Find me by the river

OK, now we're really going. We didn't figure on the Southern Comfort showing up with a rendition of Sweet Home Alabama erupting for no reason.

--

The river to the ocean goes,
A fortune for the undertow
None of this is going my way
There is nothing left to throw
Of ginger, lemon, indigo,
Coriander stem and rows of hay
Strength and courage overrides
The privileged and weary eyes
Of river poet search naivete
Pick up here and chase the ride
The river empties to the tide
All of this is coming your way - REM, Automatic For the People

"Agency hits homer with conference room as dugout ad"

My only real accomplishment of the year, at least professionally.

Sure, I got a lot done and became somewhat of the go-to creative for interactive projects, but this was my fave.

I was able to conceive, write and present the idea. Not to mention the winning of best in book for the pub in which it ran.

Had a lot of other things/accomplishments/new acquaintances I was proud of this year. As usual, I brought a few ounces of shame upon myself.

This was the one that turned a thousand words into a picture. Notice the Red Sox. Heh, heh.

Goodbye, Hello

Tomorrow night begins the spin again. My love to all.

fryPod

My 3-and-a-half-year old iPod is dead. Sure, it was a 3G version, and a friggin brick by today’s standards, but we were friends. I miss it. Now I’m in a quandary…I need to get my laptop fixed, want a new celly, and now, a new iPod. Not to mention a multi-hundred gig back-up drive. iPhone is out of the question. I’ve seen them in action and am not impressed.

Listen to me complain. People are dying of thirst in Africa and I want gigabytes. Plus, I still have dozens of books waiting to be read on my shelves. Time to back it up and go old school for awhile. I’ll wait for a new Gen of gadgets to come out, then I’ll shell it out for the techno-wants.

Let’s see how long I can live like a caveman. I give myself a week.

Freezing for a cab 14 years later

Oh so cool (fucking cold) in SoHo. LOL.

Animated, it would be a classic South Park album cover.

What the fuck am I looking at?

11-18-93

Where were you?
I was in a knife fight with a girlfriend. She had the knife.
I had both sets of car keys. Muah. Guess who ended up with the knife (locked in a drawer) and one set of car keys by the next morning?

Oh, the innocence of that time.

What the fuck is Kurdt looking at?

The Team dines on soup dumplings in Chinatown

Look how happy we are. If you can find me, you get a gold star. (Hint: I'm the guy with spilt hot sauce on his jeans for whom red-eye reduction apparently does not work.)

Amy, my authority figure, wasn't there, but her compatriot, Kyle, was. So I was second in command for the day. And I decreed that we all feast, shop, and/or go home. Everyone hit West Broadway and bought shopping bags full of fine cashmere and linens.

Heather bought a commie hat made out of 100% pure casting couch.

Julie and I took the long way back to work, bargained for her perfume on Canal St., walked past the SoHo Grand, answered emails for an hour or so, ate pie (Key Lime, lusciously made by Margaret,) then went home to celebrate Christmas with our families/circus freak huge cat.

All in all, a fine day. Like Forrest says, soup is like a lake in your belly.

Add dumplings to that and make your own inference.

For that one gray day, we were all bright smiles.

Bruuuuuce is coming to town

Bruce puts his pimp hat on in Paris and sees us while we're sleeping.
Or, in my case, getting a second degree burn while making spaghetti.

Jesus does not want me for a sunbeam.

Just looked at the blistering red wound on my arm. Hope that was just tomato sauce I licked off. Hmmm.

I'll pretend I didn't type that.

Winter solstice

Please be quiet. I’m very interesting.

That's my new party line. You'd be surprised at how well it works. Momentarily.

And I thought I was bohemian, at least that's what they tell me at work. I met about a hundred people way more Doc Martin-wearin than me at Judie's party tonight. Judie showed me her puppies. One was a springer spaniel, one was a chihuahua-type thing.

Wait, Tash, does that read right?

Five posts waiting to be read.

Soup dumplings, Chinatown, drunk tanks and world hunger.

Don't just hit it.

Scroll down, stay a moment or five, and enrich your day.

FEED THE WORLD

If you have a job, you can help. This problem, despite the efforts of 2 decades and a bunch of bleeding heart bastards like me, remains.

Darfur. New Orleans. Kiribati.

If you avoid these words, you are the problem. I give. To the point of barely making rent. And I make alot. Strange thing is, that makes me unlikeable. Well, give me a wife and children and maybe the story will change. I'll take care of my own, first.

Guessing that's the trade off.

Since I seemingly have no signifigance, I'll keep handing it out to those in need. Yo, you fucking millionaire evangelical republican ass crust - what would your savior do?

(Now I'm gonna get gansta on y'all - oooh look out!)
Yo! I'm not beholden to that book you always note. You seem to betray the scripture you ever quote.

Word.

LOL.

This is why I follow me.

But Bono says it's not like Christmas at all...

I remember when I used to get cool shit like Evil Knevil wind up motorcycles and U2 albums, and give rare REM bootlegs and luxury wardrobe items. It used to be fun. These days it's ziti and Ambesol. For me. Now it's just a time to give bosses champaign. (Spell check, 4th grade teach?)

Soup Dumplings as a metaphor....

They're lava-hot on arrival. Cool them with a pierce of chop stick, let the juice run the gauntlet of your tongue. Slurp. Eat. Ravish. Mouth is destroyed, but they're delicious.

Went to Shanghai today and walked back to work with Julie. Nice talk. Nice walk. Nothing like trudging 20 blocks through chilly Chinatown with a statuesque Korean model bargaining for perfume on Canal St. to make a day ever more memorable.

Guess what hotel is dead center in the middle of the walk back to SoHo?

Yup, the SoHo Grand.

Julie was oh so lucky to be regailed of the stories from that place...Thank god she's a non-judgemental friend who laughs with me at my moments of wearing a bathrobe on the steps of the said hotel one early autumn morning in '06, and meeting AW, no rehab, there in spring '07. No, no, no.

Shanghai Cafe, Chinatown

Mmmmmmmm......

Long awaited lunch today in Chinatown.

For all of us.

Haven't been there since the summer.

Table for nine, please.

Pics to come. Might be all of us together for the last time.

No one loves the soup dumplings at the Shanghai Cafe more than the man typing these words. That goes for all of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, Staten Island and Jersey, dammit. And I'll cover Florida and Arizona while I'm at it.

Happy Christmas from the Pogues and the drunk tank via Filthy McNasty's Pub. I saw Shane's whiskey-filtering teeth. Not something you'd wanna see.

Ever been arrested in London? This is what you get when you cross Shane McGowan with Kirstey McCall and me and Matt Dillon and a director with a thing for few shades of gray. In other words, 1996.

Kids get caught

Ann, just this very afternoon, taught me to be in it for the long haul. Huge transition. I'm struck with awe.

Wind, hurricane patterns, low pressure systems in power

Words, like songs, wind and pictures, chase their way around the globe.

Death of Roy

Handle Me With Care

Where the fuck did this song come from on that day in 1988? I bought a new pair of shoes and broke up with a rich beautiful girl who grew to hate me.

In one day.

THEN, same day, this song hit the radio.

THEN Roy Orbison died.

That’s enough for a decade, let alone a day.

Yet here we are.

Went through 2 stabbing decades after that. I should have stopped while I was ahead.

Seems I munch time in chunks of 10. Yet the new shoes did last a decade.

Ever get on a good blackjack run in Reno?

Champagne for all my real friends, real pain for all my sham friends.

Ol' Tom Waits quote.

I like it.

Kinda like the way I also like to spout out facts.

For instance, do you know that if certain tropical bugs see their reflection in a mirror, they will spray a vile liquid from their hind to strike a villan with a demonic combination of eye-stinging horror and nose pew? Don't fart in South America. Do the math. Trust me.

Do you know that there is rare species of bullfrog in the American South that bellows with a bombastic boom so low that only snakes can hear its call? When the frog emotes, the snakes shed their skin. It's like a lurid lizard strip show in the swamps on some foggy nights.

Do you know that rain makes worms from the earth despondent? They wired 'em up and equated their brains with people of the same mind. Worms won in all factors of despondency - in significant change over baseline. Oh yes they did.

To all whom I adore, feel fine to refer to the above mentioned artiste' - Take It With Me. I smile right back at you.

Define Future Happiness

I spoke with a good friend last night.

We were supposed to go out, get bombed, and see the Rockefeller Center Tree. Just for shits and giggles. But we were both toast after this week. So we postponed.

She is uneasy about taking a promotion because she is happy with what she is currently doing.

She said she was happy. I said, in many more words, What? You’re happy? No one is happy.

But I encouraged her to not only move forward, but to aggressively negotiate for more compensation.

She should. She is incredibly talented, possessing an eye for design that few have.

Few regret moving forward.

I’ve seen her apartment. For a small place, it looms large. She has a uniquely creative esthetic, one that is enviable. I’ve seen her publication. Her part rocks, she should have more influence over the final output. She is a beaming diamond among dusty tumbleweeds. She is beautiful, smart as a whip, and funny.

She should take the promotion, because it’s easy to muse, then wonder about retreating. But she should go forward, with determination, first.

She is not just someone who is good at her job. She is talented. Gifted, even. The kind of talent that makes the masses happy.

It felt good talking to her. I wonder how she felt talking to me.

Fake Plastic Trees

Best. Song. Ever. (By Radiohead.)
For the time being.
It's the only hard song to sing that I can sing. My voice coach (don't ask, long story) said that one doesn't cheat by sliding up to the high octave. Falsetto, she called it. One just either has it or does not. If one has it, find it and blast it vocally, with a strength that should rise from the floor and rise to the rafters like a hyper thermometer. I wanted to be a tenor. It is better to be a baritone, she said, with a tenor range. Chicks dig it on karaoke nights (don't ask, long story.)

Don't get caught on the wrong side of that line

AC

Ever been to Atlantic City, NJ? No? Too bad. It'll bounce back. Someday. The beach is impressive. Especially when emptied of the people who go to Atlantic City. It is a remote resort, somewhat downtrodden. It could use a few more Starbucks. And a few less quarter slots.

Maybe that’s why Bruce titled the album Nebraska.

Cinema Show

Phil Collins used to have hair.

Forgot about that. For whatever you think about him, he is a fucking damn good drummer. Listen to his precision on this classic track. He enters a drum duel with Bill Bruford. Can one get a more spot on snare snap slap in an odd time signature?

No. He makes a 7/4 time signature sound danceable. (Everything you've heard is 4/4, as in 4 beats per measure.)

Music geek talk.

Debonair

1. courteous, gracious, and having a sophisticated charm: a debonair gentleman.
2. jaunty; carefree; sprightly.

The word rings true. My acknowledgement of it does not. Denial as a forest fire viewed in black and white.

Acceleration as a ploughshare

I walk with intent through thick throngs. Some say I walk fast. I plow through pedestrians politely. As I move forward I leave a wide wake.

Ask Penn Station. They'll tell you.

It’s not that I’m ever much in a hurry. I just like the exhilaration of acceleration.

Lord knows I don’t need speed. There’s way too much of it in my brain naturally.

Maybe that’s why I don’t have an ability for super advanced math.
My salvation is that a surfer from Hawaii just published a beautiful, simple theory of everything. Google it.

As I move forward, I pace with a determined intent.

Time stands still.
Fractals of instance.

The million tiny waves within milliseconds.

Do the math.

Fractals of Instance

Speaking of frames, here’s sampling of all that happens within each single one:
Thank you, Rush.

I turn my back to the wind
To catch my breath
Before I start off again.
Driven on without a moment to spend
To pass an evening with a drink and a friend

I let my skin get too thin
I'd like to pause
No matter what I pretend
Like some pilgrim
Who learns to transcend
Learns to live as if each step was the end

(Time stand still)
I'm not looking back
But I want to look around me now
(Time stand still)
See more of the people and the places that surround me now
Time Stands still
Freeze this moment a little bit longer
Make each sensation a little bit stronger
Experience slips away
Experience slips away

Time Stands still

I turn my face to the sun
I Close my eyes
Let my defences down
All those wounds that I can't get unwound

I let my past go too fast
No time to pause
If I could slow it all down
Like some captain, whose ship runs aground
I can wait until the tide comes around

(Time stand still)
I'm not looking back
But I want to look around me now
(Time stand still)
See more of the people and the places that surround me now
Freeze this moment a little bit longer

MAKE EACH SENSATION A LITTLE BIT STRONGER

Make each impression, a little bit stronger
Freeze this motion a little bit longer
The innocence slips away
The innocence slips away...

Time stands still
Time stands still

I'm not looking back
But I want to look around me now
See more of the people and the places that surround me now
Time stands still

Summer's going fast, nights growing colder
Children growing up, old friends growing older
Freeze this *moment* a little bit longer
Make each sensation a little bit stronger
Experience slips away
Experience slips away...
The innocence slips away.

Time Stand Still

Accident Waiting to Happen

A girl I knew from NYC way back used to play acoustic covers of obscure, but cool, songs from MTV’s 90's-era alternative music time block, 120 Minutes. At a really grungy bar with cheap beer. Around 10 years ago, she dedicated this Billy Brag song to me. It’s called Accident Waiting to Happen. She was so right. Here are the words. I encourage you to download the song. It rocks.


I've always been impressed with a girl
Who could sing for her supper and get breakfast as well
That's the way I am, heaven help me
He said, "We don't like peace campaigners 'round here"
As he nailed another one to the wall
And that's what gets me in trouble, heaven help me

Goodbye and good luck to all the promises you've broken
Goodbye and good luck to all the rubbish that you've spoken
Your life has lost its dignity, its beauty and its passion
You're an accident waiting to happen

There you are standing in the bar
And you're giving me grief about the DDR
And that chip on your shoulder gets bigger as you
get older
One of these nights you're gonna get caught,
and she'll give you a pregnant pause for thought
You're a dedicated swallower of fascism

Time up and time out
For all the liberties you've taken
Time up and time out for all the friends that
you've forsaken
And if you choose to waste away like death is back in fashion
You're an accident waiting to happen

My sins are so unoriginal
I have all the self-loathing of a wolf in sheep's clothing
In this carnival of carnivores,
Heaven help me

PK's Tungsten Rod Award Show

The end of the year is creeping up on us.

Seems like yesterday we were all despondent because it was only January. Oh well. Fuck. Again.

That means:

Time for the PK awards!

Let's go with books this week, even though we might go with them next week, too.

Author one might want to try: Oliver Sacks (I read Uncle Tungsten, and though it is classified as a memoir, it treads heavily into science territory--while remaining thoroughly entertaining. He reveals the evolution of his mind while not so discretely unlocking the secrets of the atom. I closed the book a week ago and am still processing it. What a dark, yet promising, endorsement by me.)

Book one might want to try: Special Topics in Calamity Physics, by Marisha Pessl (Long, but incredibly original. A mystery. A protagonist that may someday rival the Harper Lee-southern macabre of Scout Finch. It cooled me out through a long, hot summer. Maybe it will help warm one through a long, icy winter. It stopped me cold. What a dark, yet promising, endorsement by me.)

Maybe it's my bias, maybe it's circumstance, but both are written by residents of Manhattan. (Big surprise--authors in NYC! What a dark, yet promising, endorsement by me.)

I've read about a couple dozen other books over the past few months.

I'd give them away, but I mark them and make notes. They serve as reverent reference to me. (What a dark, yet promising, endorsement of me.)

Nominations for categories from coupons to pxourn are now being accepted. Awards will be named at my will. No statues or compensation. Joe, Ween automatically wins everything you nominate them for. Participants might, not definitely, but might, get my autograph. That is all for now.

Waiting for Garfield

OK, time to get serious.

After 11 years of living with this cat, I’m startin’ to suspect that his kitten fixin’ operation didn’t exactly take. Call me crazy, but some things about pets you can’t get learned from wun of dem vets. He has bulldog balls. And, after all this time, he still humps chairs.

Triple H

I transmit tiny amounts of information that divulge huge assumptions about me. Basically it’s this: I’m horny, hetro and hungry. Anything else gleaned is stupid, self-centered speculation.

Oh, and I’m not screwed down. I’m freelancing life, though seemingly committed to a commute.

Cali calls again. My molecular structure alters.

This process will repeat, I think, until I OD. Unless I reproduce, or commit. (How many more “meh” may I invoke? I love this word/thought.)

I’m in the northeast. Points elsewhere looming, beckoning.

Craving celery

When the fat cooks off the bacon, the pet gets its food. Time to scramble eggs. This is not a Silence of the Lambs reference. Nor does it have anything to do with shooting an 8-roper. This is literally about eating the food in my fridge. French Bread Pizza sucks. It is designed to utterly destroy the upper mouth. And, yet, it cooks in the meantime…

Raymond Carver finale:

The door closes on my new wet shoe.

Or,
she is gone with the vacuumed convertible, make-up case on the other side of the screen door.
Or,
I'm still trying to think things through, your brain helps.
Or,
I'm angry at my lipstick-torn T-shirt.
Or,
we run away as the people yell.

Read him, you'll not get it for a moment, too.