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  hey pete

you told me to tell him to take pictures.  ¶ 12:39 AM

  on the reception of tom wolfe's new book, june 2005

poor guy comes in, all he wants is a burrito. i'm supposed to take his order, perform my function, you know. but i'm BORED, and he's carrying a book. without even asking, i grab it off the counter. it's about einstein's brain. i read the back, flip through it. i ask a lot of questions. i'm really interested. he's an english teacher, makes his kids read salinger and shakespeare. he hasn't read tom wolfe's latest yet, but wants to. he has to remind me he's here for food, not a conversation about einstein. right. black or pinto? spicy or mild?

two days later, he comes in carrying I Am Charlotte Simmons. "how is it?!" i gasp, maybe too eagerly. i can't help it; i've been lusting after this book for months,* and even if i had the money, barnes and noble is out of it.

"i don't know," he says, and puts it on the counter between us. "it's not mine."

the inscription reads: to scarlett johansson: it isn't every day an english teacher gets to meet a real live beatnik who is jonesing for a book to read. your craving made my day. enjoy. bill murray.

there is a God.

*see archive post entitled Tom Wolfe Has 22 White Suits  ¶ 11:32 PM

  one down

Before we are forgotten, we will be turned into kitsch. Kitsch is the stopover between being and oblivion. -- The Unbearable Lightness of Being

an unusual little book, Unbearable chronicals the adult lives of Tereza, (book-loving waitress,) her lover Tomas (womanizing surgeon-turned-window-washer,) Sabina (a rebellious, independent painter,) and Franz (Sabina's pathetically faithful lover.) all four struggle to understand how anything can matter when everything only happens once and even the most important relationships of our lives arise from random circumstances.

the book is surreal, obscene, philosophical, morbid and, yes, sexy; if dali had been novelist instead of a painter, he probably would have produced something like this.  ¶ 8:15 PM

  just thinking about it turns me on

summer reading list:

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
East of Eden, John Steinbeck
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers
Pattern Recognition, William Gibson
Cloudsplitter, Russell Banks
I Am Charlotte Simmons, Tom Wolfe
Middlesex, Jeffery Eugenides
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
The Jungle, Upton Sinclair  ¶ 6:52 PM

  voyeurism and shameless name-dropping

being an aspiring artiste makes one take odd jobs on craigslist. such as one i have right now: transcribing interviews.

it's cool because i get to hear real reporters interveiw real artists (luna bros, jonathan glazer, etc). it's like i'm right there with them. hot.

the temptation of course is to throw all this excellent material up on the blog before it hits news stands . . . and claim that i did the interviews. but that's illegal, and, well, mean. plus i'd have to confess it: what a drag.

so i have to content myself with voyeurism and shameless name-dropping.  ¶ 7:00 PM

  i know what we should do

joey wants a wife who cooks well, is catholic, and is a girl. well, i'm a girl, austin's a good catholic and rich's italian cooking is to die for. also, rich and austin return phone calls.

so i think joey should marry all three of us.  ¶ 6:42 PM

  proposal

think we should call the new Stripe's album tongue in chic?  ¶ 7:25 PM

  the coolest thing you've ever seen

skinny white-boy manager bounces into the restaurant with a gleam in his eye. "marian!" he yells. "LOOK at this!!" he brandishes what looks like a miniature tennis racket covered in yellow plastic. unzips the cover. it is a miniature tennis racket. he waves it in the air like a little kid on christmas morning. "isn't this the coolest thing you've ever seen?!"

he should know better than to ask me questions like that when i'm in this bad of a mood. "yea, that's the coolest thing i've ever seen . . . like michael jackson's innocent," i deadpan.

he gives me the "what'swrongwithyou,youPMSing?" look and hops into the kitchen. apparently, it's a fly killing apparatus, because he's going on a murder spree. the line grows and pretty soon i'm doing the work of four people again, like an eastern goddess with six arms. guacamole, plastic bags, cash, knives, and tacos whirling around my head like some goshdamn halo.

"look at that one!" i can hear the boys in the back. "how's that pico coming?" i yell. "look at them sizzle! eww, look at that one, he's still alive!" skw-bm shrieks. the customer closest to the kitchen lifts an eyebrow. "WHERE IS MY PICO?!" i demand. "DIE, MOTHER F%^$ER, DIE, YOU DIRTY FLIES!" a young mother looks uneasily at her child. the last straw.

i storm back to the kitchen. "DUDE! can you cut it out for one second?! what if Tom came in right now? you're a manager. you're supposed to be managing." "i'm managing flies," he says cheerfully, taking swipes. "there are kids out there," i insist. "try to act like an adult. and can you turn the rap down? it's kind of early for bitchez and hoz."

as if on cue, the owner comes in. this oughta teach him, i think. he shouldn't get away with this. if he wants to grow up to be a man, he should take a cue from tom.

a second later i hear this:

tom: what the hell's that?

skw-bm: a fly sizzler.

tom: a what?

skwb-m: watch this!

*sizzle* (laughter)

tom: how much you pay for that?

skw-bm: twenty bucks.

tom: here's a hundred, get me three and keep the change.


on his way out tom winks at me. "isn't that the coolest fuckin' thing you've ever seen?"

"yea," i say. "wow. sure is."  ¶ 6:31 PM

  memorybank

i didn't write this.


loathsome black objects. and then you start to get all scared, on account what's happened and you don't know the cause but you sure as hell feel the affects (sic.) get to the artery, get to what brings it out, get to know. i'd have thought that old dog would've died by now but he keeps on trucking and i'm afeared he'll come trapsing back one day to bite me on the ass.

love starts with not caring.

-- JMSF, 11.21.02  ¶ 7:41 PM

  weekend

i wake up thinking "i cannot possibly go to work today." as if on cue, mike byrne calls.

"kuemmerlein," he says. "you gotta come to DC."

well, of course. i call my manager and explain how sick i am, wake up SS, and we buy some train tickets.

our nation has a lovely capital. it's opalecent. claire powers lives there too.

when we saw wink, we said, hey, you should come visit new york some time. wink is a man of action. he went right upstairs to get his suitcase.

now we're all drinking beer and playing the oregon trail. i already died because we decided to ford a river. rich says the food rations are easier to manage now.

i should really get a desk job soon.  ¶ 9:09 PM

  "you're not jewish, walter, you're polish catholic"

throughout my life, i have been grateful for my jewish friends.

four years old: my dad's old baby sitter, a new york jew named gary, would bring us horror movies like Village of the Damned, which dad let us watch, but only because gary was there. we LOVED this. gary also brought us a mezuzah, which we attatched to our front door, next to the holy water.

ten years old: when the snobby catholic homsechoolers in my neighborhood wouldn't play with me, jessica, evan and amy levine were always up for climbing trees or making prank phone calls. they lived on the corner, and were jewish and listened to New Kids on the Block.

fifteen years old: i met a jewish mohican at a vegan punk show who said, this is just like a jewish wedding. strict dietary rules, broken glass, great music and dancing, and a bunch of people who are bound together by their beliefs. and a little bit of irony. i had to agree. mozeltov!

eighteen years old: found myself at TAC, scared of the california and all the catholicism. found Mike the Jew and immediately attached myself to him. never regreted this.

twenty-three years old: sick and hungover. the thought of food is abhorrent to me. my friend uri berkowitz says, you've had way too much mexican food. he dashes off and returns twenty minutes later with a steaming potato knish. eat this, he says, you'll feel better. i do, and i do.

i love the fact that my schedule wont allow me to go to mass on sunday. i go to confession and mass all in one blow on saturday instead. shomer shabbos!  ¶ 11:17 AM

  fatherly concern

dad: but what are you DOING? for a CAREER?

me: i could get married.

dad: !!!

me: kidding. i'm kdding.

dad: you can't just drift.

me: drifting's for california, dad. it's more of a grinding action here.  ¶ 4:03 PM