Pixies, the best band that ever was, the seminal band, should spawn fantastic writing. Thanks to Black Francis, I’ll never win a spelling bee, but I’ll never lose a yelling bee.
Kim Deal is always hot.
Start expecting something big.
I don’t know if it’s Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon or synchronicity, but it has to be more than mere coincidence.
I caught Ferris Bueller on cable last week, and like most of my generation, I watched it.
The scene in the Art Institute where they zero-in on the Seurat pixel painting tugged at me in the usual way.
This week, I found myself in the Chicago-area with an afternoon to kill. Rebecca, my client and escort for the day, invited me to an afternoon downtown, since I never seem to make it to the Magnificant Mile with her.
The first place she took me to was the Art Institute. I was unaware of the looming casualty of events until she brought me right up to the Seurat masterpiece, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.
The Bueller thing kicked in, and I was Cameron for a good solid 45 minutes.
The painting is massive and enchanting, a gorgeous wonder of the vital interaction between human eye and human emotion. I guess others call it perception. This painting is perception drawn out--tantric-esque--wrought longingly from the heart, an epiphany for every touch of color.
Then, the weird part hits.
I start reading Joshua Ferris’ Then We Came To The End, and, not only is the book a mirror-reflection of the advertising industry, not only is the author’s last name Ferris (as in Bueller), but a key scene of the book occurs in the Art Institute while looking at Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.
That's fucked up.
Spent my first “at still” time on the beach in almost a decade today.
What does “at still” mean?
It means little-no-risk of head trauma in the surf. It was boring, but unexpectedly productive.
The last time I spent such a day on the shore was with Hilah, in her white micro bikini, southern accent and insatiable "appetite." I couldn’t leave my towel that day, let alone our spot on the sand, lest I revel my lust.
Today was a little different. I admired other women in similar states of undress. And hid my appetite in the confines of a book and a writing pad.
Took a late afternoon cold dip in the surf to help, um, retreat my lust. Still came out with a semi. That’s when it’s time to fold up the chair and go home.
This one is better than the first, though it sounds more boring. Name is changed in the second to last chapter, but it will debase your idealization of promise and passion.
Chapter 1:
Saw her from afar
Chapter 2:
We acquainted ourselves
Chapter 3:
Dated a few times
Chapter 4:
Slept together
Chapter 5:
She cared
Chapter 6:
Wrote about her
Chapter 7:
She smashed me
Chapter 8:
I tore up the pad of words I wrote about her as quickly as I could. With a box cutter.
Chapter 9:
Felt bad.
Chapter 10:
Felt ill.
Chapter 11:
Dehydrated.
Chapter 12:
Went to doctor. Doctor gave me Xanax, said to go to the hospital if I felt dehydrated.
Chapter 13:
Called her
Chapter 22:
Went to the hospital
Chapter 27:
Moved from ER to Psych ward because she lied
Chapter 28:
Had a man finger my ass for drugs. Had a man watch me shave so I wouldn’t kill myself with a disposable whisker shaver.
Chapter 29:
Spent 4 days in ward. Ate alone. Never took my black leather jacket off. Almost got in a fight with a Scott Baio-type who thought he owned the pay phone. Watched the staff beat, twist, restrain and drug a crying woman. They threw her onto a dirty mattress in a pad-locked room reserved for such sad people. Made friends with three smoking hot heroin women.
Chapter 30:
No one saved me
Chapter 31:
No one could
Chapter 32:
The only way out was to show them they broke me
Chapter 33:
I can play that game. LOL.
Chapter 34:
Was sent home
Chapter 35:
Drove home on my own wheels. Best drive of my life.
Chapter 36:
Dad met me to give me my apartment keys. He was feeding Lefty.
Chapter 37:
We had eggs at the diner
Chapter 38:
He went home
Chapter 39:
I stayed home for three months and listened to Pink Floyd and the Beatles
Chapter 40:
Then Lanmark hit. Again
Chapter 41:
Then I almost got fired by some dumb asses twice
Chapter 42:
Then I met Sandy.
Chapter 43:
Then I got fired by some dumb asses twice
Title: Boring: (an outline)
(This pic is not me. Late March in NJ--when I when I crashed--is far more frosty. But it's almost exactly what it would look like had it happened in August. Right down to the neck angle, impending shoulder impact and shallowness of the water in my then immediate future. Not to mention the vortex tide in the middle. OK, enough with the visual melodrama...)
Chapter 1:
Where do we go after we drop dead?
Chapter 2:
That is why it is of vital importance to embrace what we can, while we can.
Chapter 3:
I've never tried it, but like every one else on the planet, I've thought of it. Had a severe concussion a few months ago and lost consciousness profoundly.
Chapter 4:
Surfing accident. I was sort of brain dead (ha ha, no different than most mornings…) But I was fine, respiration-wise, once the water was sucked from my lungs.
Chapter 5:
Which is strange, because you’d think that someone who loses consciousness in the roiling water would have trouble breathing.
Chapter 6:
I regained said loss of life and made it to the high tide line before I took in a breath. That’s when I felt my lungs were full. Probably why I lost my senses.
Chapter 7:
Was cut out of my wetsuit by paramedics while dreaming about floating in blackness.
Chapter 8:
There is no other side. Just a strange void of diminishing dreams.
Chapter 9:
Then you forget that you were even you.
Chapter 10:
Until a nurse who knows you from a bar slaps your face in crying frustration.
Chapter 11:
Then all the world is fluorescence and beeps and people running around you, talking about your chart.
Chapter 12:
And you decide to walk home.
Chapter 22:
Otherwise, all you have to remember is black.
Where do we go after we drop dead?
This is why it is of vital importance that we embrace what we can, while we can.
I've never tried it, but like every one else on the planet, I've thought of it. Had a severe concussion a few months ago and lost consciousness profoundly.
Surfing accident. I was sort of brain dead (ha ha, no different than most mornings…) But I was fine, respiration-wise, once the water was sucked from my lungs.
Which is strange, because you’d think that someone who loses consciousness in the roiling water would have trouble breathing.
I regained said loss of life and made it to the high tide line before I took in another breath. That’s when I felt my lungs were full. Probably why I lost my senses.
Was cut out of my wetsuit by paramedics while dreaming about floating in blackness.
There is no other side. Just a strange void of diminishing dreams.
Then you forget that you were even you.
Until a nurse who knows you from a bar slaps your face in crying frustration.
Then all the world is fluorescence and beeps and people running around you, talking about your chart.
And you decide to walk home.
Otherwise, all you have to remember is black.
Gotta love a fireworks party where Miles Hunt, lead singer for The Wonder Stuff, is on the guest list.
Especially when you get to see the sky bombs shimmering explosive, thundering colors from the Monmouth Yacht Club, where the river reflects the descending sparks like a magic black magnetic mirror.
The best part was when during the simulcast of Born in the USA, the fireworks spelled out CSA. Curses to the wind!
Wait, no.
The best part was the finale cued to the Journey classic, Faithfully. I thought someone had spiked my drink.
Marybeth meets Lefty? (Simulated, but allegorically apt.)
More to come on this developing news.
You always know when a holiday is rolling around when you wander over to our corner of the 9th floor.
Especially at around 2:00 the afternoon before a few days off are pending.
Yesterday we had wine and cheese and the Chili Peppers cranking.
Guys trading scar stories, girls trading bra secrets. Bosses not giving a damn. And Julie talking about going topless at the Caesars pool in Vegas this weekend.
I worry so much about work. So much so that it saps my creative energy. I’m in charge of a lot of profit-making work, but I’m not supposed to know about the profit part. Val, the ex-copywriter turned account executive, tells me both sides of that story.
She’s also gotten kicked out of a bar in Mandalay Bay with me, bummed Xanax off me in more than one airport and begged me to tell her about my love life one night in a Denver bar. I told her. She approved. She got a total kick out of the Rizzo ruse. She was envious of the sweaty summer Fridays. She was sympathetic toward the fizz-out ending. This is all within the past year.
Anyway, I had 2 paper cups of red wine. Ate a sleeve of crackers with Arsen, our new Albanian artist and Lauren, my new Jersey City copywriter. Ran across the street to get orange juice for the vodka people. Hit the ATM for a shitload of cash. Wrote a work list for next week. Then I bolted uptown for the train home.
People were visibly drunk at work. That’s a bad sign.
I’ve spent a lot of my life swimming with deep water below me and sunshine above.
I can’t believe how awful Pedro Martinez’s stats are since he came off the DL. And this is coming from a Met fan!
I like the Mets. Did anyone see the 7 ft. Statue of Liberty painted in Met colors and logos in front of Madison Square Garden the other night?
Very classy.
By the way, what is this tabloid crap with A-rod and Madonna? If they want to fuck, let them fuck. Jeez. Life is too short to deprive the libido. Within reason. I think.
Follow my lead, everyone, watch the Red Sox. Root for the Red Sox. Even if they lose, they will not betray you or let you down. The Yankees will get spanked this weekend.
Notes on the most incredible breasts I’ve seen since the summer of 2005. (Billabong store in Shrewsbury, NJ)
She walked up to me and asked me what shirt size I was. So, of course, I mistakenly stared at her tan, bulging breasts.
She was wearing this skin tight green dress kind of thing, which allowed me for the span of about 0.5 seconds, to see 75% of her tits, minus nipple.
In the remaining 0.001 second I had to communicate with her, I noticed she was at the most, 22 years old.
If that. Not going there.
OK. Deal with it. She approached me. As a sales person. With painted eyes and highlighted hair and taunting me with her lack of tan lines. (Personally, I love tan lines.)
She ended up selling me two shirts I didn’t need and a keychain without a price tag. She almost got me for a wet suit, then she recognized me. No wet suit for you, concussion, NYC channel TV, writer boy!
Why the key chain? Because it was in the glass jewelry case at the register and required her to bend down, over and reach.
If boners were related to Homemade Security levels, I was at level purple.
These babies were tan, full and defying fucking gravity.
The dude working with her was one of the luckiest boys on the planet and didn’t even know it. He just wanted to talk boards with me. Either he thinks all girls are like that or he’s castrated.
(Plus another two sets on the subway this morning. I think I’m in heat.
Set #1: Girl in black skirt suit, blonde hair. Sits next to me on the train. Keeps brushing my ribcage while turning pages in her book. I brush hers back. Then loose my nerve when I see the height of the heels she’s wearing.
Set #2: Girl in backless summer dress. Hair tied up, ringulets cascading down the soft, perfumed nape of her neck. She’s sitting, I’m standing in front of her. We make eye contact about 500 times.
The 1 train stopped in kind of a sudden way, so she humped my leg with her crotch as we hit the brakes. I was thinking of someone else. If I was facing the other way, I think we'd be legally married in 19 states right now. And expecting a first born next spring.
Long neck, tan shoulders, no tan lines. Brunette. We exited together with a lasting smile at the Houston St. Station.)
If there are any female readers out there, I can see why you might be off put by this entry. But it’s not like I wanted to have sex with her, or touch her, even. I was just amazed. I guess it was a long winter. T is gorgeous, but we didn’t exactly connect immediately in the sex appeal kind of deal. March is not my best month. My mind was elsewhere. I was self-conscious of my self-consciousness.
It used to be that all my best connections were made in March. Now it’s deep in the summer heat. That’s what shore living does to one.
That’s why July’s motives are hazy.
Reading, still.
Managing a tan and taking a few days off this coming week.
Expect some weird entries.
In the middle of two totally off the wall books right now: How We Are Hungry by Dave Eggers and Double Nickels on the Dime by Michael T. Fournier.
How We Are Hungry is a collection of my favorite writing medium, the short story. Three of them, so far, have read me rather than the other way around—The Only Meaning of the Oil-Wet Water, Quiet, and Your Mother and I. All three have lust as a primary theme.
Double Nickels on the Dime is a pocket reader about the classic LA punk album by the Minutemen. To this day, I swear it’s my friend, Joe, on the album cover.
How We Are Hungry is demanding, but light. Like longboard surfing the low, outgoing tide at Huntington Beach. With a bluebird on your shoulder. Balancing the impact of what is usually left for late night, moonlight wonder.
Double Nickels is nostalgic, bringing me back to high school days when I was just discovering bands like Black Flag. More books like this should be written about albums like this. I’d like to see Joe write one about Ween. Or Chumbawumba.
