They Made Me an Animal

What is it with Brits? Why don't they ever seem like they've got somewhere to go? Amblin' down the sidewalk, changing direction in languid fashion, groups splaying themselves across the pedestrian roadway so as to block actual pedestrians . . . 

And, of course, the rare purposeful citizen -- the exception that proves the rule -- will barrel into you without concern, knowing it'll be alright as long as he or she says, "Sorry." (My friend pointed out this magic word business to me and, boy, is it ever true.)

You guys have beautiful, wide sidewalks and I can't move on them because you won't. It's gotten to the point where I now bump into people on purpose when I'm perfectly capable of maneuvering out of their way (something it wouldn't occur to them to do for me) in hopes I can drum into them, through pain, the idea that maybe they should be aware of others in their midst.

And so, the other night, it came to this -- I found myself colliding with the unexpected belly of an otherwise normal-looking blonde whose torso was concealed by her jacket. I was instantly remorseful and panic-stricken.

What if she was not fat, but pregnant? What if I had injured her unborn but very-much-wanted child? What if I'd made it a mutant with bent appendages of one one kind or another?

This is what England has done to me.

You Made Me An Animal!!!

All the attitude drained out of me. I turned toward her to apologize; to see if there was anything I could do to help; to explain; to beg forgiveness; to promise to be a better person. But she didn't even seem to have noticed me (typical, I guess, now that I think about it) and didn't seem a bit concerned. 

She wasn't -- as I feared she'd be -- holding her belly, wailing, "My baby!!!"

So, maybe she was just fat. Or maybe I hadn't collided as percussively as I might have. I do remember kind of holding back. I was only trying to make a point, after all.

I continued on my way, chagrined, unhappy with what I'd found inside myself, determined to be better.

But people won't get out of the way . . .


originally posted 10/9/06

Am I in Love? (And Other Seafarer's Musings)

Damn rocks.

Stuck on 'em.

Didn't see 'em.

Unable to move the ship of my life forward.


originally posted 2/5/08

I Love It When I'm Wonderful

My appearance at "It Came from New York" at the Bowery Poetry Club last night went great. The theme was "Subway Stories" and I told a lot of them in my Edinburgh show last year, so I was more than well-prepared.

I love to test the audience's willingness to go along with me (they often fail the test -- or maybe I'm the one who fails), so it was gratifying to find acceptance and a fond embrace even as I told them of an adolescent masturbation escapade on an empty middle-of-the night train. (Subway masturbation seems to have fallen into disrepute as renegade practitioners have taken to doing it when other people are present.)

There were many smiling people complimenting me on their way out (though, as of my last search, no one seems to have been moved to enthusiastically blog about me). After the show, I went out with some of the gang but left quickly because an aspirin taken without water during the afternoon had turned into an ulcer-style stomach ache. (I had decided that rather than stop eating badly, I needed to take an aspirin to stave off a heart attack during my afternoon nap -- I know you're only supposed to take part of an aspirin for that purpose, but I figured since my face still hurt, I could use the pain-relieving, too.)

So distracted was I by my pain that I accidentally left without paying for my fries. Since I was too far away to go back when I realized this, I used the "extra" money I now had to buy a cheese steak.

I woke up depressed.


originally posted 4/26/07

The Sicker You Get

When walking someplace that's just a little too far or waiting for a bus that almost refuses to come, I find I am a maker-upper of songs. Chants, really.

They often contain multi-syllabic versions of words like cold and home, as in "I hope I'll soon be ho-ome" or "Why is it so co-o-old?"

I guess the primitive rhythms insinuated themselves into my consciousness when I was very young, perhaps in kindergarten, when my classmates and I would practically will the bus to arrive with our chant, "The Bus, The Bus, The B-U-S."

In later years, our tribal exhortations continued during the ride itself, as we sang, "Hey, Bus Dri-ver, Speed Up a Lit-tle Bit, Speed Up a Lit-tle Bit, Speed Up a Lit-tle Bit; Hey, Bus Dri-ver, Speed Up a Lit-tle Bit . . . "

And then, of course, came the jungle admonition that greeted the arrival of a certain ice cream truck:
"Bungalow Bar, Tastes Like Tar; The More You Eat It, The Sicker You Are."

Said purveyor of frozen delights pretty much vanished while I was small. (Reasons contained in lyrics of "song"?) However, the chant remained in the Brooklyn consciousness for years to come. And since poetic logic is wasted on the old, sometimes it would emerge with subtle changes. For instance, I was taught the refrain by a playmate who saw nothing amiss in the lyric, "Bungalow Bar, Tastes Like Tar; The More You Eat It, The Sicker You Get." (To be honest, his "rhyme" was alright with me, too.)

On the other hand, some of the songs the kids I knew sang had traveled to us from across the decades, seemingly intact, despite anachronisms and irrelevancies that should have long ago consigned them to the dustbin of kid-song history.

I surmise it was the historical import and strong feelings generated by the individuals cited which preserved this ditty beyond its "best by" date: "Whistle while you work. Hitler is a jerk; Mussolini bit his peenie, now it doesn't work." (One kid I knew -- not, I believe, related to the Bungalow Bar bungler -- thought the final words were "now it doesn't squirt." There's always one.)

That song served as a kind of an onramp to history for me. It was, for instance, where I first heard of Il Duce (MuZZolini in this iteration) and it spurred me to ask who he was. (Every generation knows Hitler.)

Then, as I was introduced to some of the more complex pieces in the pre-adolescent repertoire, I learned even more. I mean, what child could walk away from the following and not feel he had grown?


"Walkin' down Canal Street, knockin' every door --
God damn, son of a bitch, I gotta find a whore.

Finally found a whore, she was tall and thin --
God damn, son of a bitch, I couldn't get it in.

Finally, got it in, moved it all about --
God damn, son of a bitch, I couldn't get it out.

Finally got it out, it was soft and sore --
The moral of the story is, to never fuck a whore."


Ah, sweet, golden-tinged memories of youth.

I wasn't sure what a whore was, of course. Yet as jokes moved into my life, augmenting the songs, the oldest profession taught me about alternate pronunciation and dialect via the following "knock knock" (to be delivered in an "Italian accent"):


"Knocka Knocka.

Who's-a there-a?

Me-a.

Me a hua"


That's the punchline -- "Me a hua." (Not sure of the spelling but pronounced hoo-a.)

"I'm a whore." ("Mommy. What's a hua?")

Yes, it's these songs and jokes that form the foundation of my outlook.

I mean, hey. -- now, I'm a whore of sorts, telling jokes in exchange for money (sometimes).

And today, when I was waiting impatiently for the bus, I chanted to myself out loud, "Where are you no-ow; where are you no-ow?" (Or something like that.)

You know what?

After awhile, came the B-U-S.

__________________________________

I'm actually walking around without any money. I still have almost all of the $12 I mentioned the other day but it isn't liquid. A couple of bucks are on a Kinko's card; 7 are inaccessible 'til I get my newest replacement debit card, which is probably sitting in my friend's mailbox. And I do have some English coins and a few old coins I found in my change and kinda wanna keep.

But my friend is makin' us steaks broiled in a cast iron pan tonight -- a method I found in a New York Times article yesterday. So, I have a bright future ahead of me, as long as it's measured in hours.


There's a twitchy bum siting on the interior window ledge essentially next to my table here at Starbucks. He's reading a worn, old paperback and dusting stuff off his legs that I can't see but it's being dusted in my direction, so I don't like it on spec.


Am Asian guy moved away from an old bum on the train this morning and the bum followed him and began bowing to him and another non-occidental in the manner of the East.


This twitchy loon is really upsetting me. I gotta go.


originally posted 2/1/07

Caffeine Abuse

When I was a teenager, I had a joke in my act that went like this --
"I take drugs, but I don't take them to get high; I take them for the intense emotional conflict the next morning."

And I did feel conflicted about self-altering substances, which is why I'm not really chemically indulgent now, nor was I, particularly, at that time.

(The joke continued, "I took acid and saw God -- God told me he wished everybody would stop taking acid; he values his privacy." Funny about collective memory -- the "took acid and saw God" era was in the past when I did that joke, but everyone knew the underlying notion and it pretty much always worked.)

Which brings us to coffee.

I've just discovered it. (Where's it been hiding?)

Was disgusted by it as a kid -- always been a cola boy. (And I like tea. . . . And Mountain Dew.) But, as with pickles, I now have a fondness for it that would perplex my younger self.

And in both cases, it was raw, animal need that brought me to the party.

Pickles, the young Andrew found particularly revolting. They were green, wet, slimy, filled with the juice of heaven knows what. (Oooh. I just realized many Britons don't know what pickles are. Pickles are pickled cucumbers. Gherkins are pickles but in the states, gherkins are small -- don't know how it is over there -- and most pickles are full, cucumber-sized, wart-laden, sandwich-accompanying monstrosities.)

And you couldn't get away from 'em.

As fast food culture overtook New York (It had already overtaken the rest of America, but New York tends to be resistant to such things), burgers -- dressed with pickle chips -- became normal kid fare. When I would be handed a pickly burger and whine about it, my parents would say, "Just take the pickles off!" which left the remaining burger with the disturbing taste and aroma of pickle juice, which was oh-so-easy to hate.

But years later, when I was broke and counting on the food I would get if I performed at the Improv to sustain me, a hungry me one night stared at the pickle laying uneaten next to my rapidly disappearing sandwich and thought, "That kinda smells like a de-pickled McDonalds bun. I wonder if I could eat that."

I now love pickles. (Dills, anyway.)

So, these days -- with the stress and inconsistency of my living situation wearing away at me -- I am hungry not for foodstuffs but for the strength to go on. And coffee, I knew from my occasional (less than once a year?) social indulgence in hipster latte or authentically Italian cappuccino, could give me that strength. The occasional, often reluctant, indulgences let me know (as did pickle residue in an earlier time) that I could tolerate the flavor of the potentially noxious substance, so why not give it a try?

Um.

Before I answer that question, let me take you back a few years to the couch I was sleeping on in Fran and Carol's apartment in L.A.. The uncomfortable sleeping arrangement was giving me a headache and, though I was loathe to rely on medications, I remembered I'd seen an acetaminophen bottle in their medicine cabinet (that's what we call paracetamol) and I really did need relief, so I went and took a couple of capsules and returned to "bed".

It only took a few minutes for me to start questioning whether I had actually taken acetaminophen.

I laid back down on the couch and thought about how the capsules were, I think, orange and black (Halloween colors!) -- colors I did not associate with generic pain relievers. Even though it was only 5 or 6 in the morning, I walked down the hallway and stood outside the girls' rooms, waking them by asking the question, "You know that bottle that says acetaminophen -- is that really what's in it?"

It was dexedrine I had taken. (I think it was time-released too, which meant it would be the gift that kept on giving.) I ended up going to the emergency room with tachycardia and other symptoms. It was a tough day.

Flash forward to yesterday when I drank so much coffee that my symptoms were very much the same. I ran into Chris from The Onion at the Astor Place Barnes & Noble (yes, I'm running into him everywhere -- New York can be like a small town) and peppered him with rat-a-tat-tat, gatling gun-like prattle; fast and sometimes misshapen anecdotes, delivered with uncontrollable, mistimed fervor.

Shortly thereafter, I felt terrible about it.

I regretted the way I had come across. And I felt physically uncomfortable, unable to come down from my "trip". I was in a period of intense emotional conflict which didn't even wait for the next morning to occur.

I got a monkey on my back. I may ask Donald Trump if he can get me into rehab.

(That, I realize, was a topical, Miss USA-related reference that may or may not be understood in the UK. I urge you, whenever a reference in one of my blogs is lost on you, to do an easy web search, which will enable you to fully enjoy my offerings.)

But first, I think I'm gonna have a cup of coffee.

originally posted 12/23/06

Ebb Tide

I was at the laundromat and I was a quarter short and I didn't want to break a dollar, so I thought I'd give the attendant 25 cents and get a quarter in exchange. But there was no attendant, so a guy in the laundromat gave me a quarter and wouldn't take the smaller change in exchange.

I understand that people don't want pennies and nickels and stuff sometimes and that he was probably just trying to be a nice guy. But part of me thought, "Do I look that bad? Even in a laundromat, where people typically wear their worst stuff 'cause everything else needs to be washed?

For example, a woman in the place, doing loads of stuff, couldn't keep her belly from cascading over her too-small pants (which may have been open), despite the fact that she wasn't particularly fat. (Actually, she was quite attractive.)

I'm guessin' all the pants that fit were in the wash.

This was my context. I must've looked laundromat-acceptable.

But 25 cents is a charged figure. Since the depression, when 10 cents was all that an indigent required, the cost of a bum has remained stable at 25 cents. So, was the guy just being chill or did he think I needed the 25 cents?

Perhaps, in his eyes, I might just as well have been sitting on the floor holding a cup.

Well, wouldn'tja know it, by the time I was drying my clothes, my malaesthetically-gotten gain (which is the name of a detergent for those who find humor in such things) evaporated as a dryer ate my quarter.

I was even again. Financially, the laundromat excursion had been a wash. (Another of that type of joke.)

I felt better, kinda. I had magically been debummed.

But then an attendant came in and I told her about my quarter. I'm not so rich that I
I can afford to lose a quarter. I wanted it back.

She told me the machine did that sometimes. (Well, I knew it had done it at least once.) But she didn't offer me my quarter back and I tried to figure out how I could ask her for it without being embarrassed, although why should I have been embarrassed, and while I continued to figure, she said that she was leaving for just a while but she never came back during the time it took me to finish my laundry and get out.

So, I'm not a bum.


Learned more about Lundy's since my earlier post.

It only closed about three weeks ago -- I thought it had been much longer.

Here's information I stole from other websites, in their own words:

"The corner building is landmarked because of its unique "Lundy's stucco style."

When the restaurant was first built, actual clam shells from Sheepshead Bay were used to make the walls, historians note. "

"Regardless of what the location turns into, Lundy's restaurant as well as the building is a landmark. Therefore, at least, the menu must contain lobster and a raw bar.

Lundy's, which is on Emmon's Avenue, opened in Sheepshead Bay in 1907. At the time, it was on the bay side of Emmons, on pilings in the water. It opened at the present site (which is the northwest corner of Emmons and Ocean Avenue) in 1938. It could serve 2,800 people at a seating. Lundy's closed in 1979 and reopened in 1995. "

Thought you might like to know.

Andrew


originally posted 2/10/07

musings and observations

tulips illustrate the pitfalls of both greed and not knowing your limits, not to mention the delusion of individual exemption from the rules that bind others.

they open and look beautiful and open further and inspire as their petals stretch outward and up toward glory but they don't stop. they want more. more sun, more glory, more freedom and continue spreading past the point of reason until their backs break and they fall into oblivion.

meanwhile, the tulips next to them, only just blooming, ignore the fate of their neighbors. "they were orange tulips," one says of its neighbors. "we are purple tulips. it can't happen to us"

and soon, they too are gone.


i finally assimilated enough new york latin ambience to find myself saying -- as i passed a pulchritudinous beauty in the streets of the east village yesterday -- "hello, mami," or something of that nature. (but not so she could hear it. sheesh.)

so, why do puerto ricans and maybe dominicans and other latins call hot women mommy? i know it's not spelled that way but that's what it is.

i suppose it is a recognition of biological and sociological reality to see the maternal in someone who makes your loins stir, but isn't there something disturbing there as well?

maybe not. (see "i want a girl just like the girl that married dear old dad" and "my heart belongs to daddy" for references of trans-cultural legitimacy.)


here i am -- it's close to midnight and i'm walking through a massive chasidic neighborhood with a gastrointestinal issue that's nearing emergency proportions.

it seems to be a holiday or something (lag b'omer?) and the streets are filled with well-dressed chasids. but there are no restaurants or bars or anything -- not just none that are open -- none at all.

but there are synagogues. large ones, small ones, elegant ones, decrepit ones . . . i know if i go into one, i'll be conspicuous but i think maybe if i say i'm a jew it'll be all right and they'll let me use the bathroom.

but i'm afraid they won't. i'm afraid they'll say i'm impure or something and that if they let me use the toilet, they'll have to take the seat to a mikvah or ritual purification bath.

i know this probably isn't true. but what if it is? i don't wanna chance the conspicuousness and discomfort and anyway, if they do turn me away for some reason, it'll make me angry and probably make my situation even more of an emergency than it already is. (my kishkes [intestines] will churn.)

so, i start looking for a vacant lot that isn't fenced in -- anything -- and finally i see an off-brand, shithole of a gas station -- pride -- maybe it's the only "pride" station in the world. a young guy and an older one with a gray mustache are standing in front of the small structure -- do they even have a toilet?

i don't know what they are -- latin? indian? but the old guy points and there i am, a jew taking a shit in the only place i felt comfortable asking for help -- a run-down restroom with "love allah" on the inside of the door.


originally posted 5/10/07

(real) brooklyn girls

my gym is in "real" brooklyn (as opposed to the manhattanish sections) and the women who work here (the cranky guy isn't here today, so i can do some post-workout posting -- yea!) remind me of young moms i knew when i was a kid (as well as girls i went to school with). they have the version of a brooklyn accent that well-spoken, comfortable,intelligent (but not scholarly) normal women often have. (i wish i could think of a celebrity to use as an example.)

i gotta say that they really turn me on. it's like i'm home when i'm around them, even though i never felt or was completely a part of this world. (though i did grow up in real brooklyn.)

as a matter of fact, i wanna marry the girl who's at the counter now. she's beautiful and the embodiment of the type i just described.

and she smiled radiantly when i went to the counter to make sure i wouldn't get yelled at for hanging out on the couch and "computing".


originally posted 3/18/07

Allergy medications

and the search for love do not go well together.

It's difficult to meet someone from the depths of a Benadryl coma.

On the other hand, one becomes more keenly aware than ever of one's dreams even as the perpetual slumber limits their chances of coming true.

"Histamine Irony", I think it's called.


originally posted 5/2/08

i'm depressed

st

that word above was gonna be stymied.

but then my for the time being roommate came in and threw me a sandwich and i couldn't go on because i'd be lying. 

my mood has improved.


originally posted 4/18/07

I had to go to an important meeting today

about a BIG project that could make a BIG difference in my life and the lives of others. It was requested that I dress appropriately.

BUT --

If I spent the money I needed to on dry cleaning and shoes, I'd have been completely broke.

SO --

I didn't pick up my dry cleaning and bought the cheapest pair of sneakers I could find, their only advantage being that they were not falling apart like the previous (otherwise identical) ones. I found a crumpled sports jacket in my dirty laundry and draped it over my arm so that it looked like I had been wearing a nice jacket but for some reason had taken it off.

My shirt was unironed but freshly laundered and, fortunately, stretched out by my fat. I put those white, plastic things in my collar and wore jeans in respectable black.

Since I don't have an overcoat, I wore t-shirts under my fat-stretched shirt to keep myself warm. One of them was a pocket-t.

Just before the meeting, I noticed a lump on the left side of my chest -- a ball in the pocket of the t which had once been bread but which had been turned into dough by the washing machine.

I guess some days before I had wanted to throw the bread away but was not near a garbage can, so I shoved it into my shirt pocket 'til I found one. Now, I was beside an important associate with a ball of dough in my hand and -- still -- no place to throw it out. (I'm still not sure how I got rid of it.)

My posture was off, my shirt was too tight, my jeans were too low, I felt freakishly fat and unattractive and I was crammed, one of four, into a tiny, ancient elevator.

I think the meeting went well.


originally posted 12/10/07

The Scent of Hypocrisy

We want people to see "the real me"; to see through all the superficial crap which could mislead them about us. Like if I'm wearing unwashed, crumpled clothing (as I am today), I want people to know that inside I am clean and uncrumpled.

But it seems we're hardwired for certain reactions, which means people will frequently disappoint.

And we will disappoint ourselves.

I once met character actor Sid Melton, whose work I had adored since early childhood, particularly his turn as the owner of the "Copa Club" in the sitcom "Make Room for Daddy" ("The Danny Thomas Show"), which rarely failed to delight me during its years in reruns. Nothing could have been more exciting.

Except that he stank.

I don't know from what -- unwashed jacket and dogs, maybe. But it was intense.

And I couldn't talk to him. I couldn't stay in his presence.

. . . One of my favorites.


(And how did I smell?)


originally posted 12/22/06

Guess what I have!

. . . Gout!


according to wikipedia, second attacks usually occur within 2 years. (it is now 22 months.)

i can still walk. 

puttin' on my shoe may be a problem, though.

and to think i walked across the williamsburg bridge yesterday.

in fact, i walked all the way from the clinton hill area in brooklyn to 25th and 3rd in manhattan.

and last week i walked to and from, across the brooklyn bridge one way and the williamsburg the other. 

the day before that, i did the manhattan bridge to the "green room" in noho.

tomorrow, i may not be able to stand.

as last time (of course) i did all the wrong things just before the attack and even after i suspected one was coming on. 

hey, it's been almost 2 years -- i forgot what i'm not supposed to have. 

so, last night, i had beans and scotch and coffee as the infirmity descended.

and i switched to diet soda lately. (guess what.)

i keep moving my toe as if waggling it will prevent the uric acid crystals from settling in.

two years ago, my gout treatment was the first time i used my brand new, government-funded, poor people's health insurance (to treat the "disease of kings"). now, due to an error on their part followed by a year of avoidance and inactivity on mine, i don't have any health insurance.

i wonder if my father has any of his stomach-punishing anti-inflammatories left.

he did this to me with his gouty genes.

of course, he also did this life thing to me, so you win some, you lose some.


originally posted 5/17/07

before i watched the sopranos last night,

i thought i heard a mouse in a glue trap by the window.

squeaking and maneuvering to survive; to escape its ugly fate.

like mobsters trying to escape a hit.


after an hour with thugs who have no regard for human life, turns out there were two mice glued to the trap's surface.

i threw them into a heavy duty plastic bag and walked to the garbage cans in front of the building, the bag's contours changing as the mice struggled within.

i felt bad about it, but whaddaya gonna do?


originally posted 6/6/07

In Praise of Samples

Since I got back to NY, I've shifted my wi-fi glomming operations from Soho to Union Square because the open network which used to be accessible from the Spring St. Starbuck's is no more while the free Union Square wi-fi is accessible not only in the park but from the dining area of Whole Foods. (The greatest supermarket in the world! You'll see for yourselves when it comes shortly to Kensington High Street.)

Though I haven't had to do it yet, being in Union Square has alerted me to the fact that one can live entirely on samples from various food mongers. In recent days, I've had grilled tofu, turkey and chicken items, every apple known to man, a selection of delicious soups, slices of citrus fruits, exotic jellies and jams, chocolate chip cookies, Indian-spiced cauliflower, and other wonderful items that I've already forgotten amidst the abundance of culinary riches.

Union Square is a a real "Sample Central" as, within a few paces of each other, you have both Whole Foods and Union Square's outdoor greenmarket. Because both the greenmarket and the supermarket are devoted to healthy foods, the infusion of sampled items into my diet has undoubtedly rendered me healthier than I've been in months, nay, years.

Within toddling distance of the square is Trader Joe's, which has a counter devoted to samples. And judicious strolling reveals other free-to-eat opportunities.

Why do they do it? Why are they so good to me? What do they want from me? Do they want me to buy something?

But I'm so full . . .


originally posted 11/8/06

oobla gabla

i'm sitting here on the couch in the lobby of the gym. (cranky guy and i seem to be understanding each other better these days, plus he's not here.)

tall, shaved-headed guy, maybe 40-something, sees me and says, "mr. laptop. whatchadoing?"

"online exercise," says i.

"brain is the biggest muscle in the body," says he.

"and what," i ask him, "is the biggest muscle in the brain?"

well, when i heard him answer, "the oobla gabla," with a smile, i was impressed, as i'd thought the musclehead might not realize there are no muscles in the brain.

"how'dja know that?" i joked.

"i'm a trained paramedic, " he answered. followed by, "i don't practice but i am trained," or some similar bit of credential-pushing that made it clear he was serious.

and suddenly i realized --

he had said, the medulla oblongata was the biggest muscle in the brain.

and he meant it.

a trained paramedic. (i am frightened for my life.)

nice guy, though.


originally posted 3/24/07

Cocooning

Virginia
(DC Suburbs)

After a month with no permanent address in New York, I am cocooning at my sister's house in northern Virginia.

Went out last night with my sisters, their husbands and my nieces and nephews to a typically lousy chain (I'm guessing) restaurant in a strip mall off a suburban highway. Place is known for their chili, I was told. After eating it, I can only guess that what's known is that the chili is bad.

Night before I went right from the cheap Chinatown bus I took to DC to the Orange Line of the DC Metro to the Metro's Vienna stop (closest to my sister but still not close) and then, bypassing my sister's house entirely, to the movies with my teenage nephew and his wholesome, all-American friends (one of whom is a Palestinian -- that's what being All-American is all about!).

Barrelin' through the Reston Town Center (it's a shopping mall), with the boys behind me, I felt like I was the (nominally) adult leader of a gang of criminal adolescents. I nicknamed them the "Pancake House Gang" and spoke of our inevitable battles with adversaries, the "Waffle House Gang" and the "Steak House Gang". They loved me, of course.

We saw "Borat". It was good.

More later,
Andrew


originally posted 11/20/06

I am disturbed by the fact that

someone I spent a lot of time with over the last months doesn't really tell me anything anymore.

Admittedly, I am now geographically distant but I would still be interested in hearing about things I know are meaningful to her. I don't think that should stop just because I no longer need the information to figure out when we can get together.

Makes me think my primary appeal was merely being around. I'm away and so I don't matter.

I'm not there, so I don't, in some sense, exist.


originally posted 3/12/08

i can never find the right kind of hat.

for a while i wore a gray, felt fedora, my long hair hanging from its back as if they were one unit, perhaps from a joke store. (ah, but that was another day.)

i'm more of a self-contained fashion icon now, except in the summer, when my insufficiently hirsute pate is subject to the ravages of old sol (the sun, not some rampaging jewish guy) and i find myself ever in search of a hat that will protect and suit (which is, i think, the motto of the los angeles police department).

it's like looking for the holy grail -- i never seem to find it and wonder if one even exists. 

so, generally, i end up with a mr. magoo/woody allen-style, crumply "fishing" hat, which neither flatters nor diminishes too greatly my basic (non-)aesthetic. 

or, sometimes, i wear nothing at all, leaving my scalp to the limited protective capacity of an inexpensive sunblock.

and that's how it was when i went to new jersey last sunday, draped in my (minimally) beard-appropriate clothes.

i had nothing but no-ad 15 on my skull.

luckily i spent a good deal of time in the garage, helping my father remove stuff from the attic in anticipation of a move. then, while we were looking in a closet, my father unexpectedly said, "you want your grandfather's hat?"

well, there ought to have been a heavenly chorus behind me. 

it was the hat. 

a recreational, older guy's hat from thirty years ago -- genuinely cool. 

in perfect condition. looking like the hats on st. mark's place are trying to look. 

i asked my father why he had saved it and he said he thought that i had told him to.

if so, i mystically set aside my own future salvation by doing so. 

kinda makes you believe the universe is filled with hats more powerful than we can ever imagine.


originally posted 5/26/07