Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
I wake up dead after six hours of fitful sleep in the sticky heat. I'm faded before the day even breaks. Insecurities lurk in the fatigue of the body and the shadows of thought. Marie says she's working in the building where I'm going for an audition - $500 for my self respect if get the part. "Come to work with me afterward. We need the help today. We'll be done early." I agree. I need the money. I skipped out on work the other night. I've been feeling behind ever since.
I feel torn in too many directions as we leave our apartment into the blinding heat. I'm chasing too many things - work, money, dreams, a sense of ease with this fuckin' city - thinking to myself what do I need? as we walk through the waves of heat rising off the street.
"What's bothering you baby?" she wants to know glancing at me cursively, looking beat.
"Everything."
She looks straight ahead without saying anything, sweat beading on her forehead, her bags looking like they're dragging her into pavement.
Everything.
Everything's a trade off with money. I need money but I need meaning. I need money but I need my dignity. I need money but I need time for my writing. I need money but I need time for school. I need money but I feel drained from working for it. I need money but I need the space to think. I need money to ease the pain in my body that comes from making money. I need money but I need peace. I need something more than what the money gives me.
"Tell me baby," she says as we cross into the shade of a building.
"Nothing," I say, "It's fine. I'm just tired baby."
"Me too. I feel drained already," she says as the sweat gathers on her shirt and we're engulfed by the gaping mouth of the stairs leading into the subway and the city that supposedly has everything, but I've yet to see it.
Love
Showing posts with label New York City. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York City. Show all posts
Tuesday, 22 June 2010
Friday, 18 June 2010
Wonderwall
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
I leave work, the ominous feeling building, at 2am engulfed in the darkness of Manhattan and nomads land, where the hotel resides. An unearthly light hangs dead above the skyline and the fetid stench of the black shadowy streets. I duck into the subway, a rat scurrying down a hole in the sidewalk beneath my feet.
I sit reading alone on the platform happy to have the time to myself tucked away beneath the city, the sounds of car horns making their way through the sewer grates. A far off rumble approaches and lights appear in the distance.
The train rattles, jerks then lurches to a halt as my bookmark falls to my feet in the fluorescent steel tube. The doors open to the 14th street Union Square station. The air is dank and stifling as I walk to catch the L train to Brooklyn. The stares of the people are deterring as I make my way to the lower level. I find a seat on the bench under a giant fan next to a passed out older Mexican man. A scraggly meth bent street performer sings and plays guitar to my left at the bottom of the stairs as an older black man at the end of the bench bangs his hand along to the rhythm of the song.
The song he's singing is foreign and familiar at the same time, working its way through my memory, pulling me from the lines in my book, "You should never apologize for being yourself.... People don't change. They try to but they can't. That's speaking from experience." "You're probably right. I'm not going to change." "I hope not." I close the book. I think of my past relationships. I think of Marie. I know this song - By now you should've realized what you got to do / I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now / There are many things I'd like to say to you, but I don't know how / Because maybe, you're gonna be the one that saves me? / And after all, you're my wonderwall -
Love
I leave work, the ominous feeling building, at 2am engulfed in the darkness of Manhattan and nomads land, where the hotel resides. An unearthly light hangs dead above the skyline and the fetid stench of the black shadowy streets. I duck into the subway, a rat scurrying down a hole in the sidewalk beneath my feet.
I sit reading alone on the platform happy to have the time to myself tucked away beneath the city, the sounds of car horns making their way through the sewer grates. A far off rumble approaches and lights appear in the distance.
The train rattles, jerks then lurches to a halt as my bookmark falls to my feet in the fluorescent steel tube. The doors open to the 14th street Union Square station. The air is dank and stifling as I walk to catch the L train to Brooklyn. The stares of the people are deterring as I make my way to the lower level. I find a seat on the bench under a giant fan next to a passed out older Mexican man. A scraggly meth bent street performer sings and plays guitar to my left at the bottom of the stairs as an older black man at the end of the bench bangs his hand along to the rhythm of the song.
The song he's singing is foreign and familiar at the same time, working its way through my memory, pulling me from the lines in my book, "You should never apologize for being yourself.... People don't change. They try to but they can't. That's speaking from experience." "You're probably right. I'm not going to change." "I hope not." I close the book. I think of my past relationships. I think of Marie. I know this song - By now you should've realized what you got to do / I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now / There are many things I'd like to say to you, but I don't know how / Because maybe, you're gonna be the one that saves me? / And after all, you're my wonderwall -
Love
Thursday, 17 June 2010
Where I Live
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York.
I wake sticky hot in the early afternoon to the sounds of construction next door, Rottweilers barking down below and Chinese workers squabbling as a Puerto Rican woman screams from her window for someone unknown. I take out my earplugs and remove my eye mask as the fan ripples the sheets. I rise, walking naked from the bedroom through the four room rail car apartment, past the windows, heading toward the bathroom at the other end, conscious of possible observers. I make coffee, put on some shorts and a t-shirt and climb the two flights of stairs to the rooftop to look out over the skyline of New York City and pray, quietly watching the planes searching for their way through the blue.
I descend the mustard colored hallway out into the street on my way to work carrying a bag of laundry passing on the stoop the old Puerto Rican matron of our building. "Buenos Dias," I say. "Hola mijo," she says nodding her head and smiling.
Puerto Rican kids on their way home from school cover the stained sidewalks yelling out. Strong smells assault as I walk: arepas, pizza, and Vietnamese food mixed with stale rain water from the night before. A gleaming car with mirrored windows cruises the narrow block, a repetitive synthetic beat rattling its trunk. The old Puerto Rican men in front of the corner store pay no attention. I walk into the din of the laundromat, the Spanish from the television rising above the drone of the machines. "Es caliente. Mucho trabajo," I say picking for words. "Si, si, Corey. si," the older Hispanic woman and her young son say in unison.
I walk to the end of the block past the tattoo parlor, the bike store and the funky hair salon, past the bar and yoga studio to the coffee shop where young hipsters in sunglasses sit smoking in the sun.
I exit the suffocating subway on my way home. It's dark, quiet and peaceful out. The store fronts have all closed their steel eyelids for the night. The neighborhood breathes. A slivered moon sits still above the rustling of the trees. The hipsters are gathering in front of the new Knitting Factory. Bicycles litter the pavement. I push past feeling as though my life may have passed me by as a faint dead smell rises from the street and a pale light rises in the distance from beyond my building.
Love
I wake sticky hot in the early afternoon to the sounds of construction next door, Rottweilers barking down below and Chinese workers squabbling as a Puerto Rican woman screams from her window for someone unknown. I take out my earplugs and remove my eye mask as the fan ripples the sheets. I rise, walking naked from the bedroom through the four room rail car apartment, past the windows, heading toward the bathroom at the other end, conscious of possible observers. I make coffee, put on some shorts and a t-shirt and climb the two flights of stairs to the rooftop to look out over the skyline of New York City and pray, quietly watching the planes searching for their way through the blue.
I descend the mustard colored hallway out into the street on my way to work carrying a bag of laundry passing on the stoop the old Puerto Rican matron of our building. "Buenos Dias," I say. "Hola mijo," she says nodding her head and smiling.
Puerto Rican kids on their way home from school cover the stained sidewalks yelling out. Strong smells assault as I walk: arepas, pizza, and Vietnamese food mixed with stale rain water from the night before. A gleaming car with mirrored windows cruises the narrow block, a repetitive synthetic beat rattling its trunk. The old Puerto Rican men in front of the corner store pay no attention. I walk into the din of the laundromat, the Spanish from the television rising above the drone of the machines. "Es caliente. Mucho trabajo," I say picking for words. "Si, si, Corey. si," the older Hispanic woman and her young son say in unison.
I walk to the end of the block past the tattoo parlor, the bike store and the funky hair salon, past the bar and yoga studio to the coffee shop where young hipsters in sunglasses sit smoking in the sun.
I exit the suffocating subway on my way home. It's dark, quiet and peaceful out. The store fronts have all closed their steel eyelids for the night. The neighborhood breathes. A slivered moon sits still above the rustling of the trees. The hipsters are gathering in front of the new Knitting Factory. Bicycles litter the pavement. I push past feeling as though my life may have passed me by as a faint dead smell rises from the street and a pale light rises in the distance from beyond my building.
Love
Thursday, 3 June 2010
Special
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
I met Lukas Haas tonight at work. I recognized him walking through the lobby. I thought it was him, but wasn't sure. He came over and asked me a question. I asked him if he was Lukas Haas. Yeah, he said. I asked him if he was still in the band BUNNY with Vincent Gallo. He said they hadn't played together in a while, that he wasn't in the band anymore and that he hadn't talked to Vincent Gallo in a bit. I ran out of things to say. I wanted to ask him if Vincent Gallo was really as much of an asshole as his reputation suggests, but figured it was an inappropriate question. A guy I used to work with in Austin said he had a run in with Vincent Gallo at SXSW around the time BUFFALO 66 came out. Turned out that I later had run in with the guy I used to work with, so... Lukas asked me about the hotel. As I talked I kept feeling like there was something I wanted to ask him, or that there was something that I'd forgotten to say, but I wasn't sure what it was. After he left I thought that maybe the reason that everyone comes to NYC is to get the contact high of being in close proximity to fame, glamor and success. Then I thought about a friend of mine who used to live in Brooklyn who had a friend that lived in Vincent Gallo's building who said that he heard Vincent saying all the time - I wrote, directed in starred in that fucking movie! My friend thought it was funny. I thought if I'd written, directed in starred in that movie I'd tell everyone too. Then I started thinking that I'd really like to meet some writers, as I'd have more to talk about, but they're harder to spot in crowds than actors. Coming home on the train I remembered that I'd seen Lukas Haas with Laura Dern in Austin backstage at a Ben Harper show. Then I remembered that a friend of mine who's friends with Lukas's mother said that he had a small production company in Austin and that she thought he might be interested in my first book (that I've now folded into the one I'm working on). I just couldn't put it all together when I was talking to him.
Love
Listenin' to:
I met Lukas Haas tonight at work. I recognized him walking through the lobby. I thought it was him, but wasn't sure. He came over and asked me a question. I asked him if he was Lukas Haas. Yeah, he said. I asked him if he was still in the band BUNNY with Vincent Gallo. He said they hadn't played together in a while, that he wasn't in the band anymore and that he hadn't talked to Vincent Gallo in a bit. I ran out of things to say. I wanted to ask him if Vincent Gallo was really as much of an asshole as his reputation suggests, but figured it was an inappropriate question. A guy I used to work with in Austin said he had a run in with Vincent Gallo at SXSW around the time BUFFALO 66 came out. Turned out that I later had run in with the guy I used to work with, so... Lukas asked me about the hotel. As I talked I kept feeling like there was something I wanted to ask him, or that there was something that I'd forgotten to say, but I wasn't sure what it was. After he left I thought that maybe the reason that everyone comes to NYC is to get the contact high of being in close proximity to fame, glamor and success. Then I thought about a friend of mine who used to live in Brooklyn who had a friend that lived in Vincent Gallo's building who said that he heard Vincent saying all the time - I wrote, directed in starred in that fucking movie! My friend thought it was funny. I thought if I'd written, directed in starred in that movie I'd tell everyone too. Then I started thinking that I'd really like to meet some writers, as I'd have more to talk about, but they're harder to spot in crowds than actors. Coming home on the train I remembered that I'd seen Lukas Haas with Laura Dern in Austin backstage at a Ben Harper show. Then I remembered that a friend of mine who's friends with Lukas's mother said that he had a small production company in Austin and that she thought he might be interested in my first book (that I've now folded into the one I'm working on). I just couldn't put it all together when I was talking to him.
Love
Listenin' to:
Thursday, 20 May 2010
I Live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
I live in brooklyn, new york. I do security at a trendy hip hotel. I read, write, love, complain n watch movies n tv shows on the dvd player n netflix online. I get overpriced haircuts that make me look strange to myself most of the time... haircare is important in nyc. I vacuum our four room railcar on Sundays when I'm off work. I blog n take clothes to be washed at the laundromat down the street where i try to speak spanish with the people who work there. I like clothes n sometimes trade old ones for other ones at buffalo exchange. Sometimes i buy clothes at the salvation army. Sometimes i buy new clothes and shoes online, on the cheap. I exercise in the apartment. Marie likes to watch me. Sometimes we'll have sex afterward. I take vitamins. My back n hip hurt from years of manual labor. Sometimes I think I have demons. I read on the subway. I'm depressive by nature n think i was only really ever happy when i was a kid. I don't have much patience for arbitrary things. I find most things arbitrary. I like cologne. I think i'd like to be a cagefigheter. I like to find things funny because i find most things sad n I don't think i've found enough funny lately n that makes me sad. I like to flirt with girls but i only like to have one girl n don't like to cheat or be cheated on as cheating hurts. I like to think i'm a good guy n usually am but sometimes i'm not. I act like i know everything n think i do but know i don't. And the other day i found out that i can get on the roof of our building n see the sun n the skyline of manhattan n i like livin' in brooklyn a whole lot better now.
Love
Listenin' to this:
I live in brooklyn, new york. I do security at a trendy hip hotel. I read, write, love, complain n watch movies n tv shows on the dvd player n netflix online. I get overpriced haircuts that make me look strange to myself most of the time... haircare is important in nyc. I vacuum our four room railcar on Sundays when I'm off work. I blog n take clothes to be washed at the laundromat down the street where i try to speak spanish with the people who work there. I like clothes n sometimes trade old ones for other ones at buffalo exchange. Sometimes i buy clothes at the salvation army. Sometimes i buy new clothes and shoes online, on the cheap. I exercise in the apartment. Marie likes to watch me. Sometimes we'll have sex afterward. I take vitamins. My back n hip hurt from years of manual labor. Sometimes I think I have demons. I read on the subway. I'm depressive by nature n think i was only really ever happy when i was a kid. I don't have much patience for arbitrary things. I find most things arbitrary. I like cologne. I think i'd like to be a cagefigheter. I like to find things funny because i find most things sad n I don't think i've found enough funny lately n that makes me sad. I like to flirt with girls but i only like to have one girl n don't like to cheat or be cheated on as cheating hurts. I like to think i'm a good guy n usually am but sometimes i'm not. I act like i know everything n think i do but know i don't. And the other day i found out that i can get on the roof of our building n see the sun n the skyline of manhattan n i like livin' in brooklyn a whole lot better now.
Love
Listenin' to this:
Sunday, 25 April 2010
Skinny Jeans
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
Looks like the joke's on me on again... Jesus, when will I learn? If I mock, deride or make fun of something, God seems to find it endlessly amusing for me to walk a mile in the jeans that I find so amusing - pun intended. Skinny jeans in this case. Before I moved up here last year from Austin I was working in a bar where half the IDs that came through were held by skinny jean wearing hipsters from NYC. When I moved to Williamsburg I realized where they were all coming from and worried about snapping their tiny little legs like saplings, or sending them flying off the Williamsburg Bridge whining into the river as I passed them with my virile Texas energy. I almost felt sorry for them they looked so undernourished and pale. Sad pasty faced little victims of some sort of cultural psychic molestation or vampirism. Looks like the vampire is the City. I've been feeling it's impure effects for the last year now, breaking me down slowly, grinding my life force into a pulp, draining my psyche and withering my frame. I could literally see myself changing, morphing into a stoic looking statue with pools of sickly under my eyes as I stared into the mirror thinking, 'Man, I'm lookin' gaunt. My clothes are a little baggy. Maybe I should get something tighter? Huh?' It was a strange thought, scared me a little. Then I understood. The tight fitting clothes are a second skin in a futile defense that attempts to ward off the attacking elements, a futile attempt create a cocoon of safety, security in an insecure environment. It was happening. I was becoming a neurotic city dweller. Then I got a job where skinny jeans were actually issued. And I preferred them. I was becoming a New Yorker. It was official when I got my NY ID in the mail looking like a dazed and sallow numb scare crow as opposed to my passport photo that I got one year ago just after moving up from Texas - right before Marie and I went to Ecuador - where I looked like a slightly menacing formidable man. Welcome to New York City, man...
Love
Looks like the joke's on me on again... Jesus, when will I learn? If I mock, deride or make fun of something, God seems to find it endlessly amusing for me to walk a mile in the jeans that I find so amusing - pun intended. Skinny jeans in this case. Before I moved up here last year from Austin I was working in a bar where half the IDs that came through were held by skinny jean wearing hipsters from NYC. When I moved to Williamsburg I realized where they were all coming from and worried about snapping their tiny little legs like saplings, or sending them flying off the Williamsburg Bridge whining into the river as I passed them with my virile Texas energy. I almost felt sorry for them they looked so undernourished and pale. Sad pasty faced little victims of some sort of cultural psychic molestation or vampirism. Looks like the vampire is the City. I've been feeling it's impure effects for the last year now, breaking me down slowly, grinding my life force into a pulp, draining my psyche and withering my frame. I could literally see myself changing, morphing into a stoic looking statue with pools of sickly under my eyes as I stared into the mirror thinking, 'Man, I'm lookin' gaunt. My clothes are a little baggy. Maybe I should get something tighter? Huh?' It was a strange thought, scared me a little. Then I understood. The tight fitting clothes are a second skin in a futile defense that attempts to ward off the attacking elements, a futile attempt create a cocoon of safety, security in an insecure environment. It was happening. I was becoming a neurotic city dweller. Then I got a job where skinny jeans were actually issued. And I preferred them. I was becoming a New Yorker. It was official when I got my NY ID in the mail looking like a dazed and sallow numb scare crow as opposed to my passport photo that I got one year ago just after moving up from Texas - right before Marie and I went to Ecuador - where I looked like a slightly menacing formidable man. Welcome to New York City, man...
Love
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
DEPRESSION
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
BEEN HAVING STRONG HOMESICKNESS LATELY FOR TEXAS. MADE DINNER THREE NIGHTS IN A ROW OFF OF HOMESICK TEXAN RECIPE BLOG. WANTING TO LIVE IN AN AIRSTREAM TRAILER IN THE WIDE OPEN SPACES OF MARFA, TEXAS AWAY FROM ALL THESE SALLOW PEOPLE. ALWAYS THINKIN' THE GRASS IS GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE. MY PERPETUAL STATE OF BEING. IS IT EVER BETTER ANYWHERE ELSE? DO CERTAIN PEOPLE DO BETTER IN DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTS? OR IS IT ALL IN THE HEAD? FEELIN' DEPRESSED FOR SAME OLD NAGGING REASONS OF WANTING A TRANQUIL AND PEACEFUL, YET INTERESTING LIFE DOING SOMETHING THAT SEEMS MEANINGFUL. ALWAYS SEEMS TO BE A MIRAGE IN A FAR OFF FUTURE. MARIE SAYS ATTITUDE IS THE ONLY THING THAT CAN CHANGE. KNOW SHE'S RIGHT. TRY, BUT DEPRESSION SEEMS TO BE MY DEFAULT. WHY? WORRIED ABOUT RUNNING HER OFF. THINK I SHOULD GO BACK ON MEDICATION. BEEN TWO YEARS NOW. DON'T FEEL MUCH DIFFERENT. DON'T LIKE FEELING THIS DOWN. SOMETHING ABOUT THE CITY SEEMS TO EXACERBATE IT, I THINK? SEEMS TO BE WORSE HERE. A FRACTURED SENSE OF DETACHMENT REFLECTED IN THE COLD HARD STARES OFF THE WAVES OF PASSING PEOPLE SURROUNDED BY LIVING TOMBS OF STONE. FELT FRUSTRATED IN AUSTIN, BUT NOT THE DARK DEPRESSIONS THAT I SEEM TO GET HERE. DIDN'T FEEL THIS WAY IN ECUADOR. DIDN'T FEEL THIS WAY IN PARIS. DON'T SEEM TO BE CUT OUT FOR THIS GROWN UP WORK WORLD OF GOIN' THROUGH THE MOTIONS SHIT. FEEL LIKE MY ENTIRE ADULT LIFE HAS CONSISTED OF ME FLAILING THROUGH, TRYING TO GET A FINGER HOLD, HANGING ON ONLY TO THROW MY HANDS UP IN THE AIR IN DISGUST, LET IT ALL FALL TO PIECES, THEN PICK IT BACK UP AGAIN. GETS TIRESOME. THIS IS MY LATEST INCARNATION - GAUNT DEPRESSED CITY DWELLER. IS THIS THE GOOD LIFE? AM I LIVIN' IT? AM I IN LINE WITH MY DESTINY? MEDICATION? WHATEVER...
LOVE
BEEN HAVING STRONG HOMESICKNESS LATELY FOR TEXAS. MADE DINNER THREE NIGHTS IN A ROW OFF OF HOMESICK TEXAN RECIPE BLOG. WANTING TO LIVE IN AN AIRSTREAM TRAILER IN THE WIDE OPEN SPACES OF MARFA, TEXAS AWAY FROM ALL THESE SALLOW PEOPLE. ALWAYS THINKIN' THE GRASS IS GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE. MY PERPETUAL STATE OF BEING. IS IT EVER BETTER ANYWHERE ELSE? DO CERTAIN PEOPLE DO BETTER IN DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTS? OR IS IT ALL IN THE HEAD? FEELIN' DEPRESSED FOR SAME OLD NAGGING REASONS OF WANTING A TRANQUIL AND PEACEFUL, YET INTERESTING LIFE DOING SOMETHING THAT SEEMS MEANINGFUL. ALWAYS SEEMS TO BE A MIRAGE IN A FAR OFF FUTURE. MARIE SAYS ATTITUDE IS THE ONLY THING THAT CAN CHANGE. KNOW SHE'S RIGHT. TRY, BUT DEPRESSION SEEMS TO BE MY DEFAULT. WHY? WORRIED ABOUT RUNNING HER OFF. THINK I SHOULD GO BACK ON MEDICATION. BEEN TWO YEARS NOW. DON'T FEEL MUCH DIFFERENT. DON'T LIKE FEELING THIS DOWN. SOMETHING ABOUT THE CITY SEEMS TO EXACERBATE IT, I THINK? SEEMS TO BE WORSE HERE. A FRACTURED SENSE OF DETACHMENT REFLECTED IN THE COLD HARD STARES OFF THE WAVES OF PASSING PEOPLE SURROUNDED BY LIVING TOMBS OF STONE. FELT FRUSTRATED IN AUSTIN, BUT NOT THE DARK DEPRESSIONS THAT I SEEM TO GET HERE. DIDN'T FEEL THIS WAY IN ECUADOR. DIDN'T FEEL THIS WAY IN PARIS. DON'T SEEM TO BE CUT OUT FOR THIS GROWN UP WORK WORLD OF GOIN' THROUGH THE MOTIONS SHIT. FEEL LIKE MY ENTIRE ADULT LIFE HAS CONSISTED OF ME FLAILING THROUGH, TRYING TO GET A FINGER HOLD, HANGING ON ONLY TO THROW MY HANDS UP IN THE AIR IN DISGUST, LET IT ALL FALL TO PIECES, THEN PICK IT BACK UP AGAIN. GETS TIRESOME. THIS IS MY LATEST INCARNATION - GAUNT DEPRESSED CITY DWELLER. IS THIS THE GOOD LIFE? AM I LIVIN' IT? AM I IN LINE WITH MY DESTINY? MEDICATION? WHATEVER...
LOVE
Monday, 12 April 2010
New York City Blues
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
Back in New York City and the Rat Race, feeling trapped, looking for a way out. School seems the only hope for meaningful change. Got a new job doing security. Steady paycheck. Decent, but late hours. May be manageable with school.
Marie's gone back to the event production thing. She comes home beat, a fatigued distance filling her eyes as she fades restlessly into sleep, the alarm clock urgently chasing her back out of the sheets.
She wakes me to watch her dress before she leaves so as not to go unseen again throughout her day.
We pass each other like ghosts in the waiting rooms of our lives.
I dress and leave. New Yorkers look like shadows searching for themselves in the subways and the streets as the darkness settles in.
At work the faces swirl, endlessly around me, lost in a sea of churning people.
Ennui settles in.
Keep thoughts on the horizon.
Write.
Deep burning red sunsets over great expanses of Texas sage and pine.
Love
Listenin' to:
Back in New York City and the Rat Race, feeling trapped, looking for a way out. School seems the only hope for meaningful change. Got a new job doing security. Steady paycheck. Decent, but late hours. May be manageable with school.
Marie's gone back to the event production thing. She comes home beat, a fatigued distance filling her eyes as she fades restlessly into sleep, the alarm clock urgently chasing her back out of the sheets.
She wakes me to watch her dress before she leaves so as not to go unseen again throughout her day.
We pass each other like ghosts in the waiting rooms of our lives.
I dress and leave. New Yorkers look like shadows searching for themselves in the subways and the streets as the darkness settles in.
At work the faces swirl, endlessly around me, lost in a sea of churning people.
Ennui settles in.
Keep thoughts on the horizon.
Write.
Deep burning red sunsets over great expanses of Texas sage and pine.
Love
Listenin' to:
Saturday, 30 May 2009
Sex Face
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
Last night I got my feelings hurt because Marie made fun of my sex face. I didn't even know that I had a sex face. Not THE sex face - we all know we have an OH! face. What I didn't know (until last night) was that I also have an I WANT SEX FACE. And when Marie mirrored this face to me it looked to me as though my I WANT SEX FACE makes me look like a lazy eyed drooling retard - SEXY! And I got bent out of shape and felt shitty about myself, like a kid who'd just been made fun of. I guess my point is, is that I seem to get bent out of shape real easy. This I WANT SEX FACE thing is just a drop in the bucket as far as me getting hurt or pissed off goes. I mean, last week Marie and me were "officially" kuput for some reason or other that completely escapes me at the moment. We were so much done with each other that I did the old drink myself under the table number with my buddies Tugboat and Jake at O'hanilan's on 14th and 1st Ave last week where Tugboat works, the whole time yelling out absurd quotes from the movie IDIOCRACY to the bartender (who's also a fan of the movie - GO WATCH IT NOW!) who responded by feeding me enough drinks to forget where I lived (Jake was good enough to escort me home) and make me forget why I wanted to get that fucked up in the first place - which was exactly the point of the exercise (one gold star for me; gold star taken away for not being able to get out of bed the next day). And so I guess my other point is that it's become obvious to me that my faults are numerous (hey I'm just tryin' to get by here man, and love someone in the process - which is apparently a lot fuckin' harder than it sounds). Let me just relate this little beauty that recently surfaced in order to help you (my dear reader) understand that I'm not completely alone in this thing as far as diggin' my dick in the dirt is concerned. My second ex-wife called me out of the blue about exactly a week ago at 2:30 in the morning to tell me that she was sorry and hoped that I was doing okay. I told her no grudges. I told her that I'd written a book. She told me to send it to her. A day or two later I text her to get her email address again, only someone responded asking me who I was and what book I was talking about. I told that person I was looking for B****y. He said that he was her husband. I said that I was her ex-husband and I didn't hear from him again. Last night I got another call from B****y to tell me not to ever call her husbands number, or hers for that matter. Wow. Wasn't plannin' on it anyhow. Asa buddy, I wish you were still around to do that tribute album that you wanted to do for her: BRANDINE YOU BITCHWHORE! That woulda been the shit. Only you could've captured the utter ridiculousness of that whole mess. Whatever... So I feel like this blog and my life are simply begging the question at this point: what the fuck is wrong with me? And the only response that I've got is that my life somewhere along the way went severely off course...
Love
Last night I got my feelings hurt because Marie made fun of my sex face. I didn't even know that I had a sex face. Not THE sex face - we all know we have an OH! face. What I didn't know (until last night) was that I also have an I WANT SEX FACE. And when Marie mirrored this face to me it looked to me as though my I WANT SEX FACE makes me look like a lazy eyed drooling retard - SEXY! And I got bent out of shape and felt shitty about myself, like a kid who'd just been made fun of. I guess my point is, is that I seem to get bent out of shape real easy. This I WANT SEX FACE thing is just a drop in the bucket as far as me getting hurt or pissed off goes. I mean, last week Marie and me were "officially" kuput for some reason or other that completely escapes me at the moment. We were so much done with each other that I did the old drink myself under the table number with my buddies Tugboat and Jake at O'hanilan's on 14th and 1st Ave last week where Tugboat works, the whole time yelling out absurd quotes from the movie IDIOCRACY to the bartender (who's also a fan of the movie - GO WATCH IT NOW!) who responded by feeding me enough drinks to forget where I lived (Jake was good enough to escort me home) and make me forget why I wanted to get that fucked up in the first place - which was exactly the point of the exercise (one gold star for me; gold star taken away for not being able to get out of bed the next day). And so I guess my other point is that it's become obvious to me that my faults are numerous (hey I'm just tryin' to get by here man, and love someone in the process - which is apparently a lot fuckin' harder than it sounds). Let me just relate this little beauty that recently surfaced in order to help you (my dear reader) understand that I'm not completely alone in this thing as far as diggin' my dick in the dirt is concerned. My second ex-wife called me out of the blue about exactly a week ago at 2:30 in the morning to tell me that she was sorry and hoped that I was doing okay. I told her no grudges. I told her that I'd written a book. She told me to send it to her. A day or two later I text her to get her email address again, only someone responded asking me who I was and what book I was talking about. I told that person I was looking for B****y. He said that he was her husband. I said that I was her ex-husband and I didn't hear from him again. Last night I got another call from B****y to tell me not to ever call her husbands number, or hers for that matter. Wow. Wasn't plannin' on it anyhow. Asa buddy, I wish you were still around to do that tribute album that you wanted to do for her: BRANDINE YOU BITCHWHORE! That woulda been the shit. Only you could've captured the utter ridiculousness of that whole mess. Whatever... So I feel like this blog and my life are simply begging the question at this point: what the fuck is wrong with me? And the only response that I've got is that my life somewhere along the way went severely off course...
Love
Sunday, 17 May 2009
Round And Round I Go, When I Stop, Nobody Knows
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
I don't know where to start on this one, mainly because I don't really want to write it in the first place. But it seems that I've got to do a lot of things in this life that I really don't want to, like deal with my mind and some behavior patterns that are problematic, dysfunctional, and to me, sometimes just plain sad. As an example, what happened to me this week.
Looking back it all started off fairly innocuously. Marie and I were driving back from the beach - Long Beach - after visiting a friend of hers for the day. We'd gotten lost for a few hours and both our nerves were slightly fried by the time we'd made it to our neighborhood where we were supposed to drop a key to the woman's husband, who we'd been visiting that afternoon. He'd been waiting for us to arrive over our lost hours, sitting in a coffee shop directing us back towards our neighborhood off and on via his cell phone. When we arrived in the neighborhood we were driving around searching for the restaurant where he'd gone to from the coffee shop when I asked Marie why she just didn't call the guy and ask him where the hell it was she snapped, lost it and proceeded to tell me off. We were sitting at a stop light and I responded by putting the van into park - I was driving - telling her that I didn't need to deal with her shit and stepped out of the van at the intersection. I was done with the night. I didn't need that shit. I was slightly stunned as to what I'd just done and walked around the neighborhood in a daze. I didn't want to go back home and I walked to a bar around the corner from our apartment where I had a beer and a shot and thought about what'd just happened, slightly shocked by it all.
When we each got home we apologized. And I hoped it was over. It wasn't. She casually told me that although her response to my question was out of line it didn't equate to me walking out of a van that I was driving in the middle of traffic. Right. Problem was that I didn't remember having a decision. I equated my response to the experience of being in a fight. It was similar to me, like being hit by someone, there's not really a conscious thought about hitting back. Time seems to freeze. There's no sound. Then reaction. Base reaction. Fight or flight. But rather than fight with Marie, I fled. I literally felt like I'd been sucker punched by her response to me. I felt like I'd been hit in face. And I wanted to get as far away from her as possible.
The next day was a Sunday. I felt an emotional hangover immediately when I awoke. All night I'd been thinking back over my previous two relationships, my marriages, and I saw a pattern: nearly every time there was a blowout I'd left the situation. I pulled away. Like a wounded dog I'd skulk away to lick my wounds. In the beginning, with my first wife I seemed to stay in there until I saw how explosive she could become - yelling, screaming, hitting, and once even spitting in my face. And things finally got to the point that one day I hit back. After that I got away.
And that Sunday as I thought back over my relationships and looked back over the previous months that Marie and I'd been together it began to look like one big broken record playing the same song over and over again - We fight. I leave. I come back again. We fight. I leave. We do it all over again. Our relationship started taking on an eerie de-ja-vu as I began to see the conclusion that my past relationships told me was on the not to distant horizon: one of us would get tired of the others response and we'd split. And I decided that it was better sooner than later. So I decided to leave.
It felt to me like we were at an impasse on a road to nowhere. I didn't see the point. It all felt futile. It seemed to me that I was simply on a relationship merry go round, recreating the same experience over and over again. I felt like I was on a crazy ride, and I wanted off. She told me that I had to find a better way of responding. I told her that she did too. She told me to snap out of my funk, and I couldn't seem to. The thought that I was repeating the same behavior - the walking away - yet again was defeating.
And I decided that I needed to go. I told her that night before bed as she told me that she couldn't live with the air of tension that was between us. I told her that I couldn't either and that I was leaving. She slept on the couch.
In the morning when I woke up I felt like I needed to be gone before she got home as I didn't want any more confrontation or blowups. I packed my things, found the time of the bus departure and text her that I was going, and that I'd be gone before she got home. As I walked out the door she called and said that I was making a mistake, that two weeks later I'd be on my way back to New York - I could picture it; it was my pattern. She told me to wait that she was coming home soon and we'd talk about it. I put my bags in the apartment, took one of the pain pills that she had from Thailand in the cabinet. I was ball of nerves. My head was swirling. My hands were sweating. My stomach was in knots. And I went to the bar around the corner to wait for her. She took a lot longer than I thought, and the bar tender was giving me free drinks. I hadn't eaten all day, and by the time I met her at the restaurant across the street I was too drunk to talk about the things that needed to be talked about. She was upset and I was incapable of handling it all. I needed to go. I kissed her goodbye, went to the apartment to get my things and called a cab. We passed each other in the doorway as I left without saying a word.
In the cab the alcohol and the confusion started to hit me. I didn't know what I was doing anymore. And suddenly everyone was calling my phone: her best friend; her best friend's husband; my mother. I picked up my mom's call. She said that Marie had called her. I was surprised. I didn't know that Marie had her number. My mom asked what I was doing. I told her that I didn't know anymore. She told me that there was nothing for me to go back to in Texas. I knew she was right. She told me to think about it and call her back. When I picked up Marie's friend's call as Manhattan blew by my me in a dark landscape of noise, cabs and people, she asked me the same thing, "What are you doing?" And I gave her the same response I'd given my mother and the phone and the connection died out.
In the desperation soaked Port Authority bus terminal I was hit by a panoramic flood of alcohol soaked memory - me sitting with my bags packed, running on broke, a pack of cigarettes in my front pocket, running emotionally on empty, in infinite bus stations, train stations and rest stops across the span of my last 15 years or so. And as I sat on the dirty floor surrounded by and propped up by my belongings I began to cry. And I realized how tired of it all I was. I was tired of feeling like I was lost. I was tired of feeling like I didn't have anywhere to go. I was tired of feeling like I couldn't hold a relationship together. I was tired of feeling like I was victim of my insanity. I was tired of feeling like I was crazy. And between phone calls to my friend in Oregon and my mom, as my head swirled and I tried to figure out what was happening to me, my old friend suicide started to tell me that it was time to end this farce of a life. I was tired of being of fuck up. I was tired of making my mom cry. I was tired of hurting inside.
I told my friend from Oregon on the phone about wanting to die as I sat outside the Port Authority on the cold sidewalk as the people passed by glaring out of the corners of their eyes as I crouched down on the concrete smoking, trying not to shake. He told me that I was I drunk, wasn't thinking clearly and that I shouldn't get on the bus. He told me I needed to sleep. He told me that I needed to go back to Marie. He asked me if I wanted him to call her for me. I hung up the phone and text him her number. He called me back and told me to go.
I got in a cab that took me back to Marie, fading in and out of the past and the present, fear and love, consciousness and surreality as the Manhattan skyline faded ominously behind me as I the crossed the Williamsburg Bridge.
When I got to Marie's her and her friend were sitting in the apartment. Marie sat somber looking, said that she needed some help and her friend had come over. Her friend asked me what was going on, and as I tried to break it all down to her and Marie her friend patted me on the shoulder and said, "Okay." That was enough for the night. I told them that if I were going to make it, I needed help. Her friend wrote down the number of her therapist and went home. Marie and I went to bed.
And in the morning I called the number.
I need help.
Love
I don't know where to start on this one, mainly because I don't really want to write it in the first place. But it seems that I've got to do a lot of things in this life that I really don't want to, like deal with my mind and some behavior patterns that are problematic, dysfunctional, and to me, sometimes just plain sad. As an example, what happened to me this week.
Looking back it all started off fairly innocuously. Marie and I were driving back from the beach - Long Beach - after visiting a friend of hers for the day. We'd gotten lost for a few hours and both our nerves were slightly fried by the time we'd made it to our neighborhood where we were supposed to drop a key to the woman's husband, who we'd been visiting that afternoon. He'd been waiting for us to arrive over our lost hours, sitting in a coffee shop directing us back towards our neighborhood off and on via his cell phone. When we arrived in the neighborhood we were driving around searching for the restaurant where he'd gone to from the coffee shop when I asked Marie why she just didn't call the guy and ask him where the hell it was she snapped, lost it and proceeded to tell me off. We were sitting at a stop light and I responded by putting the van into park - I was driving - telling her that I didn't need to deal with her shit and stepped out of the van at the intersection. I was done with the night. I didn't need that shit. I was slightly stunned as to what I'd just done and walked around the neighborhood in a daze. I didn't want to go back home and I walked to a bar around the corner from our apartment where I had a beer and a shot and thought about what'd just happened, slightly shocked by it all.
When we each got home we apologized. And I hoped it was over. It wasn't. She casually told me that although her response to my question was out of line it didn't equate to me walking out of a van that I was driving in the middle of traffic. Right. Problem was that I didn't remember having a decision. I equated my response to the experience of being in a fight. It was similar to me, like being hit by someone, there's not really a conscious thought about hitting back. Time seems to freeze. There's no sound. Then reaction. Base reaction. Fight or flight. But rather than fight with Marie, I fled. I literally felt like I'd been sucker punched by her response to me. I felt like I'd been hit in face. And I wanted to get as far away from her as possible.
The next day was a Sunday. I felt an emotional hangover immediately when I awoke. All night I'd been thinking back over my previous two relationships, my marriages, and I saw a pattern: nearly every time there was a blowout I'd left the situation. I pulled away. Like a wounded dog I'd skulk away to lick my wounds. In the beginning, with my first wife I seemed to stay in there until I saw how explosive she could become - yelling, screaming, hitting, and once even spitting in my face. And things finally got to the point that one day I hit back. After that I got away.
And that Sunday as I thought back over my relationships and looked back over the previous months that Marie and I'd been together it began to look like one big broken record playing the same song over and over again - We fight. I leave. I come back again. We fight. I leave. We do it all over again. Our relationship started taking on an eerie de-ja-vu as I began to see the conclusion that my past relationships told me was on the not to distant horizon: one of us would get tired of the others response and we'd split. And I decided that it was better sooner than later. So I decided to leave.
It felt to me like we were at an impasse on a road to nowhere. I didn't see the point. It all felt futile. It seemed to me that I was simply on a relationship merry go round, recreating the same experience over and over again. I felt like I was on a crazy ride, and I wanted off. She told me that I had to find a better way of responding. I told her that she did too. She told me to snap out of my funk, and I couldn't seem to. The thought that I was repeating the same behavior - the walking away - yet again was defeating.
And I decided that I needed to go. I told her that night before bed as she told me that she couldn't live with the air of tension that was between us. I told her that I couldn't either and that I was leaving. She slept on the couch.
In the morning when I woke up I felt like I needed to be gone before she got home as I didn't want any more confrontation or blowups. I packed my things, found the time of the bus departure and text her that I was going, and that I'd be gone before she got home. As I walked out the door she called and said that I was making a mistake, that two weeks later I'd be on my way back to New York - I could picture it; it was my pattern. She told me to wait that she was coming home soon and we'd talk about it. I put my bags in the apartment, took one of the pain pills that she had from Thailand in the cabinet. I was ball of nerves. My head was swirling. My hands were sweating. My stomach was in knots. And I went to the bar around the corner to wait for her. She took a lot longer than I thought, and the bar tender was giving me free drinks. I hadn't eaten all day, and by the time I met her at the restaurant across the street I was too drunk to talk about the things that needed to be talked about. She was upset and I was incapable of handling it all. I needed to go. I kissed her goodbye, went to the apartment to get my things and called a cab. We passed each other in the doorway as I left without saying a word.
In the cab the alcohol and the confusion started to hit me. I didn't know what I was doing anymore. And suddenly everyone was calling my phone: her best friend; her best friend's husband; my mother. I picked up my mom's call. She said that Marie had called her. I was surprised. I didn't know that Marie had her number. My mom asked what I was doing. I told her that I didn't know anymore. She told me that there was nothing for me to go back to in Texas. I knew she was right. She told me to think about it and call her back. When I picked up Marie's friend's call as Manhattan blew by my me in a dark landscape of noise, cabs and people, she asked me the same thing, "What are you doing?" And I gave her the same response I'd given my mother and the phone and the connection died out.
In the desperation soaked Port Authority bus terminal I was hit by a panoramic flood of alcohol soaked memory - me sitting with my bags packed, running on broke, a pack of cigarettes in my front pocket, running emotionally on empty, in infinite bus stations, train stations and rest stops across the span of my last 15 years or so. And as I sat on the dirty floor surrounded by and propped up by my belongings I began to cry. And I realized how tired of it all I was. I was tired of feeling like I was lost. I was tired of feeling like I didn't have anywhere to go. I was tired of feeling like I couldn't hold a relationship together. I was tired of feeling like I was victim of my insanity. I was tired of feeling like I was crazy. And between phone calls to my friend in Oregon and my mom, as my head swirled and I tried to figure out what was happening to me, my old friend suicide started to tell me that it was time to end this farce of a life. I was tired of being of fuck up. I was tired of making my mom cry. I was tired of hurting inside.
I told my friend from Oregon on the phone about wanting to die as I sat outside the Port Authority on the cold sidewalk as the people passed by glaring out of the corners of their eyes as I crouched down on the concrete smoking, trying not to shake. He told me that I was I drunk, wasn't thinking clearly and that I shouldn't get on the bus. He told me I needed to sleep. He told me that I needed to go back to Marie. He asked me if I wanted him to call her for me. I hung up the phone and text him her number. He called me back and told me to go.
I got in a cab that took me back to Marie, fading in and out of the past and the present, fear and love, consciousness and surreality as the Manhattan skyline faded ominously behind me as I the crossed the Williamsburg Bridge.
When I got to Marie's her and her friend were sitting in the apartment. Marie sat somber looking, said that she needed some help and her friend had come over. Her friend asked me what was going on, and as I tried to break it all down to her and Marie her friend patted me on the shoulder and said, "Okay." That was enough for the night. I told them that if I were going to make it, I needed help. Her friend wrote down the number of her therapist and went home. Marie and I went to bed.
And in the morning I called the number.
I need help.
Love
Monday, 4 May 2009
Livin' In New York Is A Lot Of Work, Man. Even When You're Not Workin'
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
I woke up late today, about noon. I kept on thinking that I would just wake up when my body wasn't sore anymore. If I'd waited for that I wouldn't have gotten up. So when Marie text me from work I finally got up as I had to get the day going. I had a lot to do -
This (being tired) all started last week on Tue when I went to work for a flower event company that one of Marie's friends works for. The work day wasn't that difficult or that long - we worked from 9:30 to 5:30. And the event wasn't that stressful. But it was a start to long and stressful that was to come.
After the event I met up with Marie who was just getting out of the office and we went to buy me some clothes at a thrift store for a surprise birthday party that night for the woman (Marc Chagall's granddaughter) who owned the company, Fleurs Bella, that I'd worked for that day. I couldn't go to the party in my work clothes, and Marie and I didn't want to go all the way back to Brooklyn (we were in Manhattan, as was the party) as we knew that if we got home we would stay there. And Marie felt it was important to show up at the party as she does work sometimes for the company too.
We got the clothes after walking to two different thrift stores and trying on a hundred different items, and got to the party late and missed the surprise. Around midnight I asked Marie, then pleaded with her (as she was just getting into things) if we could go home as we both had to work for her event company in the morning, at 9:30am at their warehouse in Jersey City, which meant that we'd have to get up at 7:00am to take the subway then the Path train in order to make it on time. And neither me nor Marie are morning people. We enjoy getting up early about as much as I imagine we'd each enjoy being sprayed by skunks and porcupines simultaneously. So I got her out of the party and we made it home and made it to work on time the next day. We cut out of work a little early because we had tickets that Marie's friend Yoko (who works at Fleurs Bella) had put on will call to BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music), courtesy of Fleurs Bella as they do all the events at BAM, and would be doing the event that night which was an abstract dance homage to the abstract painter Raushenburg. Anyway, Marie and I raced to BAM - literally running down the street from the subway and into the building - picking up our tickets and walking into the grand hall just before the doors closed. The seats were on the fourth row amidst a somewhat stuffy and older crowd - the woman next to me put her hand on her leg between mine and hers and slightly pushed mine away at the start of the show. I was packed in like a sardine, and once the performance started I thought that I might fall asleep and wished that I had swine flu so that I could go home and have a beer and go to bed. At one point I thought I might be sick as something was building in my gut - I hoped that it was Ebola to give me a reason to go home. The whole thing was a little too abstract. At the intermission I tried to get Marie and her friend Molly who'd also been given a ticket to just go across the street with me to get a beer and call it a night as the line for a drink in the BAM lobby was a mile long and I was starting to fade. But Marie wanted to hang in there as a show of appreciation to her friend who'd gotten us the tickets. By the time her and Molly'd gotten our drinks the lights were flashing indicating that the performance was about to start up again and I chugged my beer in one gulp to the awe of one of the black women who was an usher, telling her that you had to be drunk to watch the performance, to which she nearly buckled over laughing, saying "I know that's right". After the performance we hung around for a little bit at the after party that Marie's friend'd helped set up the flowers for and me and Molly raided the cheese tray, and downed a couple of drinks, then called it a night as I dragged Marie out of the party - her grumbling the whole time as I hadn't let her finish her drink - as I had to be up at four the next morning to make it to the warehouse in Jersey City to drive the 24' Penske truck to the swanky hip hotel in Manhattan in the meat packing district, The Standard, where Marie's company was setting up for an event the next day.
I was the truck driver for the event which meant that I would also be helping to facilitate the load in and direct the Labor Ready crew that the company hires as manpower and mules.
Me and the supervisor and another one of our guys took the '24 Penske and '14 box truck to the city at around 6am.
The Labor Ready crew met me and the supervisor, the 24' Penske truck, a 14' box truck and our other guy at the job site at 7:00am. The Labor Ready crew consisted of five younger black guys. It was our job to get the two trucks that were stuffed to the gills wit furniture, bars, chandeliers, etc... into the event space on the third and fourth floors of the hotel and set up by the time the party (which was a birthday party for a famous photographer) happened that night 9:30pm. No problem, right? Wrong. Always a problem. For one, the hallway that we had to load into that lead to the freight elevator was narrow, being painted, being used by the construction workers who were working on the top floors of the hotel, and was also being used by the other crews that were doing the event - the lighting crew and the party rental crew. It was a cluster fuck. On top of that, the construction crew, who was union, had control of the freight elevator as per their contract with the hotel, or some union type shit like that. What I'm gettin' at is that the elevator was a giant fucking headache. The union construction guys had all the floors locked out of use from the elevator that they weren't using, which meant that the only way we could access the floors that we wanted to go to was by being in the elevator and sending it to the third or fourth floor, but only after the union guys had gone to their floors. And if the union guys didn't want our stuff in the elevator on a certain trip, we couldn't use it - they had priority. On top of that once we finished unloading the two trucks I would have to take the 14' box truck back to the warehouse in Jersey City to pick up all of Marie's flowers, pots and vases, which there was a lot of. And the Labor guys are only making minimum wage and aren't motivated by that money to go above and beyond the call of duty - which I understood from my Labor ready stint a few weeks before. So I knew that it would be a bit of a challenge to make it all happen on time. But that's the nature of the job. The supervisor for the event (a good friend of Marie's) set up shop in the main room where the event would be held and began directing traffic as the stuff started to slowly make it's way up the elevator. He kept a couple of Labor Ready guys up there with him and had them unpack and place all the stuff as I tried to get all the stuff off the trucks, through the line of people and gear that ran down the freight hallway and out the door onto the sidewalk where we were beginning to stage all of our stuff that came off the trucks, all the while circumnavigating the hotel staff who used the door and hallway that we were loading through, including the kitchen staff whose waiters were carrying food in and out and through the hall all day long. It was a logistical nightmare. But we got all the shit off the trucks and up to the event floors.
Then I went to Jersey City with the 14' box truck and a small Labor Ready guy who was worth a shit - useless - that the supervisor wanted me to sign out and let go once the truck was packed, which I gladly did. He was just in the way. Once we got all of Marie's stuff loaded up and strapped onto the truck - barely - she drove the company work van to the job site and I took the box truck. When we got to the event it was around 3:30pm and things were starting to get hectic.
People and shit were everywhere.
The Labor Ready guys were starting to snap, event staff tensions were running high, and we were all running around like fucking chickens with our fucking heads cut off trying not to kill one another as the event coordinators changed last minute details and sent everyone into a tissy. It was controlled chaos for sure. But we did it.
At 9:30 when the event was sufficiently put together the supervisor and I drove the Labor Ready guys back to Jersey in the work van to drop them off at the Labor Ready office. From there the supervisor and I went to the warehouse to pick up a few things that I'd need for the strike (the cleanup) in the morning.
At 10:30pm I was done and on my way back to the city to find Marie who'd gone to dinner with Yoko who'd been doing the flowers with her. I thought they'd gone somewhere near the hotel, but had in fact gone to a place off of 3rd Ave away from the meat packing district. I got lost, then found parking in the madness of a Thursday night in full swing. By 11:30 I was having dinner with the two. By the time we got home it was about 1:00am. I made it to bed by 1:30am and was shocked when my alarm went off at 4:00am. I nearly didn't get out of the the shower, but the phone rang looking for me and I was out the door by 5:30 and on my way to the job site.
My main Labor Ready guy who I'd relied on to help me direct and corral the other Labor Ready guys the day before was waiting for me in the Penske truck when I showed up at 6:00am despite having had worked for nearly 29hrs straight the days before, as he had come from another job directly before coming to work for us. The night before when we'd dropped him off at the Labor Ready office he said that he'd be there the next morning as he said he needed to make rent. I didn't quite believe him as his eyes were so blood shot tired that they looked like they were on fire. But he was there at six in the morning in the Penske truck. At first I thought that a homeless guy had spent the night in the truck as all I could see where his dreadlocks and I was pissed for having left the door unlocked, and then relieved to see that it was my main man when he popped the door for me.
Just then the other Labor Ready guys showed up, and four others from Marie's event company showed up and we got things going. Once I filled up the 14' box truck, despite the union construction guys best attempts to thwart my every freight elevator ride, I took the box truck back to Jersey where me and two Labor guys unloaded it into the warehouse then drove back to the event site along with the supervisor from the day before, who we picked up at his place in Jersey City, as he wanted to see the progress and take a couple of our guys to get some materials for the next event coming up a few days later.
When we got to the site at 10:30am progress was looking slow and grim as most of the stuff was still up on the 3rd and 4th floors and had to be out by noon, per contract, or the hotel would charge the company. So the supervisor lit a fire up everyone's asses and I went into crazy overdrive mode and we got the shit out and spent the rest of the day until 6:00pm unloading the stuff and putting it away in the warehouse. Then we dropped off the trucks, and by 7:00pm I was on my way to Brooklyn with the van (that Marie and I would be needing the next day to pick up stuff in the city for the next event) where Marie was waiting for me to pick her up to go out and get some drinks. By 10:30pm I was good and drunk and we were on our way to see a friend of mine who was up from Austin who was DJing around the corner from our apartment. By 1:00am I was falling asleep in a booth, then dragging Marie home where I passed out cold with the cheese that I'd found on the way in the apartment hanging half way out of my mouth.
The next day we went to pick up the stuff in Manhattan that we needed for the next event, then went to get one of the girls from the office, then went to get Marie's friend Yoko. We all went to lunch at the Turkish guy's restaurant (who I'd met Upstate with Marc the week before when Marc and I went over to his place for a bbq and played pool) in SOHO. My Turkish friend wasn't in, then went to see Jim Jarmusch's new movie The Limits of Control over at the Angelika on Houston, except for Yoko who cut out early to get some sleep.
The next day Marie made brunch. A couple of her friend's showed up as did a couple of mine. We cleaned up then spent the day reading The New York Times in bed and I napped. We tried to make it to see a guy's band that I'd met on the job site who'd come into help us out when things were getting hectic. His band was playing just around the corner, and I tried to go, I really did. I got my clothes on and everything. But when it came down to it me and Marie were both too tired to go and we got into bed and watched a movie then fell asleep.
- Once I finally, reluctantly got my ass outta bed at noon I cleaned the apartment, got the laundry together, dropped the laundry at the laundry mat for a wash and fold. I didn't have the energy to do it myself - $20 compared to $10 if do it myself, 'whatever', I thought. They asked if tomorrow was okay for pickup but I convinced them that I needed to have it ready tonight - after ten o' clock they said - as me and Marie are completely out of clean clothes. Then I went to the bank and deposited a check, withdrew as much as I could to put towards rent, then went to the bank of the guy who Marie is subleasing our place from, deposited a check that Marie'd left me on my computer this morning and deposited my cash and her check. I kept twenty bucks aside so that I could Fedex a query letter to my first prospective agent, went to the internet cafe and printed out my query on a piece of ivory paper that I bought from the guy behind the counter for a clean 20 cents, then tucked up under my shirt as it was raining out, and walked carefully around the corner to the Fedex place where I had the query sent 2day delivery with a self addressed stamped envelope. Afterward I got a coffee and smoked a cigarette as my heart was pounding so hard at the prospect of an actual agent reading the query letter that'd been driving me crazy for months, that I thought that I might pass out.
I walked home through the rain smoking and drinking my coffee with all the 'what if' scenarios about the query letter and the book running through my head making me anxious as hell and worried that maybe I should've waited longer and edited the damn thing more, but I was just getting too anxious, and more work was coming up, in a seemingly endless stream until the day I died piling up on the horizon. Plus me and Marie had recently started losing hope about the prospect of either of us ever getting published, and I felt like I had to do something just to keep the hope alive.
Love
I woke up late today, about noon. I kept on thinking that I would just wake up when my body wasn't sore anymore. If I'd waited for that I wouldn't have gotten up. So when Marie text me from work I finally got up as I had to get the day going. I had a lot to do -
This (being tired) all started last week on Tue when I went to work for a flower event company that one of Marie's friends works for. The work day wasn't that difficult or that long - we worked from 9:30 to 5:30. And the event wasn't that stressful. But it was a start to long and stressful that was to come.
After the event I met up with Marie who was just getting out of the office and we went to buy me some clothes at a thrift store for a surprise birthday party that night for the woman (Marc Chagall's granddaughter) who owned the company, Fleurs Bella, that I'd worked for that day. I couldn't go to the party in my work clothes, and Marie and I didn't want to go all the way back to Brooklyn (we were in Manhattan, as was the party) as we knew that if we got home we would stay there. And Marie felt it was important to show up at the party as she does work sometimes for the company too.
We got the clothes after walking to two different thrift stores and trying on a hundred different items, and got to the party late and missed the surprise. Around midnight I asked Marie, then pleaded with her (as she was just getting into things) if we could go home as we both had to work for her event company in the morning, at 9:30am at their warehouse in Jersey City, which meant that we'd have to get up at 7:00am to take the subway then the Path train in order to make it on time. And neither me nor Marie are morning people. We enjoy getting up early about as much as I imagine we'd each enjoy being sprayed by skunks and porcupines simultaneously. So I got her out of the party and we made it home and made it to work on time the next day. We cut out of work a little early because we had tickets that Marie's friend Yoko (who works at Fleurs Bella) had put on will call to BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music), courtesy of Fleurs Bella as they do all the events at BAM, and would be doing the event that night which was an abstract dance homage to the abstract painter Raushenburg. Anyway, Marie and I raced to BAM - literally running down the street from the subway and into the building - picking up our tickets and walking into the grand hall just before the doors closed. The seats were on the fourth row amidst a somewhat stuffy and older crowd - the woman next to me put her hand on her leg between mine and hers and slightly pushed mine away at the start of the show. I was packed in like a sardine, and once the performance started I thought that I might fall asleep and wished that I had swine flu so that I could go home and have a beer and go to bed. At one point I thought I might be sick as something was building in my gut - I hoped that it was Ebola to give me a reason to go home. The whole thing was a little too abstract. At the intermission I tried to get Marie and her friend Molly who'd also been given a ticket to just go across the street with me to get a beer and call it a night as the line for a drink in the BAM lobby was a mile long and I was starting to fade. But Marie wanted to hang in there as a show of appreciation to her friend who'd gotten us the tickets. By the time her and Molly'd gotten our drinks the lights were flashing indicating that the performance was about to start up again and I chugged my beer in one gulp to the awe of one of the black women who was an usher, telling her that you had to be drunk to watch the performance, to which she nearly buckled over laughing, saying "I know that's right". After the performance we hung around for a little bit at the after party that Marie's friend'd helped set up the flowers for and me and Molly raided the cheese tray, and downed a couple of drinks, then called it a night as I dragged Marie out of the party - her grumbling the whole time as I hadn't let her finish her drink - as I had to be up at four the next morning to make it to the warehouse in Jersey City to drive the 24' Penske truck to the swanky hip hotel in Manhattan in the meat packing district, The Standard, where Marie's company was setting up for an event the next day.
I was the truck driver for the event which meant that I would also be helping to facilitate the load in and direct the Labor Ready crew that the company hires as manpower and mules.
Me and the supervisor and another one of our guys took the '24 Penske and '14 box truck to the city at around 6am.
The Labor Ready crew met me and the supervisor, the 24' Penske truck, a 14' box truck and our other guy at the job site at 7:00am. The Labor Ready crew consisted of five younger black guys. It was our job to get the two trucks that were stuffed to the gills wit furniture, bars, chandeliers, etc... into the event space on the third and fourth floors of the hotel and set up by the time the party (which was a birthday party for a famous photographer) happened that night 9:30pm. No problem, right? Wrong. Always a problem. For one, the hallway that we had to load into that lead to the freight elevator was narrow, being painted, being used by the construction workers who were working on the top floors of the hotel, and was also being used by the other crews that were doing the event - the lighting crew and the party rental crew. It was a cluster fuck. On top of that, the construction crew, who was union, had control of the freight elevator as per their contract with the hotel, or some union type shit like that. What I'm gettin' at is that the elevator was a giant fucking headache. The union construction guys had all the floors locked out of use from the elevator that they weren't using, which meant that the only way we could access the floors that we wanted to go to was by being in the elevator and sending it to the third or fourth floor, but only after the union guys had gone to their floors. And if the union guys didn't want our stuff in the elevator on a certain trip, we couldn't use it - they had priority. On top of that once we finished unloading the two trucks I would have to take the 14' box truck back to the warehouse in Jersey City to pick up all of Marie's flowers, pots and vases, which there was a lot of. And the Labor guys are only making minimum wage and aren't motivated by that money to go above and beyond the call of duty - which I understood from my Labor ready stint a few weeks before. So I knew that it would be a bit of a challenge to make it all happen on time. But that's the nature of the job. The supervisor for the event (a good friend of Marie's) set up shop in the main room where the event would be held and began directing traffic as the stuff started to slowly make it's way up the elevator. He kept a couple of Labor Ready guys up there with him and had them unpack and place all the stuff as I tried to get all the stuff off the trucks, through the line of people and gear that ran down the freight hallway and out the door onto the sidewalk where we were beginning to stage all of our stuff that came off the trucks, all the while circumnavigating the hotel staff who used the door and hallway that we were loading through, including the kitchen staff whose waiters were carrying food in and out and through the hall all day long. It was a logistical nightmare. But we got all the shit off the trucks and up to the event floors.
Then I went to Jersey City with the 14' box truck and a small Labor Ready guy who was worth a shit - useless - that the supervisor wanted me to sign out and let go once the truck was packed, which I gladly did. He was just in the way. Once we got all of Marie's stuff loaded up and strapped onto the truck - barely - she drove the company work van to the job site and I took the box truck. When we got to the event it was around 3:30pm and things were starting to get hectic.
People and shit were everywhere.
The Labor Ready guys were starting to snap, event staff tensions were running high, and we were all running around like fucking chickens with our fucking heads cut off trying not to kill one another as the event coordinators changed last minute details and sent everyone into a tissy. It was controlled chaos for sure. But we did it.
At 9:30 when the event was sufficiently put together the supervisor and I drove the Labor Ready guys back to Jersey in the work van to drop them off at the Labor Ready office. From there the supervisor and I went to the warehouse to pick up a few things that I'd need for the strike (the cleanup) in the morning.
At 10:30pm I was done and on my way back to the city to find Marie who'd gone to dinner with Yoko who'd been doing the flowers with her. I thought they'd gone somewhere near the hotel, but had in fact gone to a place off of 3rd Ave away from the meat packing district. I got lost, then found parking in the madness of a Thursday night in full swing. By 11:30 I was having dinner with the two. By the time we got home it was about 1:00am. I made it to bed by 1:30am and was shocked when my alarm went off at 4:00am. I nearly didn't get out of the the shower, but the phone rang looking for me and I was out the door by 5:30 and on my way to the job site.
My main Labor Ready guy who I'd relied on to help me direct and corral the other Labor Ready guys the day before was waiting for me in the Penske truck when I showed up at 6:00am despite having had worked for nearly 29hrs straight the days before, as he had come from another job directly before coming to work for us. The night before when we'd dropped him off at the Labor Ready office he said that he'd be there the next morning as he said he needed to make rent. I didn't quite believe him as his eyes were so blood shot tired that they looked like they were on fire. But he was there at six in the morning in the Penske truck. At first I thought that a homeless guy had spent the night in the truck as all I could see where his dreadlocks and I was pissed for having left the door unlocked, and then relieved to see that it was my main man when he popped the door for me.
Just then the other Labor Ready guys showed up, and four others from Marie's event company showed up and we got things going. Once I filled up the 14' box truck, despite the union construction guys best attempts to thwart my every freight elevator ride, I took the box truck back to Jersey where me and two Labor guys unloaded it into the warehouse then drove back to the event site along with the supervisor from the day before, who we picked up at his place in Jersey City, as he wanted to see the progress and take a couple of our guys to get some materials for the next event coming up a few days later.
When we got to the site at 10:30am progress was looking slow and grim as most of the stuff was still up on the 3rd and 4th floors and had to be out by noon, per contract, or the hotel would charge the company. So the supervisor lit a fire up everyone's asses and I went into crazy overdrive mode and we got the shit out and spent the rest of the day until 6:00pm unloading the stuff and putting it away in the warehouse. Then we dropped off the trucks, and by 7:00pm I was on my way to Brooklyn with the van (that Marie and I would be needing the next day to pick up stuff in the city for the next event) where Marie was waiting for me to pick her up to go out and get some drinks. By 10:30pm I was good and drunk and we were on our way to see a friend of mine who was up from Austin who was DJing around the corner from our apartment. By 1:00am I was falling asleep in a booth, then dragging Marie home where I passed out cold with the cheese that I'd found on the way in the apartment hanging half way out of my mouth.
The next day we went to pick up the stuff in Manhattan that we needed for the next event, then went to get one of the girls from the office, then went to get Marie's friend Yoko. We all went to lunch at the Turkish guy's restaurant (who I'd met Upstate with Marc the week before when Marc and I went over to his place for a bbq and played pool) in SOHO. My Turkish friend wasn't in, then went to see Jim Jarmusch's new movie The Limits of Control over at the Angelika on Houston, except for Yoko who cut out early to get some sleep.
The next day Marie made brunch. A couple of her friend's showed up as did a couple of mine. We cleaned up then spent the day reading The New York Times in bed and I napped. We tried to make it to see a guy's band that I'd met on the job site who'd come into help us out when things were getting hectic. His band was playing just around the corner, and I tried to go, I really did. I got my clothes on and everything. But when it came down to it me and Marie were both too tired to go and we got into bed and watched a movie then fell asleep.
- Once I finally, reluctantly got my ass outta bed at noon I cleaned the apartment, got the laundry together, dropped the laundry at the laundry mat for a wash and fold. I didn't have the energy to do it myself - $20 compared to $10 if do it myself, 'whatever', I thought. They asked if tomorrow was okay for pickup but I convinced them that I needed to have it ready tonight - after ten o' clock they said - as me and Marie are completely out of clean clothes. Then I went to the bank and deposited a check, withdrew as much as I could to put towards rent, then went to the bank of the guy who Marie is subleasing our place from, deposited a check that Marie'd left me on my computer this morning and deposited my cash and her check. I kept twenty bucks aside so that I could Fedex a query letter to my first prospective agent, went to the internet cafe and printed out my query on a piece of ivory paper that I bought from the guy behind the counter for a clean 20 cents, then tucked up under my shirt as it was raining out, and walked carefully around the corner to the Fedex place where I had the query sent 2day delivery with a self addressed stamped envelope. Afterward I got a coffee and smoked a cigarette as my heart was pounding so hard at the prospect of an actual agent reading the query letter that'd been driving me crazy for months, that I thought that I might pass out.
I walked home through the rain smoking and drinking my coffee with all the 'what if' scenarios about the query letter and the book running through my head making me anxious as hell and worried that maybe I should've waited longer and edited the damn thing more, but I was just getting too anxious, and more work was coming up, in a seemingly endless stream until the day I died piling up on the horizon. Plus me and Marie had recently started losing hope about the prospect of either of us ever getting published, and I felt like I had to do something just to keep the hope alive.
Love
Monday, 27 April 2009
Faith
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
So last week after a few stressful, tense and unsteady days with me and Marie worrying about money, worrying about work - me not having any; and her not liking hers - we had a bit of a meltdown on Sunday when we got up, as Marie'd gotten completely bombed the night before as her response to the stress, and I'd gotten pissed because I'd just wanted to watch a damn movie, not to mention that both of my ex-wives had cheated on me in that kind of blind drunk, and of course seeing her like that brought up some old feelings that I guess I still haven't fully processed. Ain't life a bitch. And Marie didn't like hearing my thoughts, as like she had told me a few days before: "There's not much room for me with all your ex-wives hangin' around." Well, fuck me... And after we argued and I'd told her that it really bothered me seeing her that way - blind piss drunk - and she'd told me that she didn't want to feel judged I got out of the house for a while on the invitation from an old friend from Utah who lives around the corner and wanted to know if I wanted to watch the NBA Playoff game at the bar. I just wanted to get out of the house for any reason right then.
At the bar, gettin' out of town seemed like a good idea after a couple of beers as I felt like I was stuck in some sort of bad rerun of my previous relationships. And I knew how the show ended: the woman gets drunk and cheats. 'Fuck that', I thought, 'I'll just get the hell out of here.' I wasn't gonna wait around for that to happen. I was feeling like shit anyway. I was broke, jobless and feelin' like a leper that no one wanted around. I felt like I was just a fucking problem, and that getting out of the way would solve the problem.
After the game I followed my old high school friend to a birthday party deeper into Brooklyn where I stayed for an hour or two and had a couple more beers. And somehow just being out of the house started to ease my mind some. I just needed to relax. I just needed to chill out. Things would work out. And when I got home Marie told me that her best friend husband were on their way over. They showed up not five minutes after I walked in the door. And I guess that Marie and her friend had talked about the meltdown we'd had earlier that day as Marie's friend's husband asked me if I wanted to go upstate with him for the week and paint their house for some money while he worked on some cabinetry for a client in New York. And I went. It was perfect. It would give me some time to think and make some money. And it would give me and Marie a probably long over due break.
Marie's lucky to have those two in her life. They're great. And I feel lucky to have them in my life too. I needed a little help, and they gave it to me. I consider them family. The husband put me up, bought my food and alcohol, rented us some movies to watch at night and paid me at the end of the week. It was just what I needed, as I realized how much I loved Marie being away from here for the week. And I realized how much I didn't want to go back to Austin and how much I really wanted to be in New York. And I knew I had to stick it out, come hell or high water.
I was feeling pretty depressed for a few days up there, as I felt like my life was in limbo. I felt unsure of how to break into New York and not just get a toe hold into work, but also how the hell I was going really change my life and become a writer. Fuck, I was havin' a hard enough time just keepin' my head above water, let alone becoming a writer. And one day when I went jogging - to knock the depression back - after painting the house all day I saw a bluebird out of the periphery of my vision, just like the one tattooed on my arm with the banner - Faith - written across it, and I nearly cried as the sign was clear - just have a little faith man.
Love
So last week after a few stressful, tense and unsteady days with me and Marie worrying about money, worrying about work - me not having any; and her not liking hers - we had a bit of a meltdown on Sunday when we got up, as Marie'd gotten completely bombed the night before as her response to the stress, and I'd gotten pissed because I'd just wanted to watch a damn movie, not to mention that both of my ex-wives had cheated on me in that kind of blind drunk, and of course seeing her like that brought up some old feelings that I guess I still haven't fully processed. Ain't life a bitch. And Marie didn't like hearing my thoughts, as like she had told me a few days before: "There's not much room for me with all your ex-wives hangin' around." Well, fuck me... And after we argued and I'd told her that it really bothered me seeing her that way - blind piss drunk - and she'd told me that she didn't want to feel judged I got out of the house for a while on the invitation from an old friend from Utah who lives around the corner and wanted to know if I wanted to watch the NBA Playoff game at the bar. I just wanted to get out of the house for any reason right then.
At the bar, gettin' out of town seemed like a good idea after a couple of beers as I felt like I was stuck in some sort of bad rerun of my previous relationships. And I knew how the show ended: the woman gets drunk and cheats. 'Fuck that', I thought, 'I'll just get the hell out of here.' I wasn't gonna wait around for that to happen. I was feeling like shit anyway. I was broke, jobless and feelin' like a leper that no one wanted around. I felt like I was just a fucking problem, and that getting out of the way would solve the problem.
After the game I followed my old high school friend to a birthday party deeper into Brooklyn where I stayed for an hour or two and had a couple more beers. And somehow just being out of the house started to ease my mind some. I just needed to relax. I just needed to chill out. Things would work out. And when I got home Marie told me that her best friend husband were on their way over. They showed up not five minutes after I walked in the door. And I guess that Marie and her friend had talked about the meltdown we'd had earlier that day as Marie's friend's husband asked me if I wanted to go upstate with him for the week and paint their house for some money while he worked on some cabinetry for a client in New York. And I went. It was perfect. It would give me some time to think and make some money. And it would give me and Marie a probably long over due break.
Marie's lucky to have those two in her life. They're great. And I feel lucky to have them in my life too. I needed a little help, and they gave it to me. I consider them family. The husband put me up, bought my food and alcohol, rented us some movies to watch at night and paid me at the end of the week. It was just what I needed, as I realized how much I loved Marie being away from here for the week. And I realized how much I didn't want to go back to Austin and how much I really wanted to be in New York. And I knew I had to stick it out, come hell or high water.
I was feeling pretty depressed for a few days up there, as I felt like my life was in limbo. I felt unsure of how to break into New York and not just get a toe hold into work, but also how the hell I was going really change my life and become a writer. Fuck, I was havin' a hard enough time just keepin' my head above water, let alone becoming a writer. And one day when I went jogging - to knock the depression back - after painting the house all day I saw a bluebird out of the periphery of my vision, just like the one tattooed on my arm with the banner - Faith - written across it, and I nearly cried as the sign was clear - just have a little faith man.
Love
Saturday, 18 April 2009
Diary Of A Working Boy, Cont., Cont. - Encounter With Jim Jarmusch
Ecuador
I only made it at the ultra cool Topshop in the Topman department for three days. The highlight of those three days came when I tried to help Jim Jarmusch find a polka dotted shirt that he was looking for, and got to meet him and his charming significant other. I spotted him (he's hard to miss if you have even the vaguest idea of what he looks like) waiting in the long line for the dressing rooms. Then I saw that he and his significant other were walking away from the line without having gone into the dressing room. This I couldn't take as I loved the movie Ghost Dog and would like to be able to train with Sifu Shi Yan Ming who made an appearance in the movie. I also loved the fishing with John and Jim thing that was on the IFC channel sometime back, which basically consisted of some guy named John (I can't remember who he is right now - maybe John Leary?)and Jim Jarmusch fishing out in Hudson bay in a rowboat drinking beer. Well, Jim wasn't really fishing. From what I remember Jim didn't really seem to be a totally willing participant to the whole thing. He seemed to've been halfheartedly drug to a rowboat, then halfheartedly dragged out into the bay, then he kind of bitched and moaned about what the hell they were doing out in the middle of the Hudson bay in a small rowboat in the middle of shipping lanes while they drank beer and talked about filmaking, and that guy John fished and caught, like boots and tires and tin cans and things. I could have the whole thing wrong, but that's what I remember. And I liked it. I thought it was great. And I didn't want Jim Jarmusch not to be able to try on a shirt that he wanted in the establishment that I was working in. So when Jim couldn't get into the Topshop dressing rooms I took it upon myself to move myself up the food chain of command and rectify the situation. And as he and his significant other came walking towards me I asked him if he needed any help, stepping way above my $7 an hr pay ranking. He said that he just wanted to try a shirt on but that he didn't want to wait in the half hour dressing room line. I told him that I understood, and I said that I could help, which was a bit of an exaggeration. I'd heard of a VIP dressing room and mentioned that he could change there, but I also had no idea where it was. So then I suggested an area where the employees could access the back halls of the place, the other floors, the break rooms, offices and the stock room and that he could change there. There was an elevator waiting area just before the doors to the back corridors and said that he could try the shirt on there - he was a totally amenable guy and accepted. And while he tried on the shirt next to the elevators I went to ask one of the kids where the VIP dressing room was: opposite side of the floor. When I went back to check on Jim he asked if we had the same shirt in a bigger size. I told him I'd look. I was really steppin' over pay scale then. I couldn't find the size he wanted in the stock room, but a guy down there told me where I might be able to find one on opposite of the floor of Topman from where the original shirt had been found near the elevators. When I got back up to the elevator waiting area I told Jim the mixed news and we went to search for the shirt on the other side of the Topman floor as his significant other asked me if I was a student. I told her that I didn't know what I was. "Still searchin'" she said. I guess so. It looks like it. And as we looked for the other shirt - only to find a different color in the size that he wanted, then tried on in the elevator lobby again (I tried the VIP room, but it was full) we somehow got talking about South America and they told me how they'd gone to a Che Guevara museum in the slums of Buenos Aires that only had a tobacco pouch that Che had reportedly once touched, and a few photographs. They weren't blown away. And they told me how one in four Argentinians were in therapy. And I told them that it would be my luck to try and 'get away' to Buenos Aires, as I'd talked to Marie about doing if we sold our books and live for a few years and write some more, only to end up in therapy. They thought that was rich. Me too. And in the end I couldn't procure the shirt that he was looking for, but we had a good little talk and it was the highlight of my New York City experience up to that point. We shook hands and parted ways. And I only lasted another day at the Topshop, then went to work with Marie on a job. But that's a whole nother' story. Fuckin' work.
Love
I only made it at the ultra cool Topshop in the Topman department for three days. The highlight of those three days came when I tried to help Jim Jarmusch find a polka dotted shirt that he was looking for, and got to meet him and his charming significant other. I spotted him (he's hard to miss if you have even the vaguest idea of what he looks like) waiting in the long line for the dressing rooms. Then I saw that he and his significant other were walking away from the line without having gone into the dressing room. This I couldn't take as I loved the movie Ghost Dog and would like to be able to train with Sifu Shi Yan Ming who made an appearance in the movie. I also loved the fishing with John and Jim thing that was on the IFC channel sometime back, which basically consisted of some guy named John (I can't remember who he is right now - maybe John Leary?)and Jim Jarmusch fishing out in Hudson bay in a rowboat drinking beer. Well, Jim wasn't really fishing. From what I remember Jim didn't really seem to be a totally willing participant to the whole thing. He seemed to've been halfheartedly drug to a rowboat, then halfheartedly dragged out into the bay, then he kind of bitched and moaned about what the hell they were doing out in the middle of the Hudson bay in a small rowboat in the middle of shipping lanes while they drank beer and talked about filmaking, and that guy John fished and caught, like boots and tires and tin cans and things. I could have the whole thing wrong, but that's what I remember. And I liked it. I thought it was great. And I didn't want Jim Jarmusch not to be able to try on a shirt that he wanted in the establishment that I was working in. So when Jim couldn't get into the Topshop dressing rooms I took it upon myself to move myself up the food chain of command and rectify the situation. And as he and his significant other came walking towards me I asked him if he needed any help, stepping way above my $7 an hr pay ranking. He said that he just wanted to try a shirt on but that he didn't want to wait in the half hour dressing room line. I told him that I understood, and I said that I could help, which was a bit of an exaggeration. I'd heard of a VIP dressing room and mentioned that he could change there, but I also had no idea where it was. So then I suggested an area where the employees could access the back halls of the place, the other floors, the break rooms, offices and the stock room and that he could change there. There was an elevator waiting area just before the doors to the back corridors and said that he could try the shirt on there - he was a totally amenable guy and accepted. And while he tried on the shirt next to the elevators I went to ask one of the kids where the VIP dressing room was: opposite side of the floor. When I went back to check on Jim he asked if we had the same shirt in a bigger size. I told him I'd look. I was really steppin' over pay scale then. I couldn't find the size he wanted in the stock room, but a guy down there told me where I might be able to find one on opposite of the floor of Topman from where the original shirt had been found near the elevators. When I got back up to the elevator waiting area I told Jim the mixed news and we went to search for the shirt on the other side of the Topman floor as his significant other asked me if I was a student. I told her that I didn't know what I was. "Still searchin'" she said. I guess so. It looks like it. And as we looked for the other shirt - only to find a different color in the size that he wanted, then tried on in the elevator lobby again (I tried the VIP room, but it was full) we somehow got talking about South America and they told me how they'd gone to a Che Guevara museum in the slums of Buenos Aires that only had a tobacco pouch that Che had reportedly once touched, and a few photographs. They weren't blown away. And they told me how one in four Argentinians were in therapy. And I told them that it would be my luck to try and 'get away' to Buenos Aires, as I'd talked to Marie about doing if we sold our books and live for a few years and write some more, only to end up in therapy. They thought that was rich. Me too. And in the end I couldn't procure the shirt that he was looking for, but we had a good little talk and it was the highlight of my New York City experience up to that point. We shook hands and parted ways. And I only lasted another day at the Topshop, then went to work with Marie on a job. But that's a whole nother' story. Fuckin' work.
Love
Thursday, 16 April 2009
Diary Of A Working Boy, Cont.
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
So, suddenly there I was at work, like a freshly powdered baby sent out into the world to face the day, a baby boy who'd just been smacked on the ass and told to "go getem' tiger!". It happened quickly. One minute I was dropping off a resume, the next minute I was working at clothing store called TopShop in SOHO along with about 6 other day laborers... Needless to say I was a little bewildered and teary eyed, to say the least. And this is the point where I nearly snapped - like those crazy women on the Oxygen Network - and broke down. It was discouraging folks. The lights were bright and shocking. I was in the show and ill prepared for the spotlight. The place was hoppin' when we walked through the front doors. I mean, literally, clothes were flying off the racks. Recession my ass! People were going after four floors of clothing like vultures going after a roadside carcass. The place was nuts. It was like the fall of Saigon with all those people trying to get into the American Embassy kind of nuts. I was afraid for my life. We'd walked into a feeding frenzy at newly opened store where we were supposed to work, but whe'd gone in the wrong door - the front door. Immediately we were ushered out and told to go around to the back, as I'm sure that our beleagured appearances were sobering to the purchasing public - nobody likes to buy shit with poor folks standing around looking desperate and miserable. It's fucking depressing man...
So we walked our tired bodies around the block to the back door. Once inside we were given a brief tour and sent to our respective posts. My post was the men's department in the basement called Topman. The managers and coworkers were all hip kids in tight pants and ironic clothing half my age. And I was their beckon boy. The store was probably one of the hippest places on the planet at that moment in time and I was a desperate 35 year old man struggling to survive (very unhip) making minimum wage (7 fuckin' dollars and change people!). I was being bitched around by squirrely little kids half my fuckin' age (actually most of them left me alone all day long as they thought, as I found out at the end of my shift, that I was a confused shopper who didn't know where he was - like an old man who couldn't remember his name or some shit). For hours I walked clothing from the dressing rooms back to the racks in virtual daze as I fought back the urge to start crying, as a knot of nerves, anxiety and nausea built in my stomach. And by the time I made it to my first break and walked around the corner outside where I could sit by myself and catch my breath the tears were welling up in my eyes as I tried to figure out where I'd gone so terribly wrong in my life (many places it seemed). I was a crushed spirit. And for the fifteen minutes that I sat there on a stoop in the cold and drizzling rain I contemplated walking to the subway and going home. But I needed the money and I didn't have any other leads for work at the time and I didn't want Marie to worry about me making rent anymore.
So I sucked it up and went back.
Love
So, suddenly there I was at work, like a freshly powdered baby sent out into the world to face the day, a baby boy who'd just been smacked on the ass and told to "go getem' tiger!". It happened quickly. One minute I was dropping off a resume, the next minute I was working at clothing store called TopShop in SOHO along with about 6 other day laborers... Needless to say I was a little bewildered and teary eyed, to say the least. And this is the point where I nearly snapped - like those crazy women on the Oxygen Network - and broke down. It was discouraging folks. The lights were bright and shocking. I was in the show and ill prepared for the spotlight. The place was hoppin' when we walked through the front doors. I mean, literally, clothes were flying off the racks. Recession my ass! People were going after four floors of clothing like vultures going after a roadside carcass. The place was nuts. It was like the fall of Saigon with all those people trying to get into the American Embassy kind of nuts. I was afraid for my life. We'd walked into a feeding frenzy at newly opened store where we were supposed to work, but whe'd gone in the wrong door - the front door. Immediately we were ushered out and told to go around to the back, as I'm sure that our beleagured appearances were sobering to the purchasing public - nobody likes to buy shit with poor folks standing around looking desperate and miserable. It's fucking depressing man...
So we walked our tired bodies around the block to the back door. Once inside we were given a brief tour and sent to our respective posts. My post was the men's department in the basement called Topman. The managers and coworkers were all hip kids in tight pants and ironic clothing half my age. And I was their beckon boy. The store was probably one of the hippest places on the planet at that moment in time and I was a desperate 35 year old man struggling to survive (very unhip) making minimum wage (7 fuckin' dollars and change people!). I was being bitched around by squirrely little kids half my fuckin' age (actually most of them left me alone all day long as they thought, as I found out at the end of my shift, that I was a confused shopper who didn't know where he was - like an old man who couldn't remember his name or some shit). For hours I walked clothing from the dressing rooms back to the racks in virtual daze as I fought back the urge to start crying, as a knot of nerves, anxiety and nausea built in my stomach. And by the time I made it to my first break and walked around the corner outside where I could sit by myself and catch my breath the tears were welling up in my eyes as I tried to figure out where I'd gone so terribly wrong in my life (many places it seemed). I was a crushed spirit. And for the fifteen minutes that I sat there on a stoop in the cold and drizzling rain I contemplated walking to the subway and going home. But I needed the money and I didn't have any other leads for work at the time and I didn't want Marie to worry about me making rent anymore.
So I sucked it up and went back.
Love
Tuesday, 14 April 2009
Diary of a Working Boy
Well, I got a job… that was easy. A great job? No. A good job? No. A decent job? I guess so. At least it’s something for now so that I’m not sitting around the apartment freaking out about not having a job. That’s not good for anybody. It all started out fairly innocuous yesterday. I mean, I got up and had some coffee with Marie – really I got out of bed, put the coffee on and pulled the covers off of Marie and told her to get up as she had to go into the office… as, well, somebody’s gotta be working. And while we were having our coffee (after she told me I was a bad man and crawled out of bed) Marie must have figured that if she had to fucking go into the office then I should suffer too. And suffer I did: humiliation, ego crushing, masculinity stomping, overwhelming desperation and nearly a few tears of pitiful sorrow were shed – we’ll get to that later. Marie suggested that I put in my resume at some temp agencies in NY. So I got online. There were a few professional looking temp agencies that looked like they fit my meager skill set and I sent my resume in as per request. There was another temp agency located in Manhattan that looked like it was for the average man, and looked more like a Day Labor type place that wanted you to show up in person - that was a bad sign, i.e. they need bodies, not minds. So I got my shit together and went into the city. Once again I got a little lost, but eventually found the place. It was a Day Labor place for sure as it had the defeated and destitute feel of a waiting room for the next bus to Death. People - mostly black or hispanic (now that I think about it I was the only white person in there besides a couple guys that worked behind the desk) - were sprawled out on chairs in varying states of conciousness either watching an afternoon gameshow or yelling at someone on their cell phone about how they were trying to get a job. My gut hurt as I filled out the paperwork as I thought about all the poor decisions I'd made in my life that had led me to that waiting room of eternal suffering. Then one of the white guys that worked in the office got up in front of us to give us a motivational speech about 'hanging in there' while they looked for work for us as the television blared inanities in the background. He told us how shitty the economy was and how the whole country was going in the shitter because of the Recession and he drew a big imaginary line with his finger going down the dirty stained wall behind him towards the worn out and sad floor. Then he told us all to hold on a little longer and that they'd get us work. Nobody said a word. And when I turned in my paperwork the girl behind the counter looked up at me and said: "You know this is only paying minimum wage right?" as she looked me over, I think determininig that I looked to clean or not broken enough to be in there. I sensed I still had an air of hope about me, as I have some big dreams keepin' me afloat in these hard times. But who was I, jobless and all, to turn down the prospect of work and money? And I asked her what minimum wage was. "$7.50 an hour." She said. "Okay." I told her. Then she asked me if I could work that day. I wasn't quite prepared for that one and I told her that I had an appointment that afternoon, as I wasn't really dressed for manual labor and I didn't have my manual labor mindset - I was still hoping that I might one day be a writer and sit behind a desk: SOON. I kind of did have an appointement at NYU. I was going to stop in and talk to an advisor about their adult education Bachelor's program that gave credit for life experience - I've had a lot of life experience; in fact I was in the process of having another one. Then the girl asked if I could come into the office at 5:00 the next morning and she could try to get me on the same job that she wanted to send me out to just then. And she asked me if I could do retail. Sure. Retail. I liked the sound of that. It wasn't a wharehouse. I hate warehouses. Then she said that the store was in SOHO. I like SOHO. It's nice down there. And I told her that I could cancel my appointment. That way I wouldn't have to get up at four the next morning and I would increase my chances of not working in a warehouse. An hour and a half later about ten of us were on our way to SOHO on the subway following a lady from the office like we were on a field trip from school. But I'll bet they would have at least paid our subway fare on a field trip from school.
Love
Love
Thursday, 9 April 2009
Something Is Happening... Nothing At All?
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York
I walked perhaps another eighty miles today to simply drop off two resumes: one to a guy who at first wanted to throw me out of the venue that was only open at the time because of work being done inside; the other to a kid mopping the floor of another venue who looked like he was half my age. That's become a bit of a theme over the past few days (besides the endless walking which will sort itself out once I get a better grasp of the city and subway, stop getting on the wrong trains, stop walking the wrong way, and stop getting lost): kid's who I give my resume to that look like they're half my age. I did see one older looking guy at one of the six places that I dropped my resume at in the last two days - the one who wanted to throw me out initially. Point is, I think my time in the Rock n' Roll world may have passed me by. Rock n' Roll is for the kids. It's not that I hadn't noticed it before in Texas, it's just that I was in it - can't see the forest for the trees type thing. And thinking back most of the 'older' guys were either in charge of something or someone important, i.e. they'd worked themselves into a position of some prominence - while I was slowly getting nowhere. The other 'old' one's were just plain cranky and pissed off that they were still in the industry, or they were druggies who didn't fit in in the 'real world' and wanted to have a 'lifestyle' at their age that included lots of drugs and alcohol, or they were just plain old dip shit drop outs. I, like I said, was working my way up there to oblivion with the old dropouts... slowly but surely. And it's not that I really give a shit that the Rock n' Roll world may have passed me by, I just give a shit that the one thing that I've been able to latch onto to get me by - barely - for the last little while in my life, seems to be passing me by, as I haven't quite ascended the Rock n' Roll heap to a position of prominence. Sure, I've got some skills and some know how and had become a supervisor and can keep famous actors out of the cocaine room if I need to, I just don't have a glorified job title that demands glorified money. And that's what it comes down to - money. I need money. I need a job that pays some decent money. And I'm feeling like the one little niche that I have (that I never really intended as a 'career') may be passing me by. And I'm thinking I may need some more specific money making skills and credentials here SOON. The problem is, is that's it's hard to even think about the future when rent is coming due again. And that's how you get 'stuck' doing something that you don't really want to be doing - it pays the immediate bills. But I'm feeling like I'd do just about anything right now that could relieve the stress of not having money. It follows me around like a plague - poverty. It's been the central diseased theme of my life and every meaningful relationship I've had - lack of money. Somebody bring me some money please. And it's rearing it's ugly head again in this relationship. And the lack of it, desperation for it, and fear that I may always be a fucking slave to the lack of it leaves me feeling a little bit ashamed, saddened and hopeless, as I keep feeling like if I hang on long enough in this life my proverbial ship will come in and I'll have a reason and a meaning and some stability and a thing that makes me happy to be doing. But that thought just keeps on seeming like an oasis, as I still don't really know what that 'thing' is that's supposed to make me happy. And I'm tired of just stumbling along hoping that one day I'll stumble into it. I'm tired of just holding on. I think that writing is about the closest thing that I have to that elusive 'thing' that will make me happy, that I really want to be doing. As when I think about writing - authors, books, magazines, newspapers, blogs - it gives me hope as it seems to be one of the few ways to transcend the pain and suffering in this life that I can tap into, as somehow, magically, the written word gives me hope. And hope is no small thing to come by in this life. So I'm looking at taking a year long certificate program in journalism at NYU that starts this summer to get some of those 'skills' that I was talking about. Let's just hope that I can make rent so that I'll still be here when summer rolls around. Until then I'll keep walking my ass off handing out my resume. Right now, nothing is happening. But it still feels like something... sort of.
Love
I walked perhaps another eighty miles today to simply drop off two resumes: one to a guy who at first wanted to throw me out of the venue that was only open at the time because of work being done inside; the other to a kid mopping the floor of another venue who looked like he was half my age. That's become a bit of a theme over the past few days (besides the endless walking which will sort itself out once I get a better grasp of the city and subway, stop getting on the wrong trains, stop walking the wrong way, and stop getting lost): kid's who I give my resume to that look like they're half my age. I did see one older looking guy at one of the six places that I dropped my resume at in the last two days - the one who wanted to throw me out initially. Point is, I think my time in the Rock n' Roll world may have passed me by. Rock n' Roll is for the kids. It's not that I hadn't noticed it before in Texas, it's just that I was in it - can't see the forest for the trees type thing. And thinking back most of the 'older' guys were either in charge of something or someone important, i.e. they'd worked themselves into a position of some prominence - while I was slowly getting nowhere. The other 'old' one's were just plain cranky and pissed off that they were still in the industry, or they were druggies who didn't fit in in the 'real world' and wanted to have a 'lifestyle' at their age that included lots of drugs and alcohol, or they were just plain old dip shit drop outs. I, like I said, was working my way up there to oblivion with the old dropouts... slowly but surely. And it's not that I really give a shit that the Rock n' Roll world may have passed me by, I just give a shit that the one thing that I've been able to latch onto to get me by - barely - for the last little while in my life, seems to be passing me by, as I haven't quite ascended the Rock n' Roll heap to a position of prominence. Sure, I've got some skills and some know how and had become a supervisor and can keep famous actors out of the cocaine room if I need to, I just don't have a glorified job title that demands glorified money. And that's what it comes down to - money. I need money. I need a job that pays some decent money. And I'm feeling like the one little niche that I have (that I never really intended as a 'career') may be passing me by. And I'm thinking I may need some more specific money making skills and credentials here SOON. The problem is, is that's it's hard to even think about the future when rent is coming due again. And that's how you get 'stuck' doing something that you don't really want to be doing - it pays the immediate bills. But I'm feeling like I'd do just about anything right now that could relieve the stress of not having money. It follows me around like a plague - poverty. It's been the central diseased theme of my life and every meaningful relationship I've had - lack of money. Somebody bring me some money please. And it's rearing it's ugly head again in this relationship. And the lack of it, desperation for it, and fear that I may always be a fucking slave to the lack of it leaves me feeling a little bit ashamed, saddened and hopeless, as I keep feeling like if I hang on long enough in this life my proverbial ship will come in and I'll have a reason and a meaning and some stability and a thing that makes me happy to be doing. But that thought just keeps on seeming like an oasis, as I still don't really know what that 'thing' is that's supposed to make me happy. And I'm tired of just stumbling along hoping that one day I'll stumble into it. I'm tired of just holding on. I think that writing is about the closest thing that I have to that elusive 'thing' that will make me happy, that I really want to be doing. As when I think about writing - authors, books, magazines, newspapers, blogs - it gives me hope as it seems to be one of the few ways to transcend the pain and suffering in this life that I can tap into, as somehow, magically, the written word gives me hope. And hope is no small thing to come by in this life. So I'm looking at taking a year long certificate program in journalism at NYU that starts this summer to get some of those 'skills' that I was talking about. Let's just hope that I can make rent so that I'll still be here when summer rolls around. Until then I'll keep walking my ass off handing out my resume. Right now, nothing is happening. But it still feels like something... sort of.
Love
Thursday, 2 April 2009
New York Fuckin' City
Ecuador
We made it back - barely. Well, I barely made it back. We (read - I) had ticket problems. Too much to go into right now, but basically my ticket disappeared (read - banditos). And what it came down to was that I (read - Marie) had to buy a brand new ticket to get me out of Quito, Ecuador to Medellin, Columbia for around $300. We only had about a half an hour to make the decision there in the airport once we found out the score. I tried to call Cheapoair who we bought the tickets from but the phone connection from the telephone booths in the airport was so shitty that the Indian phone center workers on the other end at Cheapoair couldn't hear what I was saying. And my cell phone didn't have any service. We looked on the Cheapoair website and it said to just buy the damn tickets and we could get refunded at a later date - that's not proving to be so easy. So we got the damn ticket and I got on the damn plane, but not before we (read - Marie ((she wasn't a happy camper)) had to pay an $80 damn airport fee. We were bleeding money (read - Marie was bleeding through the nose) to get me home. But she was an angel. She didn't bitch at me or curse the day I was born, or shoot me in the leg, or bite my ear off. Rather she told me that she wasn't leaving me in Ecuador and that we'd work it out. She did almost bitch slap a curt little LAN Chile airline employee who seemed to be taking extreme personal pleasure in our dilemma. But that was understandable. The woman actually smiled and nearly laughed at one point - she was a bitch - while Marie tried to explain. I, on the other hand, was just nauseous. We got on the plane and hoped that when we got to Medellin, Columbia that we could work something out with Avianca Air, who we were flying with back to New York City, as we had a six hour layover. And for a minute it looked like we might not have to buy another ticket to get me back to New York City when we got to Medellin, as a guy from Avianca Air really seemed to be doing his best to help us out, but ultimately the result was the same. And I (read - Marie) had to buy another ticket, this time for about $800 to get my ass home. I was even more nauseous than before and I started to drink to quell the melancholy that was slowly setting in. Marie, on the other hand, said that it would be okay. Did I mention that I love her? I do? I really do. Did I mention that Marie has a big heart? She does... I would have left my ass there in Columbia drinking Pilsner beer. After that, things didn't go so smooth, as the airline people, immigration authorities, and some lady in a booth with a stamp, all had some difficulties and issues with getting us out of the country - the issues were varied and convoluted at best, annoying and aggravating at worst. On the way into the country the Immigration Officers had somehow stamped Marie's passport with the date 2006 instead of 2009 and the airline wouldn't accept her passport on the way out, and they told us to go to the lady at the booth. The stamp lady at the booth, behind the window with the stamp said that we didn't need a stamp and that we had to talk to the Immigration Officers. The Immigration Officers didn't want to talk to us. And when we went back to the stamp lady at the booth behind the window she said to go to the airline and tell them that we didn't need a stamp. Which we did, but the airline lady at the counter said that we did need a stamp. All this was happening after we had already been in line for over two hours. We were cutting in front of people, behind people, around people, past people, none of whom were to happy as they'd also been in line for hours. So we went back to the lady in the booth behind the window, once again, cutting in and out of throngs of angry passengers. The lady in the booth behind the window told us to go to the Immigration Officers again, and somewhere on the way to the Immigration Office I started to lose my cool with the whole damn thing. I mean, I really just wanted to crawl under a rock and die. I was already disgusted about all the money that we (read - Marie) had to put out, and I just started to wish that I wasn't me and that we were safe at home in New York City with that $1,100 snug our pockets (Marie's). And when we got to the Immigration Office and found that they, once again, didn't seem to want to help us much I wasn't really wanting to hear their indifference. And as I took my sweater off to show all my tattoos and my face started getting redder and redder, and I started tensing up and raising my voice in my chicken peck Spanish telling them that, "ella hablas es NECESSARIO hablas TU!", they started to become somewhat alarmed. And I guess that it appeared that I wanted to rip their heads off and use them as bowling balls, as one of the guys started to tell me to calm down - tranquillo - and Marie told me to chill out, which basically amounted to me being sent to timeout. So I went and sat on a bench and watched the soccer game by myself and let me Marie handle the situation. And the only justice that night was dished out by Venezuela, in futbol, who handed Columbia their asses, beating them 3-0 in the game that I watched from timeout while drinking Pilsner. And I hope that Columbia loses every game they play the rest of the year from here on out. That goes for Ecuador too. No, actually I hope that we, the USA, Columbia and Ecuador all make it to the World Cup next year in South Africa, and I hope that we play them both, and I hope that we make them cry - their entire citizenries (especially their airline employees). Meanwhile Marie was handling things and we were back at the ticket counter as there was another problem. What the problem was we weren't sure, but (of course) it seemed to be with me. They wanted to see my boarding stub from the last flight from Ecuador. And of course, I couldn't find it. And Marie told me I needed to learn how to keep track of my shit and scolded me like a child, and I told her that she wasn't my fuckin' mom and that she and all the airline ladies could shove my lost boarding stub up their asses. And all the airline ladies backed off and started gossiping about me. And Marie said we shouldn't fight (she was a trooper) with each other, and I felt like an asshole and just wanted to cry. And the airline lady with the bug up her ass ran around the airport with our tickets and passports. We would see her appear and disappear again every ten minutes or so out of different offices for about an hour until we were the only people left in line and it looked like we were going to miss our flight. And Marie and I were resigned and accepting of our fates at that point, as we had no more fight left. And then the Immigration Officers wanted to talk to us and wanted our passports, but the airline lady had them. And I'd given up. Marie had too. We'd both lost the will to carry on, and had lost hope of ever getting home. And at the last second the airline lady showed up with our passports and gave us $4,000 Columbian dollars which was like $10 that the airline owed us for a mistake on my ticket. And the Immigration Officials fixed Marie's passport. And we were free to leave... But we hadn't eaten yet and Marie was dying and she was frantically trying to buy us some food. And the Immigration Officers wanted to shut the doors to the international departure gate, and Marie wanted food, and for a second it looked like a Mexican standoff. Marie ended up winning, as she was very hungry. And the officials waited while our two little sandwiches were microwaved (lettuce, tomato, mayo and all) to an indecipherable taste. Then the Immigration Officials stamped and sent us on to the prison like waiting area where the Policia searched through everyone's luggage as we all sat around and watched as though we were being taught some sort of cautionary tale about packing our suitcases really well in case 50 strangers were for some reason to watch them be rifled through. And that poor bastard who had half his suitcase packed with potato chips. What the fuck was he thinking? I bet he learned a valuable lesson. Although he looked too drunk to remember the lesson. But who can blame him really? You know? Who hasn't been shit face hammered and just wanted some fuckin' potato chips? And then we were on our way on a red eye flight over The Caribbean and up along the Eastern seaboard. And needless to say it was a great fucking morning when our plane touched down at JFK as the sun started to rise. And as we got into a taxi that whisked us along the BQE into the burrow of Brooklyn the sun and the New York City skyline rose up in the distance of the beautiful cold morning.
And next time I'm fuckin' drivin' to South America.
Love
We made it back - barely. Well, I barely made it back. We (read - I) had ticket problems. Too much to go into right now, but basically my ticket disappeared (read - banditos). And what it came down to was that I (read - Marie) had to buy a brand new ticket to get me out of Quito, Ecuador to Medellin, Columbia for around $300. We only had about a half an hour to make the decision there in the airport once we found out the score. I tried to call Cheapoair who we bought the tickets from but the phone connection from the telephone booths in the airport was so shitty that the Indian phone center workers on the other end at Cheapoair couldn't hear what I was saying. And my cell phone didn't have any service. We looked on the Cheapoair website and it said to just buy the damn tickets and we could get refunded at a later date - that's not proving to be so easy. So we got the damn ticket and I got on the damn plane, but not before we (read - Marie ((she wasn't a happy camper)) had to pay an $80 damn airport fee. We were bleeding money (read - Marie was bleeding through the nose) to get me home. But she was an angel. She didn't bitch at me or curse the day I was born, or shoot me in the leg, or bite my ear off. Rather she told me that she wasn't leaving me in Ecuador and that we'd work it out. She did almost bitch slap a curt little LAN Chile airline employee who seemed to be taking extreme personal pleasure in our dilemma. But that was understandable. The woman actually smiled and nearly laughed at one point - she was a bitch - while Marie tried to explain. I, on the other hand, was just nauseous. We got on the plane and hoped that when we got to Medellin, Columbia that we could work something out with Avianca Air, who we were flying with back to New York City, as we had a six hour layover. And for a minute it looked like we might not have to buy another ticket to get me back to New York City when we got to Medellin, as a guy from Avianca Air really seemed to be doing his best to help us out, but ultimately the result was the same. And I (read - Marie) had to buy another ticket, this time for about $800 to get my ass home. I was even more nauseous than before and I started to drink to quell the melancholy that was slowly setting in. Marie, on the other hand, said that it would be okay. Did I mention that I love her? I do? I really do. Did I mention that Marie has a big heart? She does... I would have left my ass there in Columbia drinking Pilsner beer. After that, things didn't go so smooth, as the airline people, immigration authorities, and some lady in a booth with a stamp, all had some difficulties and issues with getting us out of the country - the issues were varied and convoluted at best, annoying and aggravating at worst. On the way into the country the Immigration Officers had somehow stamped Marie's passport with the date 2006 instead of 2009 and the airline wouldn't accept her passport on the way out, and they told us to go to the lady at the booth. The stamp lady at the booth, behind the window with the stamp said that we didn't need a stamp and that we had to talk to the Immigration Officers. The Immigration Officers didn't want to talk to us. And when we went back to the stamp lady at the booth behind the window she said to go to the airline and tell them that we didn't need a stamp. Which we did, but the airline lady at the counter said that we did need a stamp. All this was happening after we had already been in line for over two hours. We were cutting in front of people, behind people, around people, past people, none of whom were to happy as they'd also been in line for hours. So we went back to the lady in the booth behind the window, once again, cutting in and out of throngs of angry passengers. The lady in the booth behind the window told us to go to the Immigration Officers again, and somewhere on the way to the Immigration Office I started to lose my cool with the whole damn thing. I mean, I really just wanted to crawl under a rock and die. I was already disgusted about all the money that we (read - Marie) had to put out, and I just started to wish that I wasn't me and that we were safe at home in New York City with that $1,100 snug our pockets (Marie's). And when we got to the Immigration Office and found that they, once again, didn't seem to want to help us much I wasn't really wanting to hear their indifference. And as I took my sweater off to show all my tattoos and my face started getting redder and redder, and I started tensing up and raising my voice in my chicken peck Spanish telling them that, "ella hablas es NECESSARIO hablas TU!", they started to become somewhat alarmed. And I guess that it appeared that I wanted to rip their heads off and use them as bowling balls, as one of the guys started to tell me to calm down - tranquillo - and Marie told me to chill out, which basically amounted to me being sent to timeout. So I went and sat on a bench and watched the soccer game by myself and let me Marie handle the situation. And the only justice that night was dished out by Venezuela, in futbol, who handed Columbia their asses, beating them 3-0 in the game that I watched from timeout while drinking Pilsner. And I hope that Columbia loses every game they play the rest of the year from here on out. That goes for Ecuador too. No, actually I hope that we, the USA, Columbia and Ecuador all make it to the World Cup next year in South Africa, and I hope that we play them both, and I hope that we make them cry - their entire citizenries (especially their airline employees). Meanwhile Marie was handling things and we were back at the ticket counter as there was another problem. What the problem was we weren't sure, but (of course) it seemed to be with me. They wanted to see my boarding stub from the last flight from Ecuador. And of course, I couldn't find it. And Marie told me I needed to learn how to keep track of my shit and scolded me like a child, and I told her that she wasn't my fuckin' mom and that she and all the airline ladies could shove my lost boarding stub up their asses. And all the airline ladies backed off and started gossiping about me. And Marie said we shouldn't fight (she was a trooper) with each other, and I felt like an asshole and just wanted to cry. And the airline lady with the bug up her ass ran around the airport with our tickets and passports. We would see her appear and disappear again every ten minutes or so out of different offices for about an hour until we were the only people left in line and it looked like we were going to miss our flight. And Marie and I were resigned and accepting of our fates at that point, as we had no more fight left. And then the Immigration Officers wanted to talk to us and wanted our passports, but the airline lady had them. And I'd given up. Marie had too. We'd both lost the will to carry on, and had lost hope of ever getting home. And at the last second the airline lady showed up with our passports and gave us $4,000 Columbian dollars which was like $10 that the airline owed us for a mistake on my ticket. And the Immigration Officials fixed Marie's passport. And we were free to leave... But we hadn't eaten yet and Marie was dying and she was frantically trying to buy us some food. And the Immigration Officers wanted to shut the doors to the international departure gate, and Marie wanted food, and for a second it looked like a Mexican standoff. Marie ended up winning, as she was very hungry. And the officials waited while our two little sandwiches were microwaved (lettuce, tomato, mayo and all) to an indecipherable taste. Then the Immigration Officials stamped and sent us on to the prison like waiting area where the Policia searched through everyone's luggage as we all sat around and watched as though we were being taught some sort of cautionary tale about packing our suitcases really well in case 50 strangers were for some reason to watch them be rifled through. And that poor bastard who had half his suitcase packed with potato chips. What the fuck was he thinking? I bet he learned a valuable lesson. Although he looked too drunk to remember the lesson. But who can blame him really? You know? Who hasn't been shit face hammered and just wanted some fuckin' potato chips? And then we were on our way on a red eye flight over The Caribbean and up along the Eastern seaboard. And needless to say it was a great fucking morning when our plane touched down at JFK as the sun started to rise. And as we got into a taxi that whisked us along the BQE into the burrow of Brooklyn the sun and the New York City skyline rose up in the distance of the beautiful cold morning.
And next time I'm fuckin' drivin' to South America.
Love
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