Liripipe
Thursday, March 24, 2005
<
upside down & backwards
queens blvd. is no joke. you have jump from island to island to cross the street -- six times in all. kneeling busses obstuct your vision, fourteen lanes of fast cars, most of them with bumpin beats, threaten to roadkill you, and lights flash confusingly stop, go, stop -- go. make shift-shrines grace some islands with flowers and candles, and faded print-out posters of smiling people taken too early.
today a little old babushka was almost hit by a car right in front of me. she hobbled out of the way and onto my island just in time. she peered up at me sheepishly from under her red kerchief.
babushka: i shouldn't do that.
me (looking pointedly at the red hand light): no you should NOT.
babushka: no, i should not do that. very dangerous.
me: shame on you.
babushka: but it's so FUN.
me: pshaw.
another old-timer i have to scold is lenny. he always asks me to double bag his soda pop so he can sneak it into the movie theater. but scolding old people was making me feel too mature, too nihilistic. then my skinny white-boy manager put me in my idealist-place:
me (thinking aloud): man, i wish people would pick up their trash.
skw-bm (pointing at a cup from our store): but LOOK at that, marian. look, there's another one over there. i LOVE it when i see our cups on the gound. it's like GOLD to me. i wish our cups were all over forest hills and halfway to brooklyn. i wont rest til that happens.
(stay gold.)
queens blvd. is no joke. you have jump from island to island to cross the street -- six times in all. kneeling busses obstuct your vision, fourteen lanes of fast cars, most of them with bumpin beats, threaten to roadkill you, and lights flash confusingly stop, go, stop -- go. make shift-shrines grace some islands with flowers and candles, and faded print-out posters of smiling people taken too early.
today a little old babushka was almost hit by a car right in front of me. she hobbled out of the way and onto my island just in time. she peered up at me sheepishly from under her red kerchief.
babushka: i shouldn't do that.
me (looking pointedly at the red hand light): no you should NOT.
babushka: no, i should not do that. very dangerous.
me: shame on you.
babushka: but it's so FUN.
me: pshaw.
another old-timer i have to scold is lenny. he always asks me to double bag his soda pop so he can sneak it into the movie theater. but scolding old people was making me feel too mature, too nihilistic. then my skinny white-boy manager put me in my idealist-place:
me (thinking aloud): man, i wish people would pick up their trash.
skw-bm (pointing at a cup from our store): but LOOK at that, marian. look, there's another one over there. i LOVE it when i see our cups on the gound. it's like GOLD to me. i wish our cups were all over forest hills and halfway to brooklyn. i wont rest til that happens.
(stay gold.)
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
<
Saturday, March 19, 2005
<
fun with girls
girls just kill me. they turn out to be girls. steinbeck.
drama at work sent to to PS1 this afternoon. (i seek sanctuary in art museums the ways people used to seek it in churches.)
you can't take art too seriously. or humans. or life. even in a place as sacred as a museum. observe. on the creaky, sunlit staircase:
girl: what is up with these melty bubble things?
me (deadpan): those are mine. i made them.
(heavy pause)
girl's girlfriend: um.
(heavier pause)
me: no, just kidding.
girl: oh my god.
girl's girlfriend (laughing): that was awsome.
girls just kill me. they turn out to be girls. steinbeck.
drama at work sent to to PS1 this afternoon. (i seek sanctuary in art museums the ways people used to seek it in churches.)
you can't take art too seriously. or humans. or life. even in a place as sacred as a museum. observe. on the creaky, sunlit staircase:
girl: what is up with these melty bubble things?
me (deadpan): those are mine. i made them.
(heavy pause)
girl's girlfriend: um.
(heavier pause)
me: no, just kidding.
girl: oh my god.
girl's girlfriend (laughing): that was awsome.
Friday, March 18, 2005
<
<
shitty
jenny, the flight attendant in 4H, has a problem. she's locked out of her apartment. her car is blocked in. so she can't go anywhere, and she has this cat, which she's not supposed to have . . . oh, no problem, i say. bring the cat up to my place.
jenny has to go to the gym. i say, oh, go, go, leave the cat here, i was going to be home all afternoon anyway, it's no trouble at all. what's the cat's name?
"shitty. shitty kitty."
wow.
pretty soon i'm chasing the cat all over the apartment like a little kid. until it noses itself into a corner of my kitchen and disappears into the counter, between the walls.
"shitty! come out of there right now!" no luck.
ding dong. it's jenny, this time carrying a sixpack. you wont believe where your cat is, i say. pretty soon this nice lady is on the floor of my kitchen with her head in the corner calling,
"shitty. shitty. shitty. c'mon."
ding dong. it's my roommate, patrick. he wants to know what's going on. now there are two people on the kitchen floor trying to get the cat out of the wall.
ring, ring. it's my dad on the phone from kansas. my dad's had years of weird pet experiences. "what you need to do is get some tuna." he says. "put it just out of reach of the kitty. then put on a movie or do laundry or something."
i suggest this, and jenny goes upstairs for a tin of tuna while patrick gets out the screwdrivers so that we can dismantal the cabinets.
but soon they're back on the floor again. "shitty. c'mon. shitty kitty. c'mon."
ding dong. it's a black man with glasses and a pressed blue oxford shirt. this is jenny's boyfriend who works on wallstreet. i glance in the kitchen, where patrick and jenny are on the floor.
"this isn't what it looks like. you wont believe where your cat is. would you like a beer?"
suddenly i am grateful for the cat, even if it is stuck in my wall.
before jenny goes upstairs, we polish off the sixpack, and jenny colours in some facts of her life for me: she has been in new york six years, she loves scuba diving, her favorite place in the world is belize. her mother shot her father.
and to think the night before i had been complaining that all girls in ny are power hungry biznatches, or neurotic messes, or just completely uninteresting. thank goodness for shitty.
jenny, the flight attendant in 4H, has a problem. she's locked out of her apartment. her car is blocked in. so she can't go anywhere, and she has this cat, which she's not supposed to have . . . oh, no problem, i say. bring the cat up to my place.
jenny has to go to the gym. i say, oh, go, go, leave the cat here, i was going to be home all afternoon anyway, it's no trouble at all. what's the cat's name?
"shitty. shitty kitty."
wow.
pretty soon i'm chasing the cat all over the apartment like a little kid. until it noses itself into a corner of my kitchen and disappears into the counter, between the walls.
"shitty! come out of there right now!" no luck.
ding dong. it's jenny, this time carrying a sixpack. you wont believe where your cat is, i say. pretty soon this nice lady is on the floor of my kitchen with her head in the corner calling,
"shitty. shitty. shitty. c'mon."
ding dong. it's my roommate, patrick. he wants to know what's going on. now there are two people on the kitchen floor trying to get the cat out of the wall.
ring, ring. it's my dad on the phone from kansas. my dad's had years of weird pet experiences. "what you need to do is get some tuna." he says. "put it just out of reach of the kitty. then put on a movie or do laundry or something."
i suggest this, and jenny goes upstairs for a tin of tuna while patrick gets out the screwdrivers so that we can dismantal the cabinets.
but soon they're back on the floor again. "shitty. c'mon. shitty kitty. c'mon."
ding dong. it's a black man with glasses and a pressed blue oxford shirt. this is jenny's boyfriend who works on wallstreet. i glance in the kitchen, where patrick and jenny are on the floor.
"this isn't what it looks like. you wont believe where your cat is. would you like a beer?"
suddenly i am grateful for the cat, even if it is stuck in my wall.
before jenny goes upstairs, we polish off the sixpack, and jenny colours in some facts of her life for me: she has been in new york six years, she loves scuba diving, her favorite place in the world is belize. her mother shot her father.
and to think the night before i had been complaining that all girls in ny are power hungry biznatches, or neurotic messes, or just completely uninteresting. thank goodness for shitty.
Friday, March 11, 2005
<
the long and short of it
i didn't write either of these.
short:
new york is a place where you earn enough money to buy yourself out of problems that don't exist elsewhere. -- the wallstreet journal.
long:
reporter: tell me, mr. kemp, just why are you leaving st. louis, where your family has lived for generations and where you could, for the asking, have a niche carved out for yourself and your children so that you might live in peace and security for the rest of your well-fed days?
kemp: well, you see . . . ah . . . well, i get a strange feeling. i . . . ah . . . sit around here and i look at this place and i just want to get out, you know? i want to flee.
r: mr. kemp. you seem like a reasonable man -- just what is it about st. louis that makes you want to flee? i'm not prying, you understand, i'm just a reporter and i'm from tallahassee, myself, but they sent me out here to --
k: certainly, i wish i could . . . ah . . . you know, i'd like to be able to tell you that . . . ah . . . maybe i should say i feel a rubber sack coming down on me . . . purely symbolic, you know . . . the venal ignorance of the fathers being visited on the sons . . . can you make something of that?
r: well, ha-ha, i sort of know what you mean, mr. kemp. back in tallahassee it was a cotton sack, but i guess it was about the same size and --
k: yea, it's the goddamn sack -- so i'm taking off and i guess i'll ah . . . .
r: mr. kemp. i wish i could say how much i sympathize, but you understand that if i go back with a story about a rubber sack they're going to tell me it's useless and probably fire me. now i don't want to press you, but i wonder if you could give me something more concrete; you know -- is there not enough opportunity here for aggressive young men? is st. louis meeting her responsibilities to youth? is our society not flexible enough for young people with ideas? you can talk to me, kemp -- what is it?
k: well, fella, i wish i could help you. god knows i don't want you to go back without a story and get fired. i know how it is -- i'm a journalist myself, you know -- but . . . well . . . i get The Fear . . . can you use that? St. Louis Gives Young Men The Fear -- not a bad headline, eh?
r: come on, kemp. you know i can't use that. rubber sacks. The Fear.
k: goddamnit, man, i tell you it's the fear of the sack! tell them that this man kemp is fleeing st. louis because he suspects the sack is full of something ugly and he doesn't want to be put in with it. he senses this from afar. this man kemp is not a model youth. he grew up with two toilets and a football, but somewhere along the line he got warped. now all he wants is Out, Flee. he doesn't give a good shit for st. louis or his friends or his family or anything else . . . he just wants to find a place where he can breathe . . . is that good enough for you?
r: well, ah, kemp, you sound a but hysterical. i don't know if i can get the story on you or not.
k: well, fuck you then. get out of my way. they're calling my flight. hear that voice? hear it?
r: you're deranged, kemp! you'll come to no good end! i knew people like you in tallahassee and they all ended up --
-- hunter s. thompson, the rum diary.
i didn't write either of these.
short:
new york is a place where you earn enough money to buy yourself out of problems that don't exist elsewhere. -- the wallstreet journal.
long:
reporter: tell me, mr. kemp, just why are you leaving st. louis, where your family has lived for generations and where you could, for the asking, have a niche carved out for yourself and your children so that you might live in peace and security for the rest of your well-fed days?
kemp: well, you see . . . ah . . . well, i get a strange feeling. i . . . ah . . . sit around here and i look at this place and i just want to get out, you know? i want to flee.
r: mr. kemp. you seem like a reasonable man -- just what is it about st. louis that makes you want to flee? i'm not prying, you understand, i'm just a reporter and i'm from tallahassee, myself, but they sent me out here to --
k: certainly, i wish i could . . . ah . . . you know, i'd like to be able to tell you that . . . ah . . . maybe i should say i feel a rubber sack coming down on me . . . purely symbolic, you know . . . the venal ignorance of the fathers being visited on the sons . . . can you make something of that?
r: well, ha-ha, i sort of know what you mean, mr. kemp. back in tallahassee it was a cotton sack, but i guess it was about the same size and --
k: yea, it's the goddamn sack -- so i'm taking off and i guess i'll ah . . . .
r: mr. kemp. i wish i could say how much i sympathize, but you understand that if i go back with a story about a rubber sack they're going to tell me it's useless and probably fire me. now i don't want to press you, but i wonder if you could give me something more concrete; you know -- is there not enough opportunity here for aggressive young men? is st. louis meeting her responsibilities to youth? is our society not flexible enough for young people with ideas? you can talk to me, kemp -- what is it?
k: well, fella, i wish i could help you. god knows i don't want you to go back without a story and get fired. i know how it is -- i'm a journalist myself, you know -- but . . . well . . . i get The Fear . . . can you use that? St. Louis Gives Young Men The Fear -- not a bad headline, eh?
r: come on, kemp. you know i can't use that. rubber sacks. The Fear.
k: goddamnit, man, i tell you it's the fear of the sack! tell them that this man kemp is fleeing st. louis because he suspects the sack is full of something ugly and he doesn't want to be put in with it. he senses this from afar. this man kemp is not a model youth. he grew up with two toilets and a football, but somewhere along the line he got warped. now all he wants is Out, Flee. he doesn't give a good shit for st. louis or his friends or his family or anything else . . . he just wants to find a place where he can breathe . . . is that good enough for you?
r: well, ah, kemp, you sound a but hysterical. i don't know if i can get the story on you or not.
k: well, fuck you then. get out of my way. they're calling my flight. hear that voice? hear it?
r: you're deranged, kemp! you'll come to no good end! i knew people like you in tallahassee and they all ended up --
-- hunter s. thompson, the rum diary.
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
<
<
sex, books, the usual
i tried, really, to get into femme lit, but it took me two months to read pride and prejudice.* of course i loved elizabeth and darcy, and i recognize austen's incredible perception of human character, but all the drawing room discussions got, well, sort of tedious:
"And your defect is a propensity to hate everyody."
"And yours," he replied with a smile, "is willfully to misunderstand them."
"Do let's have a little music," cried Miss Bingley . . .
i think part of it also is that i am not very sympathetic to the british. if i'm going to read about a party it better be a russian ball, where everyone is dying of consumption or about to cheat on their betrothed. or it if it must be british, it better be PG wodehouse.
after austen i dove headfirst into The Winter of Our Discontent. What Steinbeck did for Monterey with Cannery Row, he sort of does for Long Island with Winter.
the plot allows us almost all the way into the mind of Ethan Allen, a liberally educated store clerk who talks to the canned goods and feeds his family with wholesale groceries. ethan's miss-mousie wife, his baby-fatted, sleep-walking daughter ("girls kill me," says ethan, of his daughter, "they turn out to be girls.") and a shameless unflappable false-mustache-wearing son are all frustrated with him, but he parries their accusations with snippets of poetry and vague promises that things will get better soon. ethan does have a few tricks up his threadbare sleeve, and he struggles to find the best way to play the cards he's been delt: a boss on the brink of being deported; a friendly customer who knows the best way to rob a bank; the twice-divorced, darkly flirtatious, tarot-card-reading margie; a smooth operater from the big city who offers money for morals; and his best friend jimmy, once upstanding, now the town drunk. the story is set in a summer in the late fifties, but there is nothing innocent or vintage-cute about it: as everyone prepares for fourth of july weekend, tension builds in a morbid, rotten way, culminating in a party given for a winning but plagiarized I Love America essay.**
ethan's actions and reactions throughout the book are constantly surprising but never untrue, making him an intensely interesting and realistic character. of course i am in love with him. i actually cried when he left the house with that packet of razor blades.
do girls write books this good? i can't find any. no more austen! i'm already halfway through hunter thompson's The Rum Diary. and i think i'm a gay man trapped in a woman's body.
*(the innocent young thugged-out delivery boy asked what i was reading. i said "pride and prejudice" and his eyes widened. "wow, sounds intense," he said. see, to his queens-new-york-public-schooled mind, "prejudice" has to do with recent racial discrimination.)
**For more in this vein watch Quiz Show, a movie about the Van Doren scandal.
i tried, really, to get into femme lit, but it took me two months to read pride and prejudice.* of course i loved elizabeth and darcy, and i recognize austen's incredible perception of human character, but all the drawing room discussions got, well, sort of tedious:
"And your defect is a propensity to hate everyody."
"And yours," he replied with a smile, "is willfully to misunderstand them."
"Do let's have a little music," cried Miss Bingley . . .
i think part of it also is that i am not very sympathetic to the british. if i'm going to read about a party it better be a russian ball, where everyone is dying of consumption or about to cheat on their betrothed. or it if it must be british, it better be PG wodehouse.
after austen i dove headfirst into The Winter of Our Discontent. What Steinbeck did for Monterey with Cannery Row, he sort of does for Long Island with Winter.
the plot allows us almost all the way into the mind of Ethan Allen, a liberally educated store clerk who talks to the canned goods and feeds his family with wholesale groceries. ethan's miss-mousie wife, his baby-fatted, sleep-walking daughter ("girls kill me," says ethan, of his daughter, "they turn out to be girls.") and a shameless unflappable false-mustache-wearing son are all frustrated with him, but he parries their accusations with snippets of poetry and vague promises that things will get better soon. ethan does have a few tricks up his threadbare sleeve, and he struggles to find the best way to play the cards he's been delt: a boss on the brink of being deported; a friendly customer who knows the best way to rob a bank; the twice-divorced, darkly flirtatious, tarot-card-reading margie; a smooth operater from the big city who offers money for morals; and his best friend jimmy, once upstanding, now the town drunk. the story is set in a summer in the late fifties, but there is nothing innocent or vintage-cute about it: as everyone prepares for fourth of july weekend, tension builds in a morbid, rotten way, culminating in a party given for a winning but plagiarized I Love America essay.**
ethan's actions and reactions throughout the book are constantly surprising but never untrue, making him an intensely interesting and realistic character. of course i am in love with him. i actually cried when he left the house with that packet of razor blades.
do girls write books this good? i can't find any. no more austen! i'm already halfway through hunter thompson's The Rum Diary. and i think i'm a gay man trapped in a woman's body.
*(the innocent young thugged-out delivery boy asked what i was reading. i said "pride and prejudice" and his eyes widened. "wow, sounds intense," he said. see, to his queens-new-york-public-schooled mind, "prejudice" has to do with recent racial discrimination.)
**For more in this vein watch Quiz Show, a movie about the Van Doren scandal.
Thursday, March 03, 2005
<
do you find them much . . . these . . . stolen cars?
i have contracted a rare strain of the flu. i tried to go to work today, but decided to come home and not infect customers. i haven't had a cigarette or a cup of coffee in five days, which hasn't happened since . . . i think . . . since i was in my mommy's tummy.
and rich's car just got stolen.
there is nothing tying the room together over here at the nevada. here is what i have decided:
1. it needs to GET WARMER.
2. austin needs to come so we can have adventures.
3. i am sick of being sick i want to be WELL so i can SMOKE again.
the perfect book to read while all this is going on: The Winter of Our Discontent. Steinbeck.
i have contracted a rare strain of the flu. i tried to go to work today, but decided to come home and not infect customers. i haven't had a cigarette or a cup of coffee in five days, which hasn't happened since . . . i think . . . since i was in my mommy's tummy.
and rich's car just got stolen.
there is nothing tying the room together over here at the nevada. here is what i have decided:
1. it needs to GET WARMER.
2. austin needs to come so we can have adventures.
3. i am sick of being sick i want to be WELL so i can SMOKE again.
the perfect book to read while all this is going on: The Winter of Our Discontent. Steinbeck.
juvenile, but satan-resistant. pack your other moustache, we're going to kansas city.
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california (gorgeous):
face
nomikkh
pretty powers
surfer boy
burn cells brained out
not of this world
5ives
donzilla
dialog blog
matthew lickona
lisa tucker
wasted mind
maxwell murders blog of DOOM
texas (don't mess with):
HANSEL (he's so hot right now)
texanne
little sister
weird weeds
slow to wrath
czech republic (other side):
wanton and forlorn
jedno pivo porism
kansas city (prairie punx):
kansas city baby #1
a damn shame
kansas city babies #2 and #4
kansas city baby #3
kansas city baby #5 (krystle)
kansas city baby #6
unknown (but famous):
the prophet (has flowers and special-ness)
foxy
dan
un sitio cualquiera
wife
don't ask, don't tell
running/not running
new york city (hell yes):
the galloping consumption
seldom sober
brooklyn girl
the subway chronicles
joey
some are good most are trash
project museum