm walking through Soho, Tribeca, looking in the corners, in the shadows, camera in hand, aware of the natty crowds getting drunk on free wine, wanting to ditch my backpack, wanting to join them, wanting to "hob-nob." But they're mainly poseurs, and they're missing the sublimity of finding an equation scrawled on a wall.

Wow, yesterday and last night were big in terms of the Search for Cieso. Checked out Artkraft Strauss in the afternoon, and though there was no new work, there was a flyer for Chashama, an organization that had opened the buiding last weekend as a space for artists to show their work. One of the artists featured on the flyer was El Celso. Holy Shit! Nobody ever suggests that the 'i' in 'ceiso' was, since it appears as a single line, an 'l'? Here's a link to his Flickr stream: celso nyc.

Well, I'm going to get together with El Celso soon. Maybe he can help me with these little robots I've been seeing everywhere. I hear they kill.

2008-09-30T18:57:00.000-07:00

Last night it was suggested that what I'd been assuming is a backwards E in 'ceiso' - so that it appears as 'c3iso' - may indeed be a 3. The 3, then, is a clue, telling us to translate 'ceiso' from letters to numbers, e.g. A=1, B=2. Translating 'cieso' thus results in a phone number: 359-1915.

Discovered this yesterday on the corner of 13th and 5th, directly on top of a previously discussed piece involving the back pages of the Village Voice and a certain young lady. If you look closely, you can still make out an advertisement for the Grand Opening of Asian Dove Spa, 212-255-2780.

These are the words from 'Llorando,' the song being performed in Club Silencio when, in Mulholland Drive, Betty realizes it's all been a dream:

Yo estaba bien por un tiempo
volviendo a sonreir
luego anoche te vi
tu mano me toco
y el saludo de tu voz
te hable muy bien y tu
sin saber
que he estado llorando por tu amor
llorando por tu amor
llorando por tu amor
luego de tu adios
senti todo mi dolor
sola y llorando llorando llorando
no es facil de entender
que al verte otra vez
yo este llorando
Yo que pense que te olvide
pero es verdad es la verdad
que te quiero aun mas
mucho mas que ayer
dime tu que puedo hacer
no me quieres ya
y siempre estare
llorando por tu amor
llorando por tu amor
tu amor
se llevo
todo mi corazon
y quedo llorando
llorando
llorando
llorando
llorando
llorando
por tu amor

No hay banda. Everything is an illusion. Everything but the Time Travel Agency, that is.

Alright, then. I've got some phone numbers to call.

2008-09-22T19:24:00.000-07:00

An update from Artkraft Strauss:

There appears to have been expeditionary forays.

You'll notice in the later photo the appearance of what are commonly called "infinity loops." These symbols also appeared on the piece I will call "Mutant Beef," which appeared on Johnson Ave in Bushwick. There is nothing on or around Johnson Ave in Bushwick. I'm going to level with you, folks. What began as idle curiosity has mutated into a quixotic pursuit for I don't know what. It is entirely possible I have stumbled across an underground mail delivery network. Or a time travel agency. Or aliens. This is the translational tableau I have to work with:

There may or may not be an artist going by the nom de guerre 'ceiso' - Ees reversed, of course. I may or may not be that artist. Before I get too caught up in this mystery of my own making, perhaps I should take heed of the graffiti.

2008-09-19T19:34:00.000-07:00

Walking through the industrial zone that separates Williamsburg and Bushwick, I came across these kids all caught up in the urban jungle.

And then this kid. A bit petulant, no?

Check out these punks, courtesy of Swoon.

Veng Col Rok2. Epic.

I've read Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49. From what I recall, it told the story of Oedipa Maas as she becomes entangled in the dangerous world of mail delivery following her boyfriend's murder. See, in the story, there was the known deliverer of known mail, Thurn and Taxis, and the unknown deliverer of unknown mail, Trystero. Trystero exists and operates by communicating via signs, which appear unexpectedly in the most innocuous spaces. The Ee's on the following beauty are reversed. Just saying.

2008-08-16T11:19:00.000-07:00

830 12th Ave may be one of the most desolate addresses in Manhattan. There are no pedestrians in this part of Hell's Kitchen. Here W 57th St empties onto the Henry Hudson. The intersection is generally crowded with cars bearing the license plate holders of some Westchester dealer.

The building at 830 12th Ave has been standing for at least 80 years, first as a garage, later as the home of the Artkraft Strauss Electric Sign Company. The first owner for which we have the paperwork was Mr. Vincent Valentine, resident of the Bronx. The building changed hands in 1935, becoming the property of De Rosa and Cavalieri, Architects, who kept it as an operating garage, but with a "shop for assembling signs of an incombustible material." The Artkraft Strauss Sign Corporation soon completely took over the space, and from there produced the spectacular neon signs that came to represent both New York City and the age of grand advertising. For over a century, Artkraft Strauss has been responsible for the iconic neon blanketing Times Square; it was their technicians who fashioned the images that reflected the strength of the post-war consumer economy. And in their claim to being the coolest motherfuckers ever, it was the employees at Artkraft Strauss who created the New Year's Eve ball, and flawlessly orchestrated the drop for the last 87 years.

The Camel Cigarette sign was awesome. Every few seconds, back when Times Square was raw, the sign would blow 'real' smoke rings at visitors. A drawing of the sign from a year before it was installed demanded thousands at auction.

Artkraft Strauss moved from the building at 830 12th Ave several years ago. Responding to the shift away from neon and towards LED, Artkraft Strauss sold of their billboard business and recast itself as a design consultancy agency. Their leadership was "instrumental" in the 1987 passage of a zoning regulation mandating bright lights from 43rd through 50th St, and a recent auction of old inventory drew more than $100,000 from rich people.

The iconic Artkraft Strauss sign still adorns the facade of 830 12th Ave, but these days the building is remarkable for hosting the newest iteration of signage.

Until recently there was a small sign announcing 830 12th Ave to be the new home of the Time Travel Agency. In the sign, all the Ees are turned backwards.

Who is Invalid? What is drizzle? Is that a Banksy?

I became interested in this building when I noticed a stylistic similarity between the creator of these images:

...and the aforementioned artistic rendering of a local girl on the back pages of the Village Voice, which hung on the corner of 13th and 5th for a minute. I believe it to be the same artist who created this lovely likeness, from the corner of Greenwich and Charlton (notice the Ees):

I took a picture with my phone of similar piece that hung around Greene street for a bit. She was a brunette. Here's a frog:

Who is Veng Col? Who is Billi Kid?

2008-07-20T05:33:00.000-07:00

Summer in the city: Yesterday was the Siren Festival at Coney Island, and though there were a few bands I would have like to have seen, it was too damn hot to join the indie-themed masses gathered on the blacktop drinking warm beer and complaining about how damn hot it was. So a couple of friends and I decided to show our local stripes and hop the free Ikea ferry (awesome) to Red Hook (awesome), where we unhesitatingly bypassed the superstore and headed to the ballfields. To play ball, you ask? Hell no. For a Latin feast, natch.

Yesterday was opening day of the Red Hook Ballfield Food Vendors summer season, and it was phenomenal. Heaven is the innumerable vendors hawking ethnic variations of the pork-beans-cornmeal trifecta. There were Ecuadoreans selling pickled cabbage enchiladas, Salvadoreans papusas and plantains, Mexicans tacos and huaraches, and Colombians seeking revenge by sending their gringo customers away with plates loaded with enough steak and sausage to ensure an early death. There was corn on a stick and smoothies and horchata and fried sweet bean and plaintain donuts. There was Ballantine's in a brown paper bag sipped through a straw. And though there were times when, due to the deliberate pace of our Latin friends getting in line seemed akin to stepping into a Beckett novel, by and large everybody who had trekked to the Brooklyn hinterlands understood that their patience would be handsomely rewarded.

Word to the wise: you don't go to Red Hook just to pick up a taco or two and be on your way. This is a full day's worth of waiting and eating, and strategy is required if you're going to maximize your time. I would suggest beginning at the southernmost vendor, which yesterday was occupied by the Colombians, and ordering something to munch on while you get in line for the next vendor. Repeating this tactic 5 or 6 times will take 3 or 4 hours, but will result in a comprehensive tour of Central and South American street cuisine. If you need to there is plenty of shade in which to lay down and take a nap; alternatively, you could pop into the Ikea and pay penitence for your gluttony by walking the either delightfully confusing or maddeningly deceptive aisles which are themselves reminiscent of Managua.

Oh, and if you're keeping track: This is why I'm awesome.

2008-07-01T17:14:00.000-07:00

What with the weather being nice - if hot - and the fact that I occasionally have somebody to walk with, I've taken to enjoying an evening constitutional as I make my way home from work. I take various routes, enjoying the sights and smells and sounds, and generally trying to lose myself in the sordid architecture of downtown. But even when I walk alone, I am not alone. Indeed, from the moment I leave work on 13th St, there are few moments when I am not being watched.

The NYPD operates 2,310 surveillance cameras on the streets of Manhattan alone. This is in addition to the approximately 2,000 cameras keeping watch in the subway system, and over 3,000 that supervise the goings-on in the city's housing projects. The project to install surveillance cameras throughout the city began in earnest in 2006, ostensibly as a response to the September 11 terrorist attacks. Ironically, September 7th, 2001 was An International Day of Action Against Video Surveillance.

There are 12 community districts in Manhattan. Walking home, I pass through districts 1, 2, and 3. Combined these districts boast 652 surveillance cameras of either the stationary, rotational, or globe variety. Additionally, there are innumerable cameras monitoring the exteriors of private businesses and residences. Just the other day, I counted 4 cameras directed on the sidewalk outside the Hell's Angels headquarters on E. 3rd. St. Invariably, there's a camera scanning the portico beyond the entrance to every apartment building. The doormen always know who you are before you walk in.

Leaving work, I'm picked up by the rotational camera on the north side of 13th St between University and Broadway. The cameras between Liberty and Maiden on William, between William and Nassau on Maiden, and right outside my building record my arriving home. In the elevator I am watched. As I do my laundry I am watched. Sometimes I dog-sit for some former clients, and help myself to a cocktail from the bar. I am never sure that I am not being watched.

As a child I struggled with bouts of insomnia. Unable to sleep, I would feel myself utterly alone in the world. To comfort myself I would conjure the image of the 24-hour Safeway just down the street. 24-hours: I knew there was always a cashier working the late shift, and as long as there was I wasn't alone. The refrain from a song I can't remember suggested that the city is the easiest place to be lonely. Surrounded by people, anonymity is default. I don't know, maybe it's narcissism, but the idea that maybe I'm being watched, that I have a witness...well, maybe it makes things a bit less trivial. That my actions are endowed with some degree of gravity by virtue of their being recorded...I don't know, guess I find the idea of voyeurism comforting.

2008-06-26T15:43:00.000-07:00

As is true for most stories I tell, this one begins in a bar. Namely, that neighborhood bar we all love, and in which I spend entirely too much time, the Redhead. According to the certificate of occupancy, the Redhead occupies the ground floor of a 4-story Old Law Tenement at 349 E 13th St. Old Law Tenements were constructed in great numbers between 1879 and 1901 to house the invading European hordes moving to New York's East Side, and are remarkable for providing each apartment with a window.

1921 - across the street from what is now the Redhead, at 354 E 13th St, 5 year old Guiseppe Varota lives with his parents in a cramped apartment. Rumor had gotten around the close-knit Italian community that Guiseppe's father, Salvatore, had received a settlement of $10,000 in a lawsuit resulting from an automobile accident. On May 21, little Guiseppe was replaced by a note demanding $2,500 or "you will never see your boy again, dead or alive, for he will be drowned and the rest of you will be killed and the house burned."

The note bore the mark of the Black Hand: skulls, daggers, and a black hand. An early incarnation of what would become known as Cosa Nostra, the Black Hand, La Mano Nera, was a loosely organized network of recent Italian immigrants, borne from out of, and preying upon, the misery and fear of the immigrant community. The brutality of their methods - they were especially fond of dynamite bombs - was shocking even to the native New York community, which had cut its teeth on the riots and gang wars of the 19th century.

Salvatore Varota never received a settlement, and though he was able to negotiate the ransom down to a still substantial $500, he would never see his son again. Guiseppe's body was found on June 11th in a small box that had washed up on the shore of the Hudson. He was killed because he knew too much: his captor, Antonio Marino, was a neighbor, indeed, from right across the street - 349 E 13th St.

That the block that now houses the Redhead was once notorious as a violent and desperate part of town; was once the scene of one of the most shocking crimes in this city's history; was once, according to the New York Times, "the rendezvous of Black Hand bands," may seem unlikely. But consider: Antonio Marino's death sentence was overturned because he had been savagely beaten by the police. Indeed, the beatings left another one of his crew, John Melchionne, with brain damage so severe he spent his remaining days at Matteawan State Institution for the Criminally Insane. That the Redhead was once the hangout of desperate men whose actions resulted in brain damage? Now this I get.

2008-06-17T12:16:00.000-07:00

In the midst of recent archival meanderings, I was surprised to find that the building housing University Place Gourmet Deli was once used by such leftist parties as the Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Party and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Turns out, the area surrounding 13th St. and University Place was once the epicenter of New York radical politics. Emma Goldman (not Goldburg) lived at 210 13th St. from 1903 to 1913; it also served as the headquarters of her Mother Earth magazine. And Union Square set the scene for everything from Goldman's arrest in 1893 for encouraging the unemployed to steal bread, to protests against Sacco and Vanzetti's execution in 1927.

Lesser known was the New Workers School, which opened in 1923 (just after the opening of The New School) and occupied a building on University Place, at a site now featuring a Jamba Juice. The New Workers School set out to offer a "systematic proletarian education that should help the workers meet the political and industrial emergencies that face them in the struggle with the ruling classes." It offered classes in Marxism, History, Evolution and Public Speaking. New classes that were added for its second term included The History of the Three Internationals, The Syndicalist Movement in Europe, and Imperialism Since 1860 in the United States.

When muralist Diego Rivera's commissioned piece for the Rockefeller Center was rejected, he offered to reproduce it, without charge, for anybody who would give him wall space. Thus began his residency at the New Workers School. A reporter for Time went to see the murals:

The route was obscure: past a cut rate drugstore, a toy shop and a haberdashery to a grimy doorway labeled: NEW WORKERS SCHOOL; up a narrow steep staircase straight to the top floor; through the bare offices of New York's Communist Opposition headquarters, to an oblong lecture room. There from door to door ran a set of 21 heavy, richly-colored fresco panels, a present to Communism by a man generally acknowledged to be the world's greatest muralist—Diego Maria Concepcion Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodriguez de Valpuesta.

The completed work was known as Portrait of America, and prominently features Lenin, surrounded by such figures as Thoreau and Thomas Paine.

More than a name and a politics, The New Workers School and The New School for Social Research both shared an attraction to Mexican muralists. While The New Workers School was able to provide a space for the increasingly marginalized Diego Rivera (he had recently been banished from the Communist Party for his ties to Trotsky), the first pieces commissioned by the newly opened New School for Social Research were a series of large murals by Mexican artist Jose Clemente Orozco, who along with Rivera, was a leading figure in the Mexican Mural Renaissance.

The New School frescoes, five altogether, are know as A Call for Revolution and Universal Brotherhood,and were painted between November, 1931 and January, 1932. If anybody knows where I can see these, please let me know.

2008-06-16T15:34:00.000-07:00

I walk past the boarded-up building occupying the south-east corner of 5th Ave and 13th St dozens of times a week, always paying close attention to the iterations of street art and advertisements adorning the north wall and the plywood blocking the front windows from view. The building was graced with some work by Judith Supine for a bit in 2007, and I was particularly fond of a piece that used the back pages of the Village Voice as background for erotic renderings of a recognizable resident of 13th St.

The space has languished, unoccupied and decaying, for as long as I've walked the block. In its last incarnation, the building was known as Cafeteria 61. Sometime in early April, 2006, Cafeteria 61 suddenly locked its doors; handwritten signs posted in the windows read 'Closed. Store for lease.' Cafeteria 61 had been abandoned in obvious haste; from the sidewalk, passersby could peer through the windows and see shelves brimming with merchandise - even the salad bar had been left fully stocked.

On the night of April 18th, 2006, firefighters responding to the abandoned deli arrived to find 'heavy fire conditions'. The blaze, which severely charred the entrance of the building but left the interior intact, resulted in minor injuries for two firefighters. Then, Sixth Battalion Chief Edward Bergamini suggested the fire was suspicious, and that the cause would be under investigation. It is widely believed by residents and business owners on 13th Street that the blaze was intentionally set by the retreating owners.

That the building would come to such an ignominious end betrays the heights to which it had soared, not as Cafeteria 61, but as the Lone Star Cafe, a raucous, Texas-style country music nightclub. The Lone Star opened in 1976 as a non-ironic, straightforward country and western joint in the middle of downtown. It became so popular, however, that it was soon booking such acts as John Lee Hooker, Sly Stone, Buddy Guy and Willie Nelson. Roy Orbison regularly played, and it was not unusual to bump into Springsteen and Van Zandt at the bar. A patron fondly recalls his experience at the Lone Star in the 80's:

The Thursday before Live Aid I was there with my friends from England who had never been to the USA before. Dinner at the Hard Rock and then down to the Lone Star. That night a blues guy called " Lonnie Mac" from Chicago was playing. We went upstairs and saw that the tables had reserved signs on them. First came Paul Simon to sit down with Penny Marshall. Then Mike Jagger comes in behind us with Keith Richard. My friend turned to go to the bar and banged into Bob Dylan. I told the guys no work tomorrow, we are staying here and at 3 in the morning Dylan and Jagger got up on stage to Jam. A night never to forget.

But what most remember about this building was not what happened inside, but what appeared on the roof one night in 1978: Iggy, the 40 foot iguana. Made of wire mesh and polyurethane foam, the iguana, an inanimate cartoonish figure of Jurassic Park proportions with an open, spiky-toothed mouth, spiny quills along its back and a great, curling tail, was a downtown icon until skyrocketing rents forced the club to close in 1989. Kinky Friedman, Texas icon and frequent performer at the Lone Star with his band the Shalom Retirement Village People, recalled Iggy being a propos of both the club and the times: 'People made love inside the iguana. Drug deals went down all around it.'

Without a doubt, the purgatory in which the building currently exists will come to an end. Likely, the building will be razed, almost certainly for luxury condos. Perhaps, just perhaps, we can hope for an homage. A 40 foot iguana on the roof deck of your luxury condo? I think I hear selling-point.

2008-06-14T21:34:00.001-07:00

So you all know where I'm coming from here, right? Funny thing, though. Fred Savage was apparently a bit of a dick. Enough of a dick, that is, to get himself knocked out by an acquaintance of mine on a a singles cruise in Mexico. It doesn't change the fact that much I think I know about love comes from watching the hesitations between Winnie and Kevin.

2008-06-12T16:52:00.000-07:00

Ever noticed how Union Square seems to be de facto divided into distinct regions? The south of the park feels different than the north, while the east has a completely different vibe than the west. I've always felt that the east side of the park is a bit untamed. It seems to be more regularly frequented by malefactors than the west. Same for the north end of the park, where in the afternoon kids from nearby Washington Irving High School gather, and where the occasional melee erupts. The west side of the park, however, with its fountain, artist stalls, greenmarket, dog run, and playground seems, I don't know, cleaner, more controlled. The south end of the park, with the steps and the pavilion, is, of course, the place to be, to see and be seen, and on an day such as today, there are scores of people milling about. All these elements taken together suggest that the most desired place to find an open seat is on a bench in the south-west corner. This evening, when I went to grab a seat and do some reading, I found myself relegated to the north-west sector, a kind of liminal space, straddling the self-awareness and preening of the south-west and the thuggery of the north-east.

It was all an evening in Union Square should be. There was a Cuban man, or probably Puerto Rican, who serenaded the passersby in Spanish with background music from a handheld boombox. There was a gentleman in a 'No Nukes' t-shirt sitting across from me who leaned over to the woman on his right, an obvious stranger, and asked, 'What's toffee?' And there was the young woman who sat down next to me with a sigh. Attractive from the look of her legs - long, tan and smooth, with a tattoo on her foot - I don't look up from my book to look at her face. Aloofness is the only game I got.

Commotion, inevitably, came, came twofold, when a Union Square Partnership employee reaches over the singing Latino to empty a trashcan, and in the process spills discarded food containers all over the man and his stereo. Swearing, in Spanish and French, ensued, while directly in front of me, two men are arguing, one accusing the other of drinking beer in the park, in front of the kids, without an I.D. 'I didn't know, I thought it was an energy drink,' claims the one. 'This is a crime, I'm talking jail-time,' replies the other. Unsurprisingly to everybody, this other soon revealed himself to be drunk (though smart enough to be boozing out of a McDonald's cup), as evidenced when he began to ape the melody of the Puerto Rican, or Cuban, and do an imitation rumba. There were wry smiles on the faces of all, knowing smirks, as if all had come to the square to see just this, and expected nothing less.

I also saw a man walking his dog with his left hand, and his daughter, perhaps 4, whom he had trained to hold onto a leash, with his right.

2008-06-10T17:10:00.001-07:00

Some of you may have noticed the now near-completed luxury condos on the NE corner of Elizabeth and Spring St. I know I have pointed them out to whomever happened to be with me as we walked by, commenting on the fact that this neighborhood was not too long ago a no-go zone. Originally a horse stable in the late 19th century (it has ramps between floors instead of stairs), 11 Spring Street is a beautifully crafted stone building. But until it changed owners in early 2007 (reportedly for just under $15 million), 11 Spring was more often mentioned as “the candle building,” known for its uniformly tied white window drapes and the eponymous candles in each of its 60 windows. But even more notable than the mysterious candles, drapes, and the beautifully crafted stone was the bottom floor of the building that had long been a venue for muralists, graffiti artists, and renegade tromp l’oie-ists from around the globe. Indeed, 11 Spring Street was once one of the most famous locations in the world to see and post street art. Here's how it looked:

Notice the white window drapes and the candles:

Here's how it will look when the renovations are complete:

Nobody ever saw anybody go inside to light the candles, or come out after having done so.

2008-06-10T05:17:00.000-07:00

I do the legwork, you enjoy the results: City of Memory

2008-06-10T05:07:00.001-07:00

Steve is a trucker from Bloomington, Indiana. He is also a graphic artist, and he listened when his friends suggested that while unloading in Elizabeth, he check out the Olafur Eliasson exhibit at PS1. He came into the Redhead the other night, high on the experience. We had a great conversation about installation art; I told him about Eliasson's waterfalls in the East River, and his recent installation at the Tate that simulated the movement of the sun across the sky. We talked about his son, who studied fashion at FIT, and he joined us outside as we admired the awesome thunderstorm that rolled through that night. He has a website, which is kind of great: The Reluctant Trucker.

2008-06-09T04:01:00.000-07:00

The first person to jump from the Brooklyn Bridge was Robert Odlum, a swimming teacher from Washington, at 5:45 PM, May 19th, 1885. Interestingly, Mr. Odlum had publicly made known his plans to jump from the bridge, and there was a surplus of NYPD bluecoats patrolling the bridge that evening to prevent the successful completion of the stunt. Only through the deployment of an elaborate ruse, involving a horse-drawn cab and a blue-shirted gentleman acting conspicuously nervous, which drew the attention of the police officers and the thousands gathered on the bridge that day, was Odlum able to get close enough to the rail to jump. He emerged from the back of a black wagon, wearing a red shirt and gray swimming tights, raised his right hand straight into the air as if to signal to the boat carrying supporters in the river below, and without hesitation, threw himself off the bridge. Here's how the Times described what happened next:

Whether he jumped too quick after leaving the wagon, or destroyed his balance from some movement on the rail or in jumping cannot be known; but during the descent of the body to the water, swift as it was, those on the boat could see that it turned slightly and that it would not strike the water with the feet squarely down. The splash was heard rods away. Eyes turned toward the small rescue boat. The men in it, overcome by excitement or fright, began to shout for help. In a few seconds, which seemed long enough in that predicament, Odlum rose to the surface. He was motionless.

Only the action of his friend, one Captain Boyton, who dove into the river and, swimming against the current pulled Odlum back to the rescue boat, prevented his drowning. The damage had been done, however. Odlum regained consciousness just long enough to ask what kind of jump he had made. He died approximately 45 minutes after the jump, having broken the lower ribs on both sides of his body.

At its highest point, the span clears 135 feet over the East River. A leap off the bridge, therefore, is not necessarily fatal. In 1895 Clare MacArthur became the first woman to attempt the stunt, weighting her stockings with 20 pounds of sand so that she would fall feet first. She survived the fall. In 1960 Ed Quigley wagered $100 with his drinking buddies that he would survive a jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. He won the bet.

Just last week, a despondent woman bent on suicide lept from the Manhattan side of the bridge. In an ironic twist of fate, she survived without a scratch. 'Michelle', as she identified herself, suffered nothing more damaging than some water in the lungs, and was admitted into Bellevue Hospital. In March 2004, a 24-year-old man survived a 135-foot jump from the center of the bridge, and in August of the same year, a 16-year-old girl jumped and lived.

There is debate over whether the most famous of the Brooklyn Bridge jumpers, the barkeep Steve Brodie, actually completed the jump. In 1886, he said he jumped off the bridge to win a bet with a pal, inspiring the 1933 movie "The Bowery" as well as the phrase, "Take a Brodie." But some skeptics believe Brodie actually tricked his buddy by throwing a weighted dummy off the bridge.

2008-06-05T16:14:00.000-07:00

While I scour my past and present for something interesting to blog about, check out this great site: On The Inside

2008-05-28T18:44:00.000-07:00

In memoriam: Siberia. Alternately called an oasis of lawlessness, physically revolting, a celebration of self-loathing, and a high-school reunion of nasty, it was actually one of the first bars I went to in NYC. The downstairs was downright scary. Thought maybe they would all be like that.

2008-05-28T15:41:00.000-07:00

I figure we've got a month, max, before it starts to get hot. Until then, I resolve to walk home from work whenever possible. But instead of just walking home, I'm gonna to walk a different route everyday, and maybe walk a bit slower, and pay attention to what I see. Today, which was an amazing day, I walked down 11th St to the Hudson River. 11th St between Hudson and Greenwich features both New York's first gastropub, Mario Batali's The Spotted Pig, and the legendary tavern where legendary drunk Dylan Thomas had his last, The White Horse. There's also a nice looking wine bar, Turks and Frogs, and a nice looking coffee shop, The 11th St. Cafe. Magnolia Bakery is on 11th and Bleeker, as is Biography Bookstore, where a friend bought the book, Rats. There's a barbershop, a dry-cleaners, a drugstore; really, a complete little town on one street. There's even a quaint little French bistro, Tartine, which I noticed was BYOB. That got me thinking. WTF with BYOB?

Initially, the idea seems appealing: Bring Your Own Bottle. How could you go wrong? But wait. Is it kosher to bring a six-pack of Bud to Tartine? How about a bottle of Charles Shaw? Regarding Tartine, we can assume that unless one wishes to endure stink-eye from the wait staff throughout the night, a decent bottle of wine is expected. But how many bottles? I mean, the whole effing point is to bring a bunch of booze to dinner, right? Two bottles for a table of two? Three? So at a minimum of $20/bottle, we're talking $60.00, and we haven't even factored in corkage fee!

According to the New York State Liquor Authority, BYOB is only allowable if the bottle being brought is covered under the liquor license in effect; Massachusets, on the other hand, only allows BYOB at establishments without liquor licenses. But if New York restaurants must be licensed for there to be any liquor consumed on the premises - for example - then why even give customers the chance to bring their own? It only makes sense if the corkage fee makes up for income lost. In Manhattan, corkage fees can be as high as $250.00/bottle; the city-wide average is $25.00/bottle. Now I, for one, am incredibly adept at moderating my liquor consumption when drinking at a restaurant; you know how inflated the prices are. I can't imagine a drink tab for two reaching $75.00 (3 corks; yes, I can imagine it). But give me the option to bring my own, hell, not only will I pay for the wine, but will happily pay you to open it.

I called Tartine and inquired into their corkage fee:
Me, feigning indignity: "Yes, how much is your corkage fee?"
Cute hostess, giggling: "We don't have a corkage fee."
Me, truly stupefied: "Ah, yes, well, thank you very much."
Cute hostess, with longing in her voice: "You're welcome."

There's also a Sufi church on 11th St.

2008-05-26T19:02:00.000-07:00

On the trail of the elusive three-sided French Fry: Joseph Ades, aka The Gentleman Peeler, courtesy of The Villager.

2008-05-24T05:52:00.000-07:00

For the third year in a row, Times Square's Hotel Carter has been named the filthiest, most disgusting hotel in America. Reasons given include the expected: bed bugs, cockroaches, hair and fingernail clippings, the occasional dead hooker... Offering rooms that can be had for as cheap as 122.00 USD a night(!), Hotel Carter calls themselves the best value in New York city - just don't make eye-contact with the trannies in the elevator!

Normal folk across the country are outraged. One man recalls a youthful trip to New York city:

I checked into this hotel alone about 6:00 pm, put my suitcase in the room and left to have dinner. When I returned at 10:00 pm, I noticed that in my absence someone had been in my bathroom and defecated in the toilet and left without flushing!! When I told the desk clerk, his response was, "Why was someone in your room?" (Exactly my question to you, Hotel Carter). When I told the "security guard", his response was "What do you want me to do? It's late."

How can a place like this be allowed to remain open?!?! Only in New York! they say.

Only in New York, indeed. Only in New York is there a collective sigh of relief when a hotel in Manhattan is named the grittiest, most disturbing establishment of its kind. Only in New York, where gentrification is considered a sign of the end times, can the Hotel Carter emerge as a source of civic pride.

In the spirit of Kellogg and all those Borscht Belt vacationers in their Nash Ramblers invading the Catskills, I propose a vacation - a staycation - to Midtown, to the Hotel Carter, for some of the grimy hospitality and seedy charms that characterized the Times Square of old. After all, what goods a vacation if it doesn't get a little dirty?

2008-05-21T17:06:00.000-07:00

Eddie Boros (1934-2007) lived and died in the same small apartment at the corner of E. 5th St. and Ave. B in which he was welcomed into this world. The second of three sons raised by Hungarian immigrant parents, young Eddie delivered ice in the East Village before moving on to house painting, which he did professionally for the remainder of his life. His passion, however, was art - woodworking - and soon much of his time was spent adding to, subtracting from, forever improving upon what would become his greatest work: the Toy Tower at garden 6B.

Boros was a character. Renowned for his strength, it is said that in a liquor and testosterone fueled display of his masculinity, he carried a manhole cover from Sophie's bar back to his apartment. He was unable to move it when he awoke in the morning. This guy was old-school, a character even in the old East Village, a guy who had a friend named Gray Wolf, and is remembered for walking the streets shirtless in just an old pair of cut-off jean shorts and a string of pearls.

Ornamented with found toys and other discovered jewels from the detritus of the city, the Toy Tower grew to surpass a height of 60' feet, occupied 8 plots in the small community garden, and perhaps due to Eddie's love of late-night climbs to the top, where he would bang on drums and blow on horns, was a continuous object of chagrin for his neighbors. He called the tower 'My Baby', and had dreams of building it high enough such that from its tip he could see the United Nations. Sometime during the 25 years Eddie worked on it, it became the centerpiece of the garden and a symbol of what the East Village was all about.

Boros' reappropriation of waste, his dependence upon found goods and bits of trash for his work, brings to mind Richard Rauschenberg. Rauschenberg once said, "I really feel sorry for people who thinks things like soap dishes and mirrors and Coke bottles are ugly, because they are surrounded by things like that all day long, and it makes them miserable." Thus it is fitting that in the same week in which Rauschenberg meets his death, so too does Eddie Boros' Toy Tower. Rotting, and a danger to the garden, the Parks Department began dismantling the tower on Monday.

For the eulogy: Jeremiah's Vanishing New York.

2008-05-20T14:08:00.000-07:00

There are 20 gates to Central Park, 20 breaks in the low stone wall that otherwise prevents pedestrians from crossing into its quiet confines. 20 gates that are hardly noticeable, for they are unadorned but for a name carved into the stone. But the names! What names! At Central Park South and 6th Ave. there is the Artist's Gate. The Explorer's Gate, at 77th St., is a few blocks south of the Hunter's Gate, at 81st St; a bit further up Central Park West the curious will find Mariner's Gate and All Saint's Gate.

The Boy's Gate and the Girl's Gate are located across the park from one another, the latter at E. 102nd St., while the former lies at W. 100th St. The Women's Gate is at the corner of Central Park West and 72nd St. Curiously, there is no Men's Gate.

The stripped down aesthetic of the gates, along with the low stone wall they interrupt, are both elements in the designer's original vision of the park. Olmsted and Vaux saw the park as a symbol of the American republic, a pastoral and truly democratic space where one could escape the madness of the city. Their design, however, encountered resistance from the wealthy citizens who lived along the park, and felt their presence should be marked by tall, European-style gates. One proposal would have replaced the simplicity of the Artisan's Gate, at Central Park South and 7th Ave., with an enormous plaza inspired by French urbanist-style gates. Olmsted, for his part, declared that "an iron railing always means thieves outside or bedlam inside," and he was outraged by this attempt to go against the park's original design.

The names of the gates were chosen by the Parks Commission in 1862, and are meant to represent the kinds of people who might utilize the new park. There is Farmer's Gate, Warrior's Gate, and Scholar's Gate. There is Children's Gate, beyond the entrance of which lies a playground. My favorite is Stranger's Gate, which sits at 106th St. and Central Park West.

Christo and Jean-Claude's 'The Gates', completed in 2005, consisted of 7500 'gates', standing 16' and festooned with saffron-colored fabric. 'The Gates' marked the path for 23 miles in Central Park, took 25+ years to complete, and stood for a total of 16 days. One imagines Christo and Jean-Claude were perfectly aware of the 20 gates opening onto Central Park from the metropolis beyond. The shimmering beauty of their short-lived creation offered a glamorous counterpoint to the restrained sublimity of the original Central Park Gates. Vaux suggested that it would be wonderful if there could be no gates. Perhaps, but 'The Gates', the gates, of Central Park remind us that gates are only the names we give them.

2008-05-18T11:14:00.000-07:00

I was happy when the weather turned foul this afternoon. I had to work early, and it appeared as though it was going to be a beautiful day, which was annoying because I had the Sunday Times and there's a basketball game I'd like to watch without feeling guilty for not being outside. So when it began to rain I sighed a sigh of relief and decided that making perfect bloody mary's would be an appropriate way of taking full advantage of a Sunday indoors.

So, according to lore, a Frenchman named Fernand Petiot was the first to mix vodka and tomato juice, at Harry's New York Bar in Paris. When Mons. Petiot came to New York, specifically to the King Cole Bar in the St. Regis Hotel, sophisticated New Yorkers asked him to spice it up a bit. Mons. Petiot added pepper, cayenne, lemon, Worstchester and Tobasco, and a legend was born. I like mine with a little olive juice and celery salt, and instead of Tobasco I love Chalupa. Rob at the Redhead makes his with a chipotle infused mixer. A bar on Avenue A infuses their vodka with bacon. Some like to substitute Clamato for tomato juice; the hint of shellfish seems to work well with the spice.

The best bloody mary I've ever had was at the Cliff House in San Francisco. Tom and Jerry's on Elizabeth St. has two for one specials every Saturday. How the bloody mary became the de facto morning after hangover cure, I don't know. I think that maybe it's because they're often garnished with celery, olives, sometimes a shrimp, so even those whose stomach won't allow them a regular meal can receive some sustenance. Whether or not one could survive on bloody mary's alone is up for debate; what is not up for debate is the level of attention required to make a good one. This is why there is always a momentary pause when asking for a bloody mary. Is the bar too busy? Is the time right? Some bartenders won't make them past, say, 3 in the afternoon. Others relish the opportunity to show their skill and will keep you in the action all night long.

Mons. Petiot named the drink as he did because it reminded him of a girl he knew at the Bucket of Blood Club in Chicago. What about this cocktail was reminiscent of this girl, we are left to ponder. What we do know, however, is that Mary I of England did not kill children so that she may bathe in their blood to preserve her beauty. According to the historians, she had no beauty to preserve.

2008-05-18T07:18:00.000-07:00

I remember my first: a pair of tortoise shell Ray-Ban Wayfarers, a gift from Dad on my 16th birthday. I believe he purposely bought them in tortoise shell rather than black to evoke the southern-California of his childhood. I used to drive around in my VW Bug, left arm enjoying the freedom of an open window, tortoise shell Ray-Ban Wayfarers straight killllling it. Thus began my love affair with sunglasses.

Alas, sunglasses are fickle, and have a tendency to leave before you ever really get to know 'em. My relationship with those Ray-Bans was bliss, but lasted an all-too-brief 6 months. I don't know what happened - I awoke one morning and they were gone. I cursed the sun.

Distraught, I did what any young man would do: I traveled to Tijuana looking to score a cheap replacement, and in an affront to the memory of my first, I picked up a pair of knockoff Oakley's in a light shade of tan. They were gaudy; really we weren't a fit. And the Oakley's would soon be replaced by a series of sunglasses picked up at gas stations, truck stops, 24 hour mini-marts. Sunglasses of every shade and shape. Brief flings with non-polarized pretenders. I was in a downward spiral.

I began to trust sunglasses again when at 18 I bought my first pair of Arnette's. For a punk kid trying to make it on the California-scene, Arnette's were the way to go, and together we looked fucking baddass. Light weight yet durable, just the way I like 'em. We could get little rough, but I didn't worry about them breaking. I remember the day like it was yesterday: We were in Santa Cruz - we spent a lot of time together on the beach that summer. I made the mistake that I knew never to make: In the course of my conversation with a couple fine looking ladies, I turned my back to the sea. And just when we were at our best the sea came from behind and took them away from me forever.

It wasn't long, however, before I got another pair just like them. Relationships of about a year, each much like the other - a sudden swoon, an even more sudden departure, generally happy - continuing over the course of about 8 years. There were mistakes, certainly - how can we forget the blue rims and yellow lenses incident of '99? - but these were years in which my relationship with sunglasses emerged from its adolescent experimentation and began to mature.

It's funny how things tend to return from whence they came. What was hip in the 50's and 60's is hip again in the 80's, and again in the later years of the first decade of the 20th century; Ray-Ban Wayfarers are currently enjoying a vogue unmatched since the halcyon days post-Risky Business. Likewise, it was back to Ray-Bans, back to the beginning, as I got older. Back to the beginning, but different. It's impossible that I shouldn't bring something of my experience with Arnette to my new relation with Ray-Ban. So instead of Wayfarers I decided on something sleeker, more tailored, mature. I believe they were called 'Predator', and together we set out with New York as our prey.

As I write this I find myself in a state of confusion and dismay. Last night, last night...I though they were with me as I stepped out of the cab, but I looked and they were gone, and as the cab sped down the avenue I knew I'd never see them again. We cut a fine figure, those Ray-Ban's and I, and though right now they're all I can think about, and I feel like I'll never get past this hurt, I know that soon I'll find another just like 'em.

2008-05-16T19:48:00.000-07:00

Once the train to New Haven leaves Grand Central Station, which it does approximately every half-hour, it travels underground until it reaches 125th St., Harlem, where it emerges from the depths to travel overground, amongst the buildings either half-constructed or dilapidated, buildings which themselves rest on the rock unit known as the Cambrian and Ordovician Inwood Marble. But it is not until the train moves beyond 125th St., and into the Bronx, that you begin to notice geography, specifically the northeastward-trending structure of the region. The New Haven line traces this natural curve and spoons the coast at it travels through the south-Bronx and into Westchester County. Once it crosses the Harlem River the train balances upon a narrow sliver of the Cambrian Manhattan Formation, until it reaches Fordham and cuts east across a small portion of Cambrian and Ordovician Inwood Marble. The eastward bounding train traverses a bit of the Preterozoic Fordham Gneiss before continuing upon the vast Cambrian-Ordovician Hartland Schist, which makes up the majority of the northeastern seaboard between New York and New Haven.

From the window of the train you can see rock outcroppings jutting from the earth at every imaginable northeaswardly-trending direction. These outcroppings somehow display a combination of necessity - chance - and order that mirrors that strange alchemy of the city one has just departed.

The city, urban life as we know it, is dependent on two things: Rocks and Elevators.

2008-05-15T18:27:00.000-07:00

My boss's father had the fear of getting peanut butter stuck to the top of his mouth - Arachibutyrophobia. Seriously, this was something that concerned him, something that may have caused him to lose sleep. Other unusual phobias:

Fear of Thousand Island Salad Dressing
Fear of Ramen Noodles
Fear of Undercooked Tater Tots
Fear of Pie

This is how someone describes their fear of pictures of sharks:

I have another form of Selachophobia (Fear of sharks) If I touch a
picture of a shark's head (especially with its mouth open) it can still
bite my fingers off. I remember once in fourth grade we were reading a magazine, and I was holding it up the whole time I was reading. And since I was a faster reader than any of the other kids in the class, I got to the last page and dropped the magazine, kicked over my desk(hitting the child in front of me and injuring her) and scrambled onto the kid behind me's desk, all the while screaming bloody murder. I had been touching a shark's picture the whole friggin' time! Three teachers came running from different classrooms. I got into so much trouble just because it was "ONLY a PICTURE of a shark." I also have the phobia of a shark popping up in the pool and I won't take baths. Lakes are avoided at all costs and...the ocean? Yeah right.

I have only normal fears: success, commitment, the opposite sex, etc.

2008-05-15T18:22:00.000-07:00

What the fuck's the deal with putting large flat-screened televisions in every restaurant? Not only are they now ubiquitous, but they are actually put forward as a selling point: "Come to our restaurant, ignore your date while watching SportsCenter!" WTF?

2008-05-15T18:20:00.000-07:00

There is a man who haunts Washington Square Park with a troupe of trained pigeons. Nobody knows - I don't know - if these are birds which have come from a home, perhaps his own home, where they are trained, their performance cultivated, or if instead they are indeed "wild" birds that have become so accustomed to his presence that they can't seem to stay off his arms and shoulders.

The question, bearing as it does on the indeterminacy of markers distinguishing the natural from the manufactured, opens upon the question of the meaning of home. Whatever.

2008-05-15T18:06:00.000-07:00

Today on 13th St., between 5th and University, I witnessed a 'hobo' passed out in a planter while his companion rummaged around near him for the cigarette that had fallen out of his hand. Not 25 yards further down the road, there gathered a crew of about 5 young adults who thought that in front of the doggy gym was good place to smoke a joint. What struck me was the mutual indifference shown by both the group of young ruffians and the passersby and the business owners. Nobody seemed to give a shit, and that made me happy. I love 13th St.

2008-05-15T17:43:00.000-07:00

Friend tells me she got eye-raped by Adrien Brody while walking down Spring Street last week. She noticed him from about a block away, looking her up and down. As they passed, he actually lowered his sunglasses and smiled. An odd experience, she said; apparently, though she's quite attractive, visual assault is not something that happens to her on a regular basis.

This is funny because I remember being like 19 years old, sitting outside a coffee shop on busy Friday night downtown, and making extended, unflinching eye contact with a girl in a convertible as she was stopped in traffic. It was noticed by my friends, who suggested that I had just made visual love to this complete stranger. At the time, I felt the same way - like me and this completely random, though smokin' girl had some kind of cosmic connection, and if only we could have met...

Alas, now I'm starting to think that I, actually, eye-raped this girl. I comfort myself by imagining that if we had met, she would have suffered from halitosis.

Fuck Titles

2008-05-15T17:36:00.000-07:00

Seriously, I think titles may be the one obstacle that prevents me from blogging more often - well, that and the fact I don't own a computer. The pressure to come up with a witty, appropriate heading for whatever bullshit I might have to say has stood in the way of my sharing my unique and fascinating world-view with others, and I'm over it. So, now that friend has loaned me her computer for the summer, I am eschewing titles - get ready, world, for random musings not gathered under a title, subtitle, or any other organizational heading (alright, well, date, but only because it's programmed into blogger).

And yes, I realize that this is indeed titled. Last one, fuckers.

Things I'd Like to Say to Girls, vol. 2

2008-04-04T17:37:00.000-07:00

I want to hold your hand and walk through the Village and buy you dinner and make you breakfast and make you know how good I really am.

Like Two Boats Passing in the Fog

2008-04-04T17:34:00.000-07:00

Me: Hey Dad, what's happening?

Dad: So, your Mom says your in the New York Times, huh?

Me: Yeah, Dad.

Dad: Has that gotten you laid yet, or what?

Me: Well, uh, not exactly, Dad. I mean...

Dad: What are you, Doggy Boy?

Me: Yeah Dad, I'm the Doggy Boy. Thanks.

Dad: Don't get all sensitive.

Me: Nah, Dad. I'm just fucking with you. Alright, talk to you later, Dad.

Mr. Haddix, to you

2008-03-30T10:32:00.000-07:00

Check it, fools:

www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/nyregion/30dogs.html?oref=login#

Things I'd Like to Say to Girls, vol. 1

2008-03-27T16:03:00.000-07:00

Get down on your knees, my child, and uncover those parts of your body which inspire God's anger.

When a New Yorker?

2008-02-20T06:57:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I mean, at what point can one call oneself a New Yorker? Is it only after having lived here a some unknown amount of time that one can honestly call themselves a New Yorker? That seems lame. Maybe instead it's after one has been completely infiltrated by the city. That is to say, when one has gone directly from work to the OTB. Betting on the ponies, natch!

That Your Work Shall be a Struggle

2007-10-11T17:43:00.000-07:00

I...am...so...tired.

But I'm owning my exhaustion, ya know? I mean, two jobs, RA'ing, graduate school; seems about right for a virile(?) twenty-something, eh? Yeah, but I got a ZipCar account, which is very cool. And a company e-mail address and soon a BlackBerry, so... I can deal with utter exhaustion if it gets daddy a new pair of shoes. Word.

I'm On My Way, I'm Making It

2007-10-05T16:39:00.001-07:00

I mean, I'm not a celebrity-lover, but it is cool when you find yourself in close quarters. Like today, when Julian Casablancas, lead singer of The Strokes, cruised into work with his two dogs, Balki and Voldemort. Admittedly, I didn't know who he was at first. But he looked famous (o.k., semi-famous; they're huge in Britain). Tall, dark and handsome, sure. But more than that. It was a style, a manner, the way he walked and talked. Very affected, but very cool nonetheless.

Oh, and tomorrow I have a meeting with the Financial Times of London. Yeah, that's right, Big Timin'.

It was called Project X

2007-10-04T13:54:00.000-07:00

I nearly ran into Adam Duritz, he of Counting Crows 'fame', while walking through the Village today. I knew immediately it was him - knew with the "immediacy of vision" - and this was corroborated by a friend who had seen him walking across Washington Square Park early last week. I wish I could have come up with something snappy to say to him as he brushed past; something like, 'Accidentally in Love? More like Accidentally sucked! Or some other shit that would at the same time reveal my vast knowledge of 90's pop, while self-importantly letting it be known that Counting Crows sucked. Eric exemplified the sentiment when, at a local diner, he found himself next to Matthew Broderick. Instead of sycophantically gushing over The Producers, or making a funny, but overused reference to Ferris Bueller, he, with total calm, said simply, "I loved you in that monkey movie." Fucking brilliant.

October is not for Lovers

2007-10-03T18:50:00.000-07:00

October. I love October. The weather is changing; there's a crispness in the air. In the morning a fog hangs over the city, an ethereal blanket. The days are shorter, the nights are longer, and I don't feel bad if I just want to stay inside; October invites reflection. Besides, by October, school is in full swing, and I've got work to do. I want to wallow in my work, to feel overwhelmed, to feel like it's unfair that I should have to work so hard while everybody else in engaged in one or another meaningless diversion. I want to embrace it. October makes it alright to put on some early-80's emo punk - preferably The Smiths or The Cure - and drink alone. It is alright to take up smoking again in October; besides, the autumn winds have blown the polution out the city anyways, right? I love October because it doesn't care if you want to indulge yourself in solitude. Drop the extroversion - that's some summer shit. Put it away for a few months. Go underground. October is about being emo, writing in a notebook, drawing something stark in charcoal. Even the flavors and smells of October carry with them a rich sense of lonliness: smoke, rotting leaves, pumpkin. Besides, I look good in a sweater and scarf.

It Doesn't Get Old

2007-09-28T16:23:00.000-07:00

"...and it's 68 degrees right now in Central Park. Looks like fall may be coming, folks." Tomorrow I'm going to get up early, while there's still a bite in the air, get some coffee and sit on the stoop reading the Saturday times. Then I'm going to go to the park and work my way through "The Birth of Tragedy". Then I'm going to lose myself in this city.

Lessons Learned

2007-09-28T15:45:00.000-07:00

Sex, cars, cigarettes and petty crime. Yet apparently, Godard doesn't impress like I thought he would.

WTF??

Why do I even try??

Doesn't change the fact. That mother is cool.

There is a hole...

2007-09-11T11:05:00.000-07:00

September 11th, 2007 and the city is mourning. It is gray and raining. There is a hole in the ground. There is a hole in the bottom of my shoe. There is a hole in the crotch of my pants. There is a hole in the back of my mouth, where a tooth used to be. It hurts, terribly. My phone has been turned off, once again. I didn't get much sleep last night, and it wasn't because I was having a torid lovemaking session. Grimace.

If You Love Someone, Let Them Go

2007-09-07T14:21:00.000-07:00

Only now, that I've given up on my ambition to garner entry into the vaunted realm of academia, do I understand what philosophy is. Things become clearer when you stop trying to see them.

Strays

2007-09-06T05:45:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago I had a free morning for the first time in weeks. I got up early and took the train up to Trader Joe's to grab some provisions. Cereal, coffee, cheese, beans; a couple of bottles of wine; some fresh fruit. Two shopping bags full of groceries, well earned and sure to satisfy. Heading back downtown, I board the train and set my goods on the floor beside me. Immediately, a man enters from the adjacent car, shaking, writhing, unable to speak or stay still. I assume he has cereal palsy or some other similar affection. Or is it a show? He begins his speech, the same speech you hear a million times a day. "Just some change, if you have some, or a bit of food. I would be thankful." Shamed by my bounty, I know I must give him something. A can of beans? A piece of cheese? An apple? I feel that everybody has their eyes on me. They see my groceries, and he is right in front of me. Finally, I reach deep into my pocket, and hedging my bets, drop fifty cents into his outreached hand. Judge me if you will, but I was the only person on that car that gave him anything. Fifty cents for the effort.

Shadows

2007-08-19T17:34:00.000-07:00

It's striking to me how much I hold back from people. I am cagey about my past, the things I have done, the experiences I've had. In those rare moments when I do let my guard down, let something slip, I receive incredulous looks from strangers who see me as just another white boy. Maybe that's just it: maybe I'm tired of appearing as just another standard, middle-class, anonymous, seemingly priviledged white male. And as long as I keep my past in the closet I appear as just that. I want to grab people, to scream at them, to make them take notice. Look at me!! Look deeper!! I am not what I seem to be. I am less; I am more. I have felt pain. I have thought about death. I have hurt myself just to feel. And now, as you see me, right now, I am on the edge. Certainly, I have proven myself to be the artful dodger. Sometimes I feel that all I have accomplished thus far has been the fruit of careful manipulation. Me, the charismatic con, not wanting to take anything from you, just wanting access into your world. Yeah, sometimes I feel like a fake. But what the fuck? I want to find somebody that will sit next to me and stroke my hair while I vomit my past into the toilet. I want to fucking flush it. To start anew. But until I find somebody to serve as my midwife, I am stuck bearing this burden - and stuck hiding it from those around me. And who the fuck would want to play that role?

Hmmm. The Rain.

2007-08-17T17:06:00.000-07:00

There is something about a mid-August hot rain in the city. The way the thunder announces the inevitable downpour. Back in California, a summer rain would bring with it an absolutely unique smell. Some combination of wet manure and steam. And everybody would notice it, would comment on it. The smell of rain in the summer; such a rare occurance in the valley. But here, nobody but myself seems to notice the August rains. I seem to be the only one who as they walk the streets looks to the skys to greet the rain. I seem to be the only one who responds to the thunder with a wry smile. Likewise, I seem to be the only one without an umbrella, perpetually surprised by the summer rain. Well, to be perpetually surprised...