Controlled substance, dangerous unless used as directed

I’ve had bronchitis for the past dozen days and I’m getting sick and tired of coughing. I went to the doctor last week and got a Zithro pack and some codeine. Normally that does the trick. Not this time. Had to go back today because the coughing is to the point where if it doesn’t nearly suffocate me, it keeps me up at night. So I go back to the doctor. He gives me an amped up level of antibiotics and some grade AAA kush cough syrup. This shit had me tripping for the better part of this afternoon and evening. I’m still treading on it in a tiny tidal pool somewhere near the back of my conscience. This is the best buzz I’ve had in a decade. This is plush. And I haven’t coughed in hours. Zippety do dah, this shit rocks.

Blond on Blonde

Just got one of the best/weirdest/coolest emails ever. It was from a girl I was best friends with during my senior year in high school. She was a foreign exchange student from Holland. Tall, skinny blonde, etc…We were like brother and sister, except we made out with each other sometimes. It wasn’t gross, though. We were not related.

July's Hazy Laziness

It's July. It's hazy out there. This is the perfect time for motives. Or air conditioning. And video games. And Netflix streaming. And emailing old girlfriends. And getting returns. And doing laundry before the sun hits the stinging point. And spending time in the freezer section of the market looking for those looking for meals for one. And lip synching Hot Rocks instead of listening to Coldplay.

The boys are back in town

I did other things to be me. I took up surfing. I played in some amateur baseball leagues. I acted in plays. I played in bands. I partied.  Like those things, writing came naturally. I went for the money in pharma advertising. No wife, no life, no independence, no permanence, no obligating presence, no retribution, no construction. No complaining. Except for wanting to be outside more. 

Teenage Fanclub

Xxxx,

That email you sent was epic. I can’t address everything in one response, but here is my reply. My hope is that we can have a continuing conversation.

I’ve been working in the city for the past decade. My profession is, and had been since college, medical advertising.  I write snappy headlines and copy to sell pharmaceuticals.

In a grand miscalculated equation, it seemed as a way to define myself.

The writing came easy. It’s in the family genetics. But don’t even ask how I learned the science. The mystery is beyond all but a chemistry teacher at HHS. Mrs. Grocott once kindly gave me a B instead of a C on my report card because I drew a picture of a stick-figure cat instead of answering a question on a test.  Somehow, drawing that cat as a 16-year old tilted the deck in my favor. I’m still drawing stick figure cats.

Anyway, as to how I got to NYC… I was living in Red Bank, NJ and sacrificing 4 hours a day to ride trains to and from the city.  It gave me time to read a lot, but I could feel the leeching of time in in a micro and macro sense. So I quit my job, packed my surfboard, and travelled to Mexico, Costa Rica, Jamaica, and Antigua.

After my grand tour of the tropics, I came home and chilled at the beach for a year.  My girlfriend, Lynn, had a place in the city and would visit on weekends.  An apartment in her building opened up and I took it to be closer to her and where the business is.

But I’ve painted myself into a corner. At the age of 45, I’m disgusted with the professional path I committed to 20 years ago.  It’s not exactly the writing gig I, or my professors had in mind.

I decided to get in touch because of a dream. All my friends had died and I was the only one at the funeral. I was surrounded in a Mandelbrot set of spiraling caskets. I awoke sweating, feeling weak in the haze of the heat. I remembered you and how much laughter and drama and fun and teenage closeness we had in such a concentrated touch of time.

After that dream, and after I reached out to you, a great friend of mine killed himself. He jumped off a cliff at Rockefeller Lookout at Palisades Interstate Park. He was suffering greatly from MS. It broke me, Xxxx.

We are — here on out — going to be losing more friends than we gain. Let’s at least keep in touch with the one’s we truly have.

PK

USA! USA! USA!

Is it me, or are we experiencing an epidemic of some bizarre pathological compulsion to control others on our own self-righteous terms? Is this a natural trait of those in power or those aspiring to authority? Why is there now litigation concerning the size of soft drinks sold on a sidewalk outweighing human obligation in a hospital to care for those who suffer from bone-splintering pain?

We are insane. We are aggressively killing human compassion to fund the yachts, private jets and orgies of CEOs.

It’s bad enough we cant have the yachts and private jets.

Why are public servants inventing laws in their mind to spontaneously and aggressively assault, verbally and/or physically, fellow Americans exercising their rights?

Why are telecom companies deciding what television shows they don’t want us watching? They don’t want to make our emails subject to government inspection, do they?

Why do some feel that freedom of religion means the freedom to strongly suggest to others that they should say only Christian prayers in public settings?

We’re way too nosey. We’re busybodies who presume to have better things to do, but do not.  We pathologically peek over the neighbor’s fence to judge, yet not be judged. But yet we reveal with a yearning for empathy and recognition and connection to note our ever evaporating ink spot on this earth.

I get the TSA. I know they want to protect us. But are they screening the screeners? Are they closing the gate after the suspicious have left the barn? Maybe they should, for PR and security reasons, invent screenings that come before shoe bombers rather than after.  We brag about the fact that we’re perpetually a step behind.

If the TSA is so serious a government determination, maybe it should be less passively staffed. Maybe, in a call to American efficiency and commerce, it should be staffed to accommodate the volume of travelers. Maybe, in a capitalistic society, the worst should be fired and the best be promoted.

And why are we being watched without warrant? Why are we being searched? Why are doors being broken down in the name of blackhearted stormtrooper cops starving for steroid-fueled aggression? Why do many cops exhibit the symptoms of taking Human Growth Hormones and sport conspicuously similar crewcuts? If they stereotype others, can others stereotype them?

Why can’t we make cops pee into a cup for drugs? Why are innocent people being tasered for acting within law, but the inflaming tempers of trigger-happy, marine-wannabe, suburbanite police academy graduates go gently back home to soothing milk and cookies?

And if this is truly true…Why was a pregnant woman tasered for resisting being handcuffed, while handcuffed, the other day. She was kicked eight times. By a cop.  Again, while handcuffed. For resisting arrest and refusing to be handcuffed. While handcuffed. And head kicked. And so preciously pregnant. Was the cop trying to give her his own personal abortion?. Let’s wonder what political party an aggressive cop belongs to.

Cliff jumping not allowed

Do not commit suicide. It will hurt more than it helps. Trust me. The people surrounding the man in the middle are terribly, unexpectedly, angrily, and regretfully anguished. Look how happy he was. There were many days like this awaiting him. Still, he is a saint, a man who brought laughter to all and knew how to comfort others, even though we could not figure ways to comfort him. (Picture taken in a London pub, a few years back).

Godspeed, Kenny Cos

Kenny Costello.  December 5, 1967 - June 24, 2012

This is the saddest of times. This is a gaping, empty void. This is silence where there was once never ending laughter, tears where once there were nothing but ear-to-ear smiles. This is what we all feel missing Kenny.

My personal memories of Kenny are highlighted by our trip to London back in February of 1995. Never saw so much rain or Guinness in my life. Maybe it was raining Guinness.

Other memories include being his band mate in the Young Elastic Idiots (YEI) along with Chopper and Teddy; all those softball games with the Widdis Wisenheimers; and one side-splitting night in Ocean Grove with Geoff and John where Kenny’s alter ego, Fred Zeppelin, told us the ways of the world.

I could go on for pages, but Kenny would probably want me to stop so everyone could get a beer.

Kenny, you are a missed, mourned, adored and immortal man.

Growing Roots

Lynn, in her always good-natured manner, has been telling me that I spend so much time in my apartment that I’m growing roots.

In a way, though, I feel like I’m growing wings. We’ll get to that in a minute.

I spent the weekend in front of the TV and a book (Chronic City, by Jonathan Lethem) watching the Red Sox and Mets get swept by their respective opponents, and watching Mad Men and Breaking Bad reruns on Netflix streaming. I believe that during one particular 5-hour spell, my ass did fuse with the couch in a non-emetic way.  Anyway, I barely left my apartment. Hence the, “growing roots” implication.

But today was a big day. I had to go all the way downtown to see my neurologist and, then, my dentist.

My neurologist—a delightful man with a sing song Yiddish accent and an amusing way of summing things up in a word (he called my white blood cell count, “impressive,” while reading my nearly deadly meningitis results)—didn’t have me on his schedule. So I had no choice but to hit the streets.

To kill time I bought a wicked cool pair of Tiger slip-on track shoes and a way cool red Nadal Nike bandanna at Paragon Sports on 18^th St. Then found a hard-to-find MacBook book at the gigantic Barnes & Nobel. I found a stylus for my Nook, too.

Went to the dentist and got a pretty good health approval. They took pictures of my teeth with an intraoral camera. They asked that I slow down on the acidic fruits (pineapple.) My dentist and hygienist kept asking  how much pineapple I eat. I told them, a lot, along with a lot of oranges. Why they were intrigued, I don’t know. I think it had something to do with a loss of enamel. My dentist is a tall, skinny, statuesque, Eastern European woman. She likes to hear of my adventures, then use insanely gauged needles to numb my gums. There's probably videos of that kind of thing on 4chan.

I later found out that my health insurance policy had been terminated. I’m fucked. But I’ll at least have cool sneakers in the casket. The pair I bought today seem not to have obvious wings, but definitely have wing like things woven into the seams. Hopefully, they’ll be light enough to help me float away someday soon. In a good way. Like a tree turning into a bird.

On the Radio (same day as the Mets first no-hitter)

There are special days and there are days that just suck. Today was a special day. A big red letter day.


(If Lefty were here to see me he'd be looking at me like the pic over there.)

It began with a backwards segue into yesterday on account of my insomnia. I needed to be awake, alert, and articulate at 9:00 AM for the first time in months to be on Meryl’s radio show.

I twisted and turned in bed trying to sleep with little luck. Too much heat, too many blankets, too many pajamas. I turned on the air and pretty much did away with all else. Next thing I knew, it was 7:30 AM and time to wake up from no sleep. You’ve been there. It’s unpleasant.

Lynn and I made it to her office so that I could call in on a land line to “Let’s Get Organized” on Voice America.com. We got there with time to spare, so I had time for a cup of coffee. Lynn set me up in an unoccupied conference room and I drank the coffee. I called in. The interview went well. If you want, you can listen to it. I was her her first guest on her very first show. She's Fran Dresher's cousin. Very cool person. 

http://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/62097/time-to-get-organized

After the interview, I took a cab back to the west side to get some errands done. Came home and made tacos. Listened to the show and bristled at the number of times I said the word, “ummm….” I went to the gym and worked off my frustration. I came home and felt strong. I ate tacos.

Then I turned on the Mets. On the radio. The team across the bridge.

Johan Santana was on his game. You could tell from the first inning. Then the second inning. Then a buzz started. Then the buzz became audible and text and phone calls started flying. Then, after 8 innings and no hits, I called my dad. He’s an old Brooklyn Dodger fan and a Met guy since 1962, two years before he married my mom. The Mets have never had a no-hitter in 8,019 games. My dad has seen 8,000 of them. Dad was locked in. We decided to talk after the game, for better or worse. Almost as if not to jinx anything.

Fifteen minutes later we were talking. My father was as lucid as I’ve heard him in almost two years. He was elated. Santana had done what Seaver, Ryan, Gooden, Koosman, and Cone couldn’t. He threw a no-no.  This is history. This is fun. This is happy. This is the contrast to what Lynn told me last week: bad things always happen, get used to it.

I refuse to get used to it. I liked today.