Klinghoffer Opera

KlinghofferAct 1:Frought with attempts to liven up a crowd to rally via historical timeline for those who are otherwise two-dimensional. I'm not impressed with the pace nor the angst. Possibly opera, though dramatic and elongated, may not be the form to portray a political bend of factual realm. It executes well only for the passing of time on a cruise ship waiting to live or die
 
Act 2:
If Act II was a diptych, one side Francis Bacon and the other side Velasquez, these two acts juxtaposed would be each other's exact opposite. Act 2  led to a harsh understanding of the realities of life on a cruise ship and how the mind copes.  Passengers focus on what they'll do when they're home and safe, how they'll laugh about this with their children.   One describes the sandwiches the cruise ship served and their lack of meat, laughing about cigarettes and her misconstrued belief that a hijacker had any balls. The question at hand, does arrogance or the way you are brought up lead to judgement calls that may have otherwise been ironic if only time played a factor. Does education and one whos politically fervent, need to shut the fuck up, or does he think hes going to pull a Bill o'reilly with irrational people and somehow get away with it?  It's not that I feel anyone deserves anything that happens in tragedies, and in this case the dialogue leaves you virtually slapping the sense into the cruisers for such blasé coping. When listening to the dialogue of the actors, I don't doubt that the ones speaking out with confidence were brought up to be so adamant. Some men and women like to throw their religion's supremacy around. Klinghoffer was not afraid to speak up and let men with guns know how he feels about them.  This may happen when you're afraid and helpless. Why not try reasoning, especially if you think you're dead already? The problem is, hindsight is 20/20 for an audience.   

The two best parts about the opera were its focus on how ones mind gets polluted from the motherland and a collective religious chorus which drives a modern dancer to soundtrack without music. And second, is to put one in the shoes of a wife who learns the worst unexpected news and to dare recreation of ones feelings when actually in true life this must've been devastating. Where would u be if the girl you loved for 40 years was killed and u didn't get to say goodbye. How would she feel if u were gone and her heart had long since beat in unison with yours. In the end, u want to trade places for the hurt of one's spouses death isn't worth living. 

I am yet to understand if the strategy of the captain was non-fiction in that he believed he would fare better with negotiating power by lying to Egypt stating that all passengers were safe. When in real life we do know the plane with those PLF members was re-routed and they were arrested after the US heard the truth, then again they got off on parole anyway.  Was it deplorable, or was it genius to save the rest of those lives? Your opinion. 
 Why though are people picketing outside about this interpretation by John Adams?   I grabbed a pamphlet from a Rabbi to understand it. What I didn't quite grasp was how this is any different than a lawyer trying to understand the mindset of a criminal they are beset to protect and defend.  Are the lawyers pieces of shit for representing the side of a derelict loser criminal? No, he/she is doing their job and representing the other side with somewhat of a sideways argument. I don't think the exploration of the opposite side by a composer is exactly like a lawyer playing devils advocate.   I don't believe entertaining that analyses is anything but human nature or intelligent to assess. The pamphlet from the rabbi said if it were a black person, the public would be up in arms. I think this type of thing, although not terrorist related, happens to blacks like parking maids give tickets for blown meters. The ultimate question of this nights performance is, why is the recitation of Klinghoffers demise considered exploitation?  If in this case, you absolutely had no control that this man died, then why not teach people like me about this horrible tragedy. Why hide this man's death instead of hanging it out there as a red badge of courage?  I now know of Klinghoffer. I did not before. I know he was brutally murdered, and i know that was specific to his religion's persecution by another. Why is that considered to be whoring out this man's life?  In fact, i think its a more present analogy for what has been dragged out until today which is the jews persecution during the holocaust. At least here is a more present example for millenials to consider. Thank god for John Adams and for teaching us about this man. What idiots would block thousands from understanding his brutal death. METLive in HD offers just that type of exposure. Klinghoffer's story had all to gain in these performances. The pamphlet I had slid to me at the steps of Lincoln Center was the propaganda. 

Hyena at La Mama

Hyena

To tear away flesh, to feel the skin ripping as you turn your jaw to the side with teeth clenched, as you grip the bone and feel the leg pulled away from you, you’re hoping for delight.  You’re willing to ravage what is dead in order to not make its loss of life less important.  You enjoy its life in your mouth because you can, because you’re in control.  How much of our lives can we consciously control without factors in our subconscious telling us how to act?  What is ok for a woman to do, and why?  Can she be who she wants without judgement?  I fear not, because what men want, women typically will be forced to become.  Possibly that’s because nature winds a clock that counts down, or possibly its because the values of cultures steer different ships in opposite directions than a movement towards women’s independence.  Hyena was as graphic as its first scene where a woman, our woman, Romana Soutus wants nothing but to be let out of her cage, but she  must ask for help, or otherwise be given permission via lock and key, and we will allow her out.  So came the mini-pigtails, the open wound, the heaving breasts indicative of a sophomore’s get-up.  The subtleties of lilly white Americana flow throughout her work, as do her gyrations, see-through panties and attempts at tackling allegory via the Boy Who Cried Wolf, and a woman seeking to wear the mask of what eats Little Red Riding Hood.  In one moment, she’s awaiting her iron to heat up so she could ease the wrinkles out of her blouse, before damning the pores and seeds of strawberries to their last drop as its juice dribbles down her elbow, her arm, her armpit hair, her hips and to the floor.  Such frustration could make the tickle of liquid flowing down your elbow as meaningless as a compliment from someone you already know loves you.  Romana wants to make a point, and within her dialogue so much of what we yearn for is heard, but rarely does it get to settle.  There are lines of greatness that women deserve to tattoo on their biceps.  We want to be asked how we like to get fucked.  We want to know what she wants for the rest of her life.  She does an amazing thing, bringing us into a space, making us feel uncomfortable but invited, insecure but empowered, jealous but desperately seeking fresh air, and our lives, with the remote, and the less assumed weight of self doubt lingering on our careers and whether our deepest darkest everything will make for entertainment.  We live in double standards but perpetuating ignorance is innate in humans.  You cannot escape a tide, regardless of how hard you swim.  And as tide’s change, which I believe they are, Romana will find herself in a wave that’s crashing toward shore, but has with it the foam, the seaweed, the sandbar and the bruises that she can walk through life with.  Wearing those black-and-blues like medals which would have been earned in other ways as timing and fights and love will do to us all. This was a woman coming of age, ravenous and aggressively pursuing the dead so that someone alive would notice her, and the spotlight’s still shining, regardless of the bruises…after all, we like the bruises.

MDLSX at La Mama

MDLSX

One solitary killer performer; one play not labeled or titled via acronyms. This is a journey that doesn't stop tonight, not for the person showing us their life, and not for us. Mini tripod and iPhone in-hand, tandem home videos also translate an education lesson that I will use in my life if ever confronted with its subject. You don't wish anyone a tougher life, you learn, you listen, and you love. The timing is always right. The title? Let's start with the title.   Perhaps a strategic choice reminiscent of our culture lessening important things. Do I think that was strategic?  Brilliance is always fun, in the minds of the brilliant.  Vowels? Why does a word always need one? Formulas are plastic and we need to be able to shape things in a way that we can understand them even though it's not what you're used to. Maybe it's a metaphor for our generation's attention span, or how we speak, or spell, like kindergarteners sounding out words and then attempting their spelling. Why can art be subjective, but spelling can't? Spell how you would like kids, if it translates across generations, great, if it doesn't, who cares, life is short and those whom you love will get it.
Tonight this performer revealed their discovery of their life and exposed the transformation to us. If your life could have a soundtrack, what songs would you pick? Years go by and each song is indicative of the moment - The Cramps, David Bowie, screaming as each kid on the playground asks if you're a boy or a girl. A celebration when a pubic hair surfaces, and an orchestra follows. Same goes for breasts and the ache that may follow growth, and a melodramatic build and confusion play when a penis protrudes; one person. This is their life. You're allowed in. She pulls her hair back to reveal an uncanny look mirroring her brother, and then she sticks the camera inches from her vagina. If you were picturing some play-doh creature you blindly make during a Cranium challenge, you're wrong. You've been up in there and you're not confused. In the end though, she is and she wants to be the person inside. Not what parents have steered or expected; what the person inside is saying.

Alejandro Jodorowsky makes a vocal cameo in an interview with someone equally important considering their opinion on the topic was stellar and well informed. There shouldn't be a label for a man or a woman since there aren't just two, ever. If that's true, than a man or woman are not the only two options so therefore acknowledge. In the end we did. Although this human beings life led to a hitchhiking journey, shaved heads and drugged mermaids in tanks w sheer shiny flippers, a kaleidoscope of colors, songs, beats and philosophies, never could you put yourself in their shoes, and so you stand and clap. I haven't stood and clapped in a long time. I literally jumped out of my beach chair, and threw my jacket down to clap. Not because you're sad, not because it was difficult for the performer to deliver such a show, but because you know you're not that strong. Because you know you just witnessed something above and beyond someone coming out to the public.  Because you know you're a better person for her having been alive, and selfishly walking away with more than what you ever paid.

Goldberg - Marina Abramovic

Goldberg Variations

Surrender your belongings to a locker, take nothing but the key and follow instructions.
You're seated like a Dubai sand resort, or a ufo farm diorama, or the latest burning man tent seashell. You sit gently. Crimping your hamstrings against a wooden beach chair, headphones in-hand. Your neighbors are unaware and lay neatly in place, staring up at a hangar ceiling that could fit a blimp. A gong sounds, and arms raise to silence the world around you. I smile and for some reason shed a single tear. Yup, cliche I know. Maybe I hadn't blinked in a while. I thought about the impossibility of shutting out everything and quieting the noise in ones life, but not being alone in your room, staring at the window, preparing for the next day, or a terrible night's sleep - which many did, sleep, but not out of boredom.  They'd chosen to spend this time in their life in this space, with the silence, the music and nothing else.

The tick of your temple, the rhythm of your heart, every breath guides you through the next twenty minutes. You're a fetus. You're life is muffled. There's light at the end of the tunnel and doors with which you choose to enter this life. A stick is clicking in the background but my attention is focused on the ceiling, on my life, on the mistakes and where I'm at. I'm keenly aware that my experience will be solely mine and different because my life is not the same as anyone else's.  Similar, maybe, but no ones thinking about suicide, or should I say, self-assisted  suicide in my old age and How to Die in Oregon.

Igor Levit is creeping by me at a slow pace. He's wiping his face, he buries his head in his arm and takes a nap on the piano before his work begins. He's nodding his head as if to say "I can't believe I'm doing this again". His piano is slowly pulled into the center of our chaise stadium, our headphones still on, dead silent. 4 illuminated doors have been our roof compass. None of which dictate a direction, however a possible moment of birth when they suddenly power down at the sound of a second gong.  The headphones come off, our heads breach, the lit doors slam, one stream of consciousness surrounds us and dims throughout our lives.  The piano slowly rises to the noise of ones life that never ceases from inception. You're born, and so goes the rise and fall of ones trajectory and Igor chooses how to crescendo a lifetime - it's got angst, hyperactivity, love, confusion, awe, fantasy and death.  It might not be your death. Just another chapter, on repeat.  There's no doubt that many a movie scene will subconsciously draw us to the death of elders sitting in wheelchairs at some broken down senior facility. This piano plays like a drug you want to take over and over even though you will die together.  You think of the saying "the soundtrack of ones life" and nothing rings more clear especially when you're cell phone isn't around. As time passes though, you settle deeper into your chair because your arms have fallen asleep at the angles you'd set them at shoulder length. Your legs are pinched and your back starts to yearn for a stretch. As you sit, you start asking yourself what time is it, let me check my watch. Is anyone going out after this, where's my phone. I crossed my leg and was worried something would fall out of my pockets into the bars of the Steinway and ruin mastery worse than the coughs from phlegm squandering hackers.  As the light faded and what we knew was an unblemished attempt at painting ones life, it led me straight to my death and the thought of yearning for a song that could walk me out into the next state of silence. I'll now know it when I hear it, because it's mine.

Lazarus

Lazarus

Without having any idea about the Man Who Fell to Earth, I'll break apart the already fractured yet duct taped Lazarus. With cart Blanche access to David Bowie's catalog, the show is like the Northern State Parkway. It winds its way around the richest areas of the island but never lets you peek inside. You get glimpses of greatness at multiple landscapes and then you're pulled over by the strobe of police before you can even tell them how much you enjoyed your view.  The actors are mad for each other and drive your interest through the two straight hours, however there's never enough dialogue to secure ones fallibility.  Just as your invested, poof magic trick, smoke, stab, drag off stage and strobe into the next digital remedy. I try to keep my criticism to be less than just a scene outline, and therefore where in my life did I find myself? I found myself searching for each character's wants and needs without focusing on the David Bowie songs that were way too popular to not be a biopic musical on his life (also the vinyl records in sleeve laying against the wall was kitschy). How do we create a scene that matches this song, and hey, we can sing it slower or pitchy...I loved it and I wished it was me, but I also wanted to fall in love.  I wanted to lay in the afterbirth cytoplasm that is my life and bleed opaque purity as if to have offered more than I was given. I watched that intercellular fluid travel toward me on stage as they lay. The battle between life and death is indicative of the angel and devil on ones shoulders, or a grim reaper like meet Joe black, taking a life in order to meet you in the flesh and depict a message that you might not have believed if not tactile; there he's striding past in your nude box, black as night, the part of your heart that's long since died, and he continues to poison your spirit because you know you're not the same. They'll try to save you. You made up your mind long ago, but you're a good person and try to save them the pain that time has worn on you. Certain characters got me there, even with the snot, the tears, the milk and the electric hair, but I went limp when they started singing about the man who sold the world, or being a hero just for one day.

What would you do if you absolutely couldn't get home but you knew that home existed?  What about not being able to die? I think in the end the only way to survive such pain is your eventual efforts to destroy oneself. Hope is a fallacy and makes for temporary glimpses of a future that's never to come. That's not really a future, that's a dream and therein lies the premise. In order to escape our lives, we picture  ourselves in another place, dreaming about what we'll have and how great it will be, while each day that passes, we grow closer to our deaths. Did we love enough? I hope so. But then again, we know what hope does. It keeps us alive, for how long, and for who, well that's up to you. What memories will keep you ticking. You'll never figure it out. It's not for us, it's more important that you do it for them.

9/11 w Philip Glass, Harriet and Rittenhouse 100

I start in Berlyn.  Standing up against the wall, blocking the kitchen and the two skinny bathroom doors - they couldve been phone booths a century ago - hot pretzels fly by.  We're waiting for Philip Glass.  NYT mag in-hand.  I'm catching up on West Point chicks and the things they'll do for their country, or their future, or my future.  Sipping Rittenhouse Rye 100 - it burns and then it coats.  I squint and my nostrils flare exhaust pipes wincing, dripping, "don't do that to me again" in trachea-speak.  I press down on the gas, or open throttle, or sesame.  My new favorite Rye.  I like what hurts.  What hurts never fails to deliver in life, or libation, or love.  I think of this letter that arrived at my door May 2013.  A Dear John letter, to my father regarding his friend that passed away. 

"I know you were both good friends" she says "and I suspect you remained that way. Undoubtedly this letter is coming as a complete surprise to you, but Robbie was my first true love, although I'm sure he wasn't aware of that fact, I was very saddened to learn of his passing. I often thought of him through the years and in my heart, I hoped our paths might cross again and we could share the story of our lives together and smile."  "Are you in line for the bathroom?"  I snap out of it.  "Nope, left one is occupied."

Time check, 12 minutes and countdown to the man who's brought us Einstein on the Beach and Satyagraha; scores of pleasure brooding with monotony and the test of wills to conquer ones mind versus the body's willingness to oblige.  Can you hold that 10 pound weight straight out in front of you and not shake? Oh you can?  But for how long....because you'll shake, eventually.  Ticket for one lonely soul somehow snagged me front row.  I open my emails.  I'm feeling the love.  I've got 4 minutes.  1) To my CSS: Thank you so much for the closing the lights in the model, you are an unbelievable team mate and where would I be without you.  2) To resident Ms. Kaputnick: I'll make sure we come check your light fixture cover first thing in the morning; thank you for being such a kind and patient resident.  3) To my Director: Heyo, do you need me to setup anything for the Halloween Party - what's everyone being?? If you need anything, I'm always looking for a project!  

Man and new date sit down next to me. They were so lovie dovie that they must be new, or in transition, or just the luckiest people ever.  "I'm gonna keep this on all night" I say to the guy, hinting at my glowing phone screen.  "Oh great!" he says, warmly.  We snuggle into our seats and the lights go down.  

Act 1.  Two men walk across the stage, white shirts, black pants and they begin to clap. Crouching and pounding their hands together, they contain a beat and they do not let it fail.  As they are clapping wildly in rhythm I could not help but feel like this was the origin of entertainment. If there were no radio, no Son House, and the chain gang finally gets a moment to break it down. This was the numbing of ones hands, and ones life, repeatedly executing at a level required of you or else realize your demise as human, flaw-full, and stamped with an expiration date.  I can accomplish this, while you accomplish that, and we together support each other's end.  For there is no tomorrow but for this.

Act 2. A new translucent screen alights to an empty stage, and a hologram man with drumsticks pops onto the screen and begins to hit three vertical spots on his electronic drum pads. 1,2,3,3,2,1,1,2,3,3,2,1,1,2,3,3,2,1......  He starts low, works his way up and comes back down.  A real man walks out and sits behind the hologram-like screen and grabs his drumsticks.  He begins to try and mimic the computer graphic.  He finds his timing and joins and then falters, poking a stick through the space in between the vertical pads.  He drops a stick.  He picks a new one up.  He misses and doubles back on one pad.  He catches back up. He's sticking it out, literally.  And he fucks up again, poking that space he just can't seem to navigate.  All the while Mr. Hologram, 1233211233211233211....without fail...paradiddlemethis......for ten minutes this goes on and the beat rarely switches.  It's the mind that needs control because the body wants to find the quicker, easier way rather than stay in line.  We find the beauty in the mistakes.  You cannot beat a computer, nor should you, for mimicry can be attempted but is only acceptable when errors dictate humanity.  That's what makes the performance shine, notsomuch the humanizing of the man, but yes, in a way, this highlights evidence of difficulty. No one would show up to watch a computer do the same thing over and over.  Stabbing the open air is only upsetting if you don't attempt recovery. And in the recovery, the glory will reside and praise will be wrought for the effort rather than the impeccability.  We stand and numb our hands as he exits stage left.

Act 3. How do instruments speak about horror? What sound would you make if your voice was a violin? Can you put a score to a live, true horrible event?  The answer is yes, and by belief for its success is in the duration of the attack.  Live recorded voices come over the loud speaker as instrumentalists sit and cover the words to near zero distinction, but you know they're Sept. 11th callers and interviews.  The timber and bass strummed low and then shrieked through the walls. Viola and flute served deserved respect to the mania without dumbing down those so frantic in delivery. This show was on September 11th 2014, and there was no cheapening or dilution of the events nor the people speaking, but personification of wind from voices that may not ever catch more breath.

Reciting above the first half and those acts with a flare for the contemporary, I will let you see Philip Glass' operatic works instead of putting words to songs immaculately executed in the second.  I find myself back in Berlyn.  The bar is empty aside from a gay couple who recited a great joke to me about trying it out.  I sipped my Elijah Craig and ordered the Sea Bass before jotting notes in my phone. Nosing back through the mag, I read about charter schools and DiBlasio's distaste for the structure.  I thought about school.  I thought about my life.  I felt alive in the moment; honest and clear.  I felt like conveying my truest love, to share life in these moments and the next, to make sure I'm not Harriet, writing Dear John letters, thinking her and Robbie, they'd live forever.  I'll speak now, I'll speak tonight - I'd rather that, in words, than in memoriam, as a Stradivarius. 

Walking at Night

I often choose paths, less lit by afar, 
for there is little risk, in what's inevitably bright.

There are times, many times, where I'd rather not live, 

hence traveling dark paths especially during night.

Walking, passing, doubling back, caught staring.  

Through yellowed windows, a man sits at 80.

  

His chair, his posture, the TV, me at 80. 

Yellow walls, clear glass, flickering future, leather lazy.

Coasting by, I beg not, for old age comes to all.

Why rush what's inevitable, some do choose to fall. 

Why bother walking, when you can just sit and rot?

Because rotting is just sitting, when walking is not.

I feel pity, in my gut, for my life, for my choices.

Should I have changed? Never moved? Entertained other's voices?

What's real, what's fake, what's right, what's wrong.

Close your eyes, embrace the night, kiss and hum, cicada's song.

I know when I ask out loud just to die, 

all pain's remedied looking up at the sky.

Pacing the stars, late at night, grass soft, at my feet. 

Your chest bare, to my ear,  beat beat, a stammer beat....

If you walk, think of death; do choose a less lit path.

For we're all seeking answers, this here, aftermath.

I'm Always Missing Out

I'm driving West, to work, the Jitney is heading East. I've just never had a place to stay out there....that's why I don't go, otherwise I'd be there with bells on.  What does a Hamptonite look like? Is her pussy tanned, wet, blond and waxed? I'm always missing out....

Tahrir Square is packed with Egyptians fighting for their government to change, again....democracy? I wanna feel like a part of something. I wanna be there waving a flag, pretending I know who or what will help me, not take more of my rights away.  I'm always missing out....

Bill Cunningham is stalking 5th ave, snapping photos, catching black as the in color block of a rainy summer...why didn't I think of that. I have a camera.  Dude's 80+.  I'm always missing out....

Indian is the new Persian like Persian was the new Italian. Dosa's, Debashish Battacharya, The Billionaire's Apprentice, Neon Indian, Calcutta on a hot Wednesday night. I love Indians, I have Indian friends, well, a friend.  I should meet more.  Learn more about India, differences between North and South, Punjabi and Bengali. Apply to IIT.  Wish I studied abroad.  I'm always missing out....

My friend is a geological scientist...she got a job offer in Hawaii!  Sooo in demand now.  Gasland II is about to release..not that she deals with fracking.  Documentaries are my love.  I could think of something to film.  Can't I?  I wish I had studied something cooler.  Just pulled up to the Leasing Office where I work.  There's a leak coming through the ceiling.  Wish I was en engineer or an architect.  Would have built this place better. I'm always missing out....

Edward Snowden just wanted to inform us.  Wish I could give something to our whole nation like he did.  Whistleblower smishtleblower.  Hope Ecuador picks him up.  I know an Ecuadorean girl. Maybe she has family there in government? I should reach out to her.  She'd probably think I was a creep since I haven't talked with her since I was young.  But isnt that what Facebook is for?  She just had a baby.  "Congratulations!  Do you know anyone in Ecuadorean parliament?"  Dumbass, you're too late.  I'm always missing out....

The Venice Biennale looks like a kids art project in the cafeteria of Connetquot Elementary School.  I could have submitted something better.  Maybe I will next year.  A dollar sign puzzle made of lottery tickets with everyone's wishes written down on the tickets...with a bible verse cut in the middle of it, and prayer hands painted over the tickets?  That'll be ironic...wanting to win money, but praying to God to win money..life of poverty?  That's what these art critics look for, isn't it?  Six steps deep..Bobby Fisher type of shit.  I wish I was a better chess player, and visited St. petersburg, or Leningrad.  I like Leningrad better than the new name St. petersburg.  Lenin, Stalin, Putin...boys boys boys, Schlagen.  I miss college...it went by too fast. My 10-year reunion is this summer.  Sleep in bunk beds and pound batty blues and wings at the IB.  Not gonna go though,  I couldnt' wait for it to end while there so I'll probably be miserable.  Hopefully my friends will post pics.  Thank God for Facebook, since....I'm always missing out....

James Turrell is at the Guggenheim.  Dude bought a crater in the middle of nowhere and has underground rooms like cave scenes from some Kubrick apocalyptic never produced. Should I take the train in?  See light formations for like 10 bucks on the upper east side. Kinda busy though, with work and all.  My buddy's done recess lighting in his bedroom, maybe we can get together and fuck around with mirrors.  Fucking hours this week are brutal though...whatevs, they're just lights.  I'm always missing out....

Grucci firework family was just at Eisenhower Park the other night during the Philharmonic's performance.  Totally should have went to that.  DVR had nothing good saved anyway.  Wait, that's on the big lawn where the goose shit all day, and there'll probably be mad mexicans over there taking up all the park benches, and there'll be nowhere to park, or sit...and that damned Leisure Pass, I never bought that thing.  It'll cost me ten bucks to get in the place..and it's fucking 45 minutes away at least.  Forget it, I've seen fireworks before..and the Philharmonic's on PBS every other night...I won't even bother.  I'm alway missing out....

Sitting here watching Thump.  Shit's getting me tres jealouso. Wanna eat pussy and molly and whatever's on the table.  I wanna try everything...well, not everything. Not Sisa, or H...but anything else. Buy those gloves with the glowy finger tips, start moving em around in the dark while rolling a poker chip back and forth between my fingers.  Trippin.  Haven't danced since dancing wasn't fucking.  I keep hearing about clubs down in meatpacking, near the Standard, a shit kicking beer garden over there and KAzino.  I have to get over there, dress nice, have someone with me...who would I bring though...and wait, isn't that the bridge and tunnel crowd? That is probably a sweaty guido mess over there, especially in the summer.  Thats right, all the cool people leave the city in the summer on weekends.  Where do the cool kids go?  Oh yea...that Jitney, that God dammed Ambassador, who's on those things...what's their pussy look like.  Is it tanned, is it wet? Is it blond, is it brunette?  I'm always missing out...

NAtasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812

David puts down glass.  Rye to lips. A horn blows. Red pleather couch. Sitting upright. Black man in lipstick has me stare into his eyes. "You better behave" he says. "Look at me, I said look at me....you better behave. I'll have my eye on this one" he says to neighbor.  Reading pamphlet.  Family Tree diagram. Who's fucking who, who's best friends, who's important, someone poisons them self. Off we go. Contemporary Moscow. Rye to lips.

Natasha's engaged! Andrey's off to war - no more fun.  Yearning.  Writing. Waiting. Visit soon-to-be family?! Father-in-law wretch.  Sister-in-law frump.  SOnya's on board, thank God for company.  Ladies due for entertainment. Velour capes. Strobe, tempo, ass slap, cocaine on my table.  Anatole? Gorgeous. Cock. Temptation. Heart flutter. "He touched my arm as he passed." Desire. COnfusion. WHo she thought she loved changed in an instant. Familiar. Rye to lips. A duel. Shot. Missed. Opera, synth, red, echo, bow, tear. Napkin. "We write things down. When we love and think, we write things down," it's Moscow in 1812. Decision. New route. New man. Helene & Dolokhov's Midnight plan. Marya's Catch. Same life. Mistake. Disowned. Depression. Wasted life if not sharing with absolute one.  Rye to lips. Arsenic. Natasha. Survival. Natasha. Maestro and corner's perched Jazz & Country. Enlightenment. Balaga shakers. Tap tap tapping on my table.  Inevitability. Andrey returns. Disgust. Acceptance. Internal. Comet in the shape of Lincoln Center chandelier.  Soothing Pierre. NAtasha percolates. Natasha's no comet. To glow, that's easy.  Built in. Trajectory, choosing a Path? She might as well not choose. She gets there anyway. David takes away empty glass.

"La Passione" - James Franco's Trial by Fire

"La Passione" felt first like it was filmed similar to A Single Man.  FRame after frame, eerily rolling by, slower and slower, letting you fester and seep into what's about to happen.  We follow our eyes, their eyes, her eyes, her breasts, will they be exposed?  Oh Natalia...the glue does hold.  As do you, the minute you're the muse.  We hope for your happiness, although your chosen to be doomed, to be a good little girl in a place that isn't you, with friends that aren't yours.  Nor is this place anymore.  You've lived well beyond your short time and your beauty just adds fuel to the fire.  Should you fight back?  Could you?  Ill-begotten thoughts such as these wash from you during your baptism, your death's cleansing and last rite's ritual before acceptance of sacrifice.  Cliff Martinez creeps in, dubbing Sleep No More and it's dancy naked minotaur meeting head to head with artistic direction from Julie Taymor's Frida, or just James Franco and his dreams of The Cell, and leather, and Jean Paul Gaultier.  Her angel reassures her that this is meant to be, for the public may choose one to bestow their own insecurities, and therefore set that sinner to death for all's well-being.  She whispers, "Women these days self-immolate for what you, our Joan, is willing to preserve, and that's truth."  She thinks to herself. My truth.  That I exist, and that you have earned the same right to take your life, as they, the public, believe they do.  And when they do, they'll know, because of me, because of you, because of this, that they are wrong.  And that they need to change...and so they will.  Some day, when they open their eyes as wide as you, and I, they will.

http://www.vice.com/shorties/la-passione-short-film-by-james-franco

Sorrow: A Joyful Day at MoMaPS1 w/ The National

Inside the prison walls of the MoMaPS1 I stood next to my glory hole and stared at the entrance waiting for my buddy to arrive.  You can learn a lot about a place and yourself when watching people walk into a venue.  You stand there faultless and perfect as one suggests of their own character, as I do, and I judge every person who walks in the door. Why not, I'm doing it in my head, so I'm not hurting anyone, plus I paid to torture myself and I want to see who my fellow sufferers are.  We all came for some reason, it's just 6 long hours before we discover whether we're better than who we were when we came.

We grabbed two beers each and strided out of the corrugated cement cell where they kept four hitch trailers and two kegs.  The trailers were 70's style, David Hockney, motel parking lot, middle of Mesa AZ.  They were not for the band's equipment. Teal, faded, paint streaks down each side and flat tires leaning wonky on the cement, balanced errantly by their crippled metal hitch arms.  "You can definitely hide a body in one of those things" I said, as we turned to get some beers.   We needed alcohol.  The next 6 hours we would be subjecting ourselves to a performance by the band The National.  Not that this renowned band sucks so bad that we need to get hammered in order to sit through their show; on the contrary. An idea by an artist named Ragnar Kjartansson was to have a band play one of their songs over and over and over again for a 6-hour period in order to study human behavior regarding monotony, repetition, sanity, cerebral data collection, how people cope with faucet drip drip drip earworm fuck.  The National just happened to have been approached and decided to take the challenge. There's much to be said about saying yes.  In that key decision we discover the driver behind the art, or what we as spectators believe we took note of while watching said performance; the culpability of a feat men die to find in their lives to test themselves, to learn more about their limitations and ultimately, when in front of a crowd, impress others.

Some might look at a day spent listening to a broken record, repeating and repeating and repeating relentlessly til the batteries give out, or your neighbor who runs the building kills the circuit breaker on your apartment  before celebrating with a revelatory whaling on your wall "try to play that fucking song again now asshole!" as a mere form of torture.  For some, maybe.  For others, like that girl Brianne Larsen who lived in the apartment below me in college who kept "Fade Into You" by Mazzy Starr on Repeat until she finished cleansing her soul of the memories of my friend's infidelity.  These things, these redundancies, they often work you out, or they fuck you up even more.  Hopefully you clear new cognitive crossroads, manipulate and solidify memories so you can tap into them the next time you listen.  I don't know for sure what Ragnar is trying to achieve but I do know that when someone listens to a song over and over again, they're doing it for a reason, and that reason is always to remember; to go back to another time.  I might want to forget what's going on in my daily life and therefore I play my favorite song over and over.  This takes my mind off of what I currently dislike, and places me comfortably where I'd rather be; where I once was. With time, we always only remember the good things, and with a melody on infinite repeat, all we have is time.

We waited in line to get into the tin dome they constructed for Sunday Sessions at MoMaPS1.  This was the finale for the space and we were there to see the band fall apart, stutter, forget their lines, fall to the floor in a heart attack wham grab the chest curl up reach to the crowd and shake til their dead.  The people around us, in their slouching beanies, tight orange distressed khakis, Jean button down shirts, with chain cross necklaces and hand-knit sweaters were hoping for the same deterioration, whether they'd admit it or not.  We stood in the crowd and looked at the Coast of Utopia on stage.  They had cameras everywhere like a movie set(of which they must've been filming a documentary) and then a fog mist machine blowing up behind the lead guitarist. The stage was gray, luminous, foreboding, like the song they had to play.  A song that starts with "sorrow found me when I was young" and consists of lines such as "sorrow that put me on the pills" and "I live in a city sorrow built". Not a song for the kids of course, but a melodramatic tour de force that might make you want to jump from that ledge of whatever cliff you've chosen for your last leap.  The song plays its roll, as do the actors on stage.  We as the audience were the willing cheerleaders.  As the song would come to an end, everyone in the crowd would clap and whistle, and come to a calm.  Seconds later, "sorrow found me when I was young".  And the cheers grew louder and more supportive.  I looked at my friend as we too hooted and smacked our hands into each other, and I said, I think we would cheer them on until they're so close to death we wouldn't know we killed 'em.  The crowd, or maybe humans by nature, love to see suffering and after all, that's what we were there for.  Could they do it, could they make it through?  Of course they could.  After three hours, we wished they had to play for twelve.  Six was nothing.  It wasn't the time that became the focus but rather where their heads had to have gone while singing such a depressing song.  Who were they thinking about when they sang "sorrow's my body on the waves"?  "Sorrow's the girl inside my cave"?  What girl? As Matt Berninger, vocalist for The National, would look out on the crowd, a smiling, happy, gleaming, cheery fucking crowd, egging him on to sing a song we really have no clue the meaning behind, I stood and thought to myself that this guy hasn't smiled once.  He must actually hate us.  He must hate our ignorance and excitement for the sheer fact that he has been trying over and over to convey to us the meaning behind this song, and yet we applaud every chink in their armor that appears as the hours march on.  At one point the lead guitarist stood his guitar on its neck and started patting it on the back like a set of bongos.  Some actions were surely out of boredom or just a desire for changing the pace.  Others were absolute brilliance, like where the drummer stepped off stage for a piss break, and they held the song's beginning melody on repeat, low and strummed, and once he returned, he picked up on the 4th beat of the verse, and everyone went nuts.  We wanted more, we wanted to hear Sorrow - we wanted to feel Sorrow, we wanted to know Sorrow for what or whom it was written, and instead we learned that the fantasy that this is, was anything but torture.

I wanted to believe that they took this challenge so they could discover something inside themselves, and learn that this song would be one they'd never want to play again for the next 10 years.  I wanted them to faint, atrophy their muscles, storm off the stage in defiance of continuing, have some sort of nervous breakdown.  I think, if anything, they will play this song in the future and resent the fact that they can never play it with as much emotion as they could achieve this day.  They'll be annoyed that anyone hearing Sorrow live at a future venue will not really know what they accomplished with this song, how close they came to this song, and that they'll never respect any song more, no matter what they write.

Looking up at these men, we were jealous.  These men were given an opportunity we as men look for all our lives.  And not much exists anymore that is impressive; that hasn't been done.  Beautiful women in the audience with their smiling faces, enchanted minds, bobbing their heads with the cadence of the song - they take away from the fact that this was supposed to be difficult.  Their faces would be motivation enough to continue through the night. And yet, these girls in the crowd would happily bed these guys for even more reason now then before.  We want that awe, that admiration.  Instead we will feel our sorrow while watching them close out the 6th hour of their journey and wishing we were them.  Wishing we were the ones achieving something monumental in our lives, but rather we're left to stride out those cement walls with the rest our peers, contemplating our lives and awaiting our moment to shine...until then though, we'll flick on The National's "Sorrow" and play it through, again and again, to bring us right back here to forget what might irk us tomorrow, because no longer does a song of "sorrow" bring us anything but joy.

Sorry Pete - Never Made It To You in Time

Hey Uncle Pete!  I figured I'd write you because we both know it means more to put it down on paper; gives you the chance to look back at it and second guess my grammatical errors :).  In life, we learn lessons, we try and leave something behind and make the best damn impression we can on this place so that there's nothing more we could have done better.  I'm still trying to convince my dad that you're a wonderful guy, but there's something about you being better looking that he just could never get over :)

I'll never stop learning from you; I don't care what you think, but that's the truth.  In this life and any for that matter.  I look at what dictates being a success in life, or what that truly means, and to me, it's a combination of things.  First is having a family, getting that succession in familial generation; passing on the name or genes.  It's important, what else do we have to show for this life but our families....our travels?  Our studies?  Those may make us intrinsically valuable in and of a conversation, a culutral moment, however they sure as heck don't stand the test of time like our blood and our babies.   Second, is being a great father.  That means a million things.  A monster commitment.  Monster meaning paramount, meaning Mount Fuji big in terms of importance.  Showing up, providing, supporting emotionally and physically, being a teammate, being a best friend....sounds cheesy, I know, but dammit, cheesy is warm and necessary and love all mixed in, and that's the good stuff.   You don't need me to tell you that you are a fantastic father.  That'll only pump you up more than that confident bravado I have to stare down every picnic behind the horseshoe pit.  Heineken in-hand, the guy's unstoppable.  It's like a white-knuckled batter staring down a fastball, only this guy's a ringer :)  No but seriously, there's this wonderful place in my heart that the Morans fill.  It's a big space, a friggin Penthouse apartment to be honest.  I can't say that a space like that could be created by just any family, nor could it be imitated.  There's just too much great history.  And that leads me to my third most important thing we can do as men, as people here in this wonderfully odd predicament of life.  We need to create a story.  A story that can be told by family members for years to come.  A message or mission that someone you or I love can take with them through their lives and pass on to another who's willing to listen.  It's nothing specific of course, but it's a lifestyle, an all-encompassing ethic.   Patty and Kerry and Me and My Dad, and every other Madden that's walked the staircases of Old Bridge and shared in the Taste of Home you always provide us, we can't help but pass on that story, that spirit of gentle zingers and genuine interest in the jobs we endeavor towards and the ones we date for no matter how short the courtship.  That's not something one can't be taught but rather inherently has as ones demeanor, ones outlook on life, their choice to be happy, or to be unhappy.   It's always been in you, and it's become inherent in me because of you.  I mean it.  I truly, lovingly thank you.  These things are priceless, and they will all become part of my collective story, my tell-all to those I love and teach along the way.  I may not be the one to teach or touch them directly forever, but that doesn't mean I stop existing within those I've affected so deeply, and that's the story, that's the goal.  That's how we live forever.  We live forever, without needing to endure eternity.  

With the utmost in honesty, love and shared experience for these many years, I'd have it no other way.  - timeline of aliases - The Geneseo College Kid, The Finance City Slicker, The California King, and now The Jr. Puzzler gone Realtor - eventually I'll be in Fashion, Television, a Chef and a Radio Host for a Political Blogosphere  :) 

Two Beggars

(Two men at a sidewalk street corner verbally collide)

-You, you there...yea im talking to you.

-Me?

-Yea dickhead, you...

-What?

-Im talking to you....what the fuck?!  You're sitting there all depressed, mopey, hanging your head, holding that cardboard ass Bay of Pigs sign....what does that even mean?  

-Well, I was there, and it was not right what we did.

-But I dont give a shit if you were there.

-Why would not you?  I fought for this country.

-So what...

-So What?

-Yea, so fucking what...Bay of Pigs, Iraq, Vietnam, Normandy....who gives a shit...you fucking different?

-Well, I think I am, after all I served this country, what did you do?

-What did I do? I fucking showed up to work everyday. Fuck you think about that?

-I do not know, I guess I would have to ask what type of work.... to me, showing to work seems normal....nothing special, unless you are giving back to society.

-Nothing special?! Who's special? What's special? How do you come about special?  What do you want people to think, you standing there on the sidewalk, outside Foot Locker for chrissake, mentioning your two seconds worth of fame during the Bay of Pigs invasion.  What does that even mean?  What does that mean to me?  You were storming the shores?   How many days you storm the shores?  Two?  Three?  Five?

-No, more like 20 sir. 

-20 days, that's your whole life.  That's what this says to me, this sign.  You've lived 20 fucking days that meant something to you. Did they mean anything to anyone else?  Is that why you're standing here pissing me and everyone else walking by off?

-God knows.  God watches.

-God knows? God doesn't know shit considering he's left you to stand here on the sidewalk holding a sign, waiting for a sign, when you and I both know you really wish you were not here holding a sign that's got your life's work written on it.  And now I'm the fucking guy taking your sign, your little brown cardboard tattered-to-shit sign, seriously for once.  I walk by you every goddam day, and all you do is look to the sky, hold up your sign, and I don't even know what the fuck....you ain't got a cup...you ain't looking for handouts.  What is it, some peace of mind?  Some short bit of, hey maybe I'll make this schmuck think about something when he walks by...maybe I'll give this ignorant prick something good and filthy, and weird to think about for a minute?  Because there's been days...I'm tellin you, days where....

-(The homeless man interrupts him) Maybe I am thinking I wished you would have served too..maybe I am annoyed that you did not, and that you do not know what it is like...but then again, not everyone can take it anyway. 

-You think I can't take it? Are you fucking crazy? 

-I do not know this, can you?

-I've gone through more shit in my life than you can imagine.

-You are speaking generally...no? 

-What'd you just say to me?

-You are starting off with a sentence that does not specifically detail what you have encountered. Stalling.

-Stawwing? You mean stalling?

-Exactly.

-Exactly what?!  Why don't you fucking say it right so I can understand what the fuck it is that you're saying.  Or better yet, write it on another one of your goddam signs!

-Stalling.  You are trying to come up with your story, the "more shit in your life than I can imagine story."

-I'm not fucking anything, you better watch yourself you little Indian fuck.

-I am not Indian thank you, I am Bosnian.

-Bosnian...Indian you're annoying.  Pardon my french, but you are.  A little Bosnian whatever holding a fucking sign, bothering me and everyone walking by.  We all have to feel bad about ourselves because we don't give you attention?  I don't need that every time I walk to work in the morning.  You're a goddam nuisance.  Like getting dog shit on my shoes and I have to scrape it off with my envelope opener.

-You can take a walk then mister buddy, no one is keeping you here.

-I was trying to walk, but you're the one in my face every morning....making me nuts.

-Please. Walk then.  I am allowed to stand here and hold my sign.  Please.

-Not without criticism you're not, and I'm criticism.  Critty-effin-sizzm.  Your sign doesn't make you better than me.  It doesn't.  Hang your bay of pigs out to dry where someone gives a shit.  See a psychiatrist.  Talk to a friend.  Quit whoring yourself out to morning traffic and wasting your life.  

-Ok then. Thank you sir.

-See ya...enjoy the day, alright?  It's supposed to be a beauty. 

-Ok, thank you. I will try.  

(The man looks up to the sky holding his sign, the other man striding on, checking his shoes; the morning commute rages on).

Cat Marnell: Cat in the Cave

You know those creatures that live in caves, that hang from ceilings? How much do you give a shit about knowing their daily lives?  Thing lives in darkness all day, sleeping and shitting down its back, then at night, flies outside, eats moths and field mice.  Excited? Here's a glass of scotch, have a seat.
Everyday I read NYTimes, CNN and Yahoo for whatever's up.  By Friday, I'm bored to death.  My equivalent of the Post, which I vow never to read, is Vice. Once a week I poop my way over to Vice.com for news 15 year-old's beat off too.
Girls drinking their piss and brushing their teeth like old Pompei.   Little boys preparing for cryogenic sleep because they've got no friends now, and still won't when they wake up in 100 years.   On the home page of Vice this time I see a heroin addict.  She's peering out from behind a dumpster like an alley cat that just got caught licking the cum off a homeless mans pants.  She must be a heroin addict, and figures, her fucking name is "Cat".  She makes the lead singer of The Working Title look thick.  She's got that skittle hole-of-a-mouth with open sore cracks at its curves, and mouth pimples scattered about like an Occupy tent community.  Red bumps on a girl's lips in her late twenties means no shower after Ring Pop dinner or falling asleep with stranger's load on face.

I love Cat Marnell.  And I hate Cat Marnell.  I can picture her tiny bone-in vaseline frame and her dry pussy stubble-burnt and stretched from a night's grinding on random night-club dude with neck tatts and dick moguls because hey, she tells me about it.  She's self deprecating and apologetic and "feminist".  Sob-story, loaded boarding school Oedipus Complex-girl meets drug addict blogger struggling with identity.  Will you or I learn anything from her?  Absolutely not. To be honest, I'd thought she be over this stage already.  I'd be more understanding and buy her a vile if I knew she'd spent 6 years dating the wavy-haired kid with burgundy flying-duck chinos from the crew team who never really liked her. But, I don't think that's the case, why? Because she hasn't fucking told us yet.  She only blabs about the trash she's become, the filth she surrounds herself with, and whatever junk she's injected or vomited.  Therefore I'm not sold on her but I love her chatty welcoming tales about her dry lifeless clit that needs lickity spit.  I'll keep reading, of course I will.  That's what we do these days.  I'll read, in the hopes that Chance or Change or CHafe, whateevr the fuck that guy's name is that errantly knife stabs the air and opens his fish mouth only for food in pill form, either kills himself, or kills poor Cat.  Let's admit, we're all paying attention because we're wondering if this creature of the night's gonna make it back out of the cave to tell the tale, or if she'll just fall to her death into a pile of shit while sleeping.  

With love Miss Marnell, keep it coke'd up and dirty as fuck.

Expectations Are Over-Rated

Using my fork, I wiped the ketchup from our plates into the sink. It was a lot of ketchup. She loved ketchup. I wanted to give her a lot of what she loved even though a meal in need of ketchup isn't impressive, but what is anymore....we've been together for three years.

During the first two years we lived in a "bougie" mint highrise on the west side of midtown. The 27th floor to be exact, with a view of the Hudson. Goldman Sachs' new building in Jersey City would twinkle through rust-smeared Rothko sunsets, fading to horns and an elevated sense of what's right. Sunsets tend to give you that feeling that everything’s right in the world. Her face would glow, her eyes would sparkle and she'd push her tits unconsciously up, tucking in her arms to rest on the window frame. She was 19 at the time. She should've smoked cigarettes. To purse warm smoke into the evening's chill from 300 feet just makes visual sense; movie scene sense. It'd be the materialization of relief, a translucent fondant flying away from its being against a black night.  I would watch from the wicker kitchen table at the edge of our bed just seeing dark blue past her. Fucking night, there's nothing like it in New York. It's like looking out on miles and miles of ocean; its beauty comes from not knowing what's hidden amongst it and that there's endless opportunity in its exploration. She was happy of course, she just didn't know how much happier she could be. As pressed putty wears the print on which it's placed, the knowledge she absorbed and admired, she would eventually mirror in her life's pinballing.

Two years later now, I'm across the country, this time, only 90 feet off the ground. A move made solely for the purpose of her initial familial interests. I now however find myself alone 95% of the time. The size of the apartment hasn't changed, just the weather and the personalities. In New York we'd discussed the new studio in LA as if it were to be our sanctuary. We would share, love and live it as if a starter home where pleasure was precedent and our future nostalgia would be our rekindling of these coming cramped years. Every month since my trek across country, since my farewell party with friends and family, my toothbrush here has stood alone. An empty promise of a partnered crusade, my mind's left to wander. How could someone's love change so quickly, and why did I take such a chance moving my life away from family and friends if all I'm to learn is ugly.  To love someone, that’s not exactly hard. To trust someone, to believe in them and their eyes, that’s something else entirely.  Sometimes you're in the audience at a comedy club and you catch the talent's eye.  Sometimes you're 21, and the talent asks you stay after the show with your girls and drink.  I've been 21 before.  It's not a time to move across the country and settle down. 

Looking down into the sink, I can see the wasted ketchup and bits of Tyson spicy chicken fillets she didn't eat just swirling at the base of the drain, losing their skin. I spit into the sink and wiped my mouth on my arm. She stands next to the bed not looking back. She'd finally come, out of guilt.  She stands facing the windows with her arms folded, looking out at another glorious sunset, just this time it's Santa Monica's. I don't think she ever thought she'd be here. She stands rigid, in thought, in tight bright blue pants. Girly pants, or artsy slacks, something you'd see at American Apparel, or in the village. She wears those pants a lot more now in place of the sexy stonewashed Guess jeans she'd worn with the holes at her knees. Those were her best jeans, but looking her best was not cool any longer. She'd become more Williamsburgh and Lower East Side than Orange County. No more make-up, and far less drinking. Thick black-framed eyeglasses; no more contacts. Flannel, checkered, Native American patterned, beaded or neon tops, and her primary colored flats. Heels were retired. They're for women who need attention. I watched as Elvis Costello, with a chest, and an ass, stared through the wet ocean wind. I felt like being a dick, but to have her here is so rare, why spoil it. She came because the place she works is five minutes away from my apartment; the apartment we chose together.  She has work the next morning, therefore, why not travel five minutes instead of ninety, which it typically takes her from her parents house where she is staying.  So close, and yet she still barely comes once a week. In this case, she'll do her conscience a favor and spend the night, putting in her time. Sex will happen, it'll just be one-sided; dry. Her pity day. This is what I got for moving my life. She was looking out the window and waving her hand over the blanket we'd received as a gift from my Uncle's mistress.  She hated that blanket or at least it's gaudiness.  After all, it was a plush American flag with an eagle the size of a human on it.  It was the softest damn blanket you ever felt, and we enjoyed that blanket.  We enjoyed that blanket hundreds of times, but this time she waved her hand over it like she was feeling for a memory. For an understanding, or for a reason as to why she's here and what's been her path to change, because even she knows, nothing here feels the same.  I looked past her at the window again as I did so often in the city, and thought about night time.

My nights began with a couple of pyramid-shaped fulcrum bumps, then hours straight watching Maria Callas belt out sounds you only heard in dreams. Her words like lanyards, tying me to the screen, I'd start to cry no matter the language. I'd cry and sit there rocking back and forth on the tips of my toes, elbows to my knees.  I'd punch the bed between my legs and run my hands hard through my thinning hair and down my face, grabbing the tears without care for where they'd spread.  I’d pretend it was the music and the loneliness and the wine and the beauty exiting such a skinny frame. To feel better, I'd donate ten dollars to PBS and pat myself on the back like a recovering alcoholic passing on a free drink. It was a viewer like me that kept PBS on the air. That's what they told me. A viewer like me, whose room spins as hands of cards are dealt virtual in spades and suede diamonds, or so they looked.  "Jackandthebean" would talk shit about being the best in the room before "Vinnystackd" would pull flushes out his ass and throw down eloquent guidonics. I could see some slick Bronx Goomba with equally thinning hair fist-pumping and punching the keys on his Compaq Presario. Just beyond my computer screen I'd stare at my darkened face in the shoddy plexi reflection. I believed that if I stared long enough, I’d discover why I am here. "Vinnystackd" would chime in - "yo Justpyhil, aint got all day kid!!" I'd check. I just sat and sweat in those same wicker chairs we'd had in NY. The flattened brown seat cushion wore a faded fold at the bend of my knees, paining the lax muscles of my hamstrings. Instead of un-tying the seat cushion on her chair to use as extra padding, I'd fold a black hooded sweatshirt of my buddy’s band, long since shrunk from incidents with dryers, and sit defeated. I couldn’t take any game seriously while coked out. We weren't even playing for fucking money. This was the shit of the shit in Pokerstars where you could press "refill my pot" and they'd replenish your chip count over and over. Coke goes quick.  After about forty minutes I need something in my hands, something to lick and fixate my lips. Bottles of Cabernet laid lengthwise in the metal five-ring Olympic wine holder. It’s the only thing I’d stack in the apartment aside from Ramen and Tyson Spicy Chicken fillets. Wine bottles are sold in food stores in LA, right alongside milk, bread and cereal, so I’d line my cart with them. Anything Cab Sauv, four years or older and less than twenty bucks; that was my rule. I'd finish a bottle on a normal night. A normal night was 6-8 hours long. I'd look real closely at the cork once I'd slipped it out.  Thick and clotted, I knew it’d be a rich, potent, delish.  If it was thin and runny and light, I knew it’d taste tangy, sour and biting….too young. My carpet below the table was littered with corks.  You could see the white carpet stained pink below them, all dried, whitened, sticking out of the vent like a pile of clothes with burned and branded tags …..Hess, Menage a Trois, BV, Coppola, Frei Brothers, Franciscan, Lunde, Justin, Simi, St. Francis, Ravenswood.  Once I poured my first glass, I'd sit back, stretch out my legs, and pull up a reliable porn site to see what was new.  Behind plastic rope-turn blinds, I'd start myself off and just get comfortable.  I knew the start was always more of a primer for what I would eventually imagine in my head for climax.  My heart would race at the thought of her with another man.  It was the one automatic thing that'd do it, and so I'd rub one out and reach for the paper towel roll on the ground near the corks.  Tissue boxes had long become the expense to deny for such a depressing routine.  I'd wipe myself off and close the page immediately, so sick with myself.  I'd go from amazing to zero in seconds, after all, I am only 26 and this is a typical Saturday night. Fuck being a Saturday, this was daily. You'd hate the night too.  I looked back at her blue pants and shut the sink off.

"You ready?"
"yea" she says.
"I think it should be pretty dark by the time we get there."
She didn't answer. She grabbed her purse and flicked her eyebrows up as if to say..."mmm.hmmm" and walked toward the door.
"Do you know how to get there?"
"Yea" she says.  "I looked it up. We just take the freeway like two exits North near Burbank and hop off...we should see a line of cars."
"It's gonna be weird with no snow on the ground."
"yea but it's not bitter friggin cold" she said.
"Hey, you're the one that wants to be back in NYC's bitter friggin cold."

She was silent. I hadn't been out of the apartment for anything but a movie, a beach run or a night of sipping scotch at the local jazz haunt.  Anything outside with someone I knew, nonetheless someone I still loved, would get me in a good mood.

 "I'm just saying, it'll be weird having the windows down and wearing just a t-shirt, jeans and flip-flops when staring at a Christmas Light show."
"I guess I'm just used to it" she said matter-of-factly.
"How much is it again?" I wondered.
"Dont worry, I brought a coupon I saw in the newspaper" she said.
"I didn't mean it like that, I just wondered if I had to stop at an ATM."
"I have money" she said.
"Babe, just because I lost my job, doesnt mean I can't afford a Christmas Light show."
"It's not necessary" she says.

Shutting the door behind me, we walk to the elevator with a distance between us. She hits the button and waited in silence. We made no eye contact and stared at our reflections. Im not sure we'd had any eye contact since sitting at the glass-topped wicker kitchen table.  I wanted to be engaged in some sort of conversation, after all, I barely get to see her.  I figured I'd ask about Monica.  She loved Monica, a newbie.  She loved Monica so deep and so quickly that it hurt just to pretend you were interested in what they'd done. She crossed her arms and looked down at her feet while talking.

"She's good" she said.
"Is she dying for you to come back?" I asked.
"Of course she is, we only started becoming best friends the last few months of school when you moved."
"Yea, I know...I figured you two were already discussing when you'll see eachother again."
"Well, that's the thing, like, I'm hoping she'll come here for a long weekend, and then I'll probably like, go away with her or something."
"Where do you guys think you'll go?"
"I dont know, maybe Mexico or Costa Rica...all the girls from NY will go."
"Good, good for you.  It'll be fun....you guys look like you have a lot of fun together..at least from what it looks like on Facebook."
"Yea, well, she's hilarious...you don't even know."

Her eyes light up and I hear her smile crackle as it forms.  She lifts her head and uncrosses her arms to lean relaxed against the glass.  I automatically get jealous and think how I haven't seen her smile like that around me in months.
"The last time I saw you smile like that was a picture of you and her on Facebook standing outside some sort of changing room wearing "Vote for Mike Hunt" shirts."
"Ha! Yea...you saw that huh...it was her idea. We took those pictures near NYU campus in some cute little shop."
"Never pictured you wearing a shirt that said that...you always hated the word Cunt" I said distastefully.

The elevator opened into the parking garage and I offered to go get the car.  It was about 200 feet away.  The parking lot lined the entire basement of the building.  She declined and said she'd walk.   In silence we walked, listening to our footsteps; my clapping sandals and her dragging flats.  When we got to my jalopy of a car, the car next to me, in its reserved spot, was new.  It was a tinted, chromed, sexxed up Mercedes S55 AMG.  Black as night and opaque glass.

"Fucking douche bags...who parks that close?" I said.
"Who tricks out their beautiful Mercedes like they were some sort of drug dealer?" she says.
"A drug dealer," I laugh.  No one should ruin a car like that with black rims and a spoiler?!"
"It looks like shit" she says.
"Probably some fucking kid with mommy and daddy's money, living in the Penthouse going to UCLA and studying Communications" I said.

She was quiet.  The car sputtered a bit while starting.  It was a 1998 Maxima after all and it paled in comparison to our neighbor.  We were pulling out and I looked at the Mercedes again, and back at her and she was looking out the window. I kept conversation to a minimum.  I figured it's better just to enjoy her company rather than make it awkward by talking.  I kept my hand out the window and made waves with the wind while driving.  The night sky still had twinges of green and blue as the sun had recently dipped below the horizon.  Cars had their tops down and stars were beginning to wake up.  We pulled off the exit ramp near Paramount Pictures studios, threw on the A/C and sat at a traffic light.  Signs pointed us to a radio station that was playing 24-hours worth of Christmas tunes and she couldn't have been more ecstatic considering her disposition.  This was something I had forgotten.  For years I had been tortured with non-stop holiday music from Thanksgiving until Christmas; it's all she would listen to.  I couldn't stand it, but at this moment I was happy with her habit.  The lines of cars filed in to two lanes and we ran slow like a conveyer belt, craning our heads to the sides at each exhibit.

Companies sponsored each display and put their logos next to the grass beside it.  An Oakley sign sat below a squirrel that blinked.  The squirrel was the third in a sequence that lit in order to show its escape from a sack that Santa had at his groin during takeoff.  The reindeer were stilted at different heights as they lofted into the air with Rudolph at the front, his red nose like a siren. Santa looked back wearing thick blinging shades with an I just got laid smile. The squirrel had a nut in its mouth. We laughed at the subtle innuendo that may or may not have been implied but figured it could go either way since they put a bow on the nut.  Bing Crosby came on.

"Did you know this guy was a complete asshole?" I asked.
"Who" she said.
" Bing Crosby" I replied.
"Really?"
"Yup, an alcoholic, abusive piece of shit."
"Really....I didn't know." 
"Yea, like, you had my father's parents back in the day listening to this guy and loving him for his deep voice and chill singing - they'd be sitting there sipping their egg nog probably cheersing to Bing, and the guy's beating his kids and wife because he's fucking miserable."
"What?!  Where'd you hear this?" she asked.
"Oh, it's publicly known. His kids and wife came out and told everyone after he'd died."
"Really..." she enamored at the thought.
"They didn't want to effect his image or legacy while alive so they waited...plus I think they were probably scared he'd come after them and cane them to death if he were old and able."

She laughed, and the car sputtered. I looked down at the steering wheel and held it tighter. The car continued to sputter and hiccup and then powered down. The lights began to dim on the dashboard and the radio connection faded.  We heard nothing until I pumped the gas for a few rounds.  Two seconds later, it powered back up again.

"What the hell was that?" I asked out loud.
"I have no idea" she muttered.

My first intuition was to shut off the A/C and radio, but I felt embarassed.
"Turn the A/C and radio off" she said.
"Right," I said.

I flicked off the dials and the car regained its composure.  The interior lights brightened and showed signs of life as my heart sank and thoughts of my car dying right there came up to my throat.  I had plenty of gas but I was on edge about causing a scene with a dead jalopy of a car.  I could picture my girl, the girl I loved who no longer really loved me, sitting there discontent on the grass while christmas lights flash above her and people just staring.  It'd be another reason to wish she'd never left New York.  We continued to drive, gently pressing the gas pedal and listening for any little sign of demise.  All we really heard was the hum of generators for each exhibit, stone crackling beneath our tires, and the radios of cars in the back and front of us.  I put my hand on my forehead in disgust and exhaled scorn for this life; this position I'd been put in. A position I'd put myself in.  It was my fault.  It was my fault.  That's when I discovered it.  I felt like crying right there in front of her.  This place had brought me nothing but bad luck.  Coming out here seemed like the natural course of action, the next step in a thriving relationship.  The ease of transferring ones job and having a replacement family to snuggle up to, my God how the drawing of ones life in the sand was swept away in an instant by a wave.  A rogue wave, collectively building itself from the other side of the world for years before gaining momentum to slam down on these shores with zero warning.  We exited the park.  The highway seemed to be a comfort zone for the car.  The engine was purring and the wind in my face renewed some sort of confidence.  It released the care I'd balanced on one of life's hypothetical hurdles.  One chapter was ending, and my worry for success during that stage, was no more.  I was just open, and flippant.  For the person next to me could do no more wrong to me than a stranger, or so it felt in that moment.  I never know if it's just that passing moment, or a natural high, or chemical equilibrium your body finds, I don't ever know until I'm there, but when you're there, nothing matters because nothing could be better than that feeling.

We pulled up to the stoplight at my building at Barrington and Wilshire.  I exhaled and thought to myself, Thank God.  Out into the median, each oncoming car passed us before I could turn.  When it was relatively clear, my car sputtered into the vacant lanes and ceased.  Mind you, it only takes a few seconds for a new car to approach and not quite understand that your car is dead in the middle of an intersection.  Pumping the gas, I scream.

"God Dammit!"

I see the car continue on its path toward us, approaching with zero knowledge as to our predicament.  They probably think we're waiting for someone to cross the street and had pulled out prematurely.  They lace into their horn as they come toward us.   Quickly I thought of grabbing her, putting my arm around her legs as if to move her immeasurably close to me in case of relieving even the tiniest margin of a horrific impact.  I pumped the brakes like a bass pedal, pushing down as hard as I could until I heard the screeching of brakes and the sound of tires burning.  The car, my car, shot forward in pops like flexing a bicep, bursting and ceasing.  Crippled, the car twitched along the curb as we came out of a fear-filled trance, not touching eachother.  Pedestrians stared as my car steamed into the parking garage and perished at the gate.  I couldn't even get it to my reserved spot.  I felt responsible, horrified and I knew this wasn't a moment of thanks or eventual erotic thank-god-we're-alive sex, this was the last straw of a pathetic life she'd no longer signed up for.  I stepped out of the car, and asked her to jump in the driver's seat while I pushed.  She hopped over from the passenger seat without getting out.  While trying to push, I began to sweat or breakdown, I really couldn't tell the difference.  My sandals slipped along the pavement gaining no traction as my face burst red with blood to the skin.  I couldn't move it.  The fucking car was too heavy, I didn't have the right sneakers, I was still in shock....the elevator doors opened but I paid no attention.  I didn't want to make eye contact with anyone, I'd had enough of being the laughing stock, so I pushed harder, grunting. The car started to move.  I looked forward to see if she was steering as I laid my shoulder into it, and I saw this Asian kid pushing from the open driver-side door. 

"Thanks so much" she said to him.

I couldn't speak so I just kept pushing.

"We're all the way down at the end, I hope you don't mind" she said.

"No" he whispered and pushed.

He wore black sunglasses with slick spiky black hair and a black t-shirt.  His jeans were dark with some silver glinting off of them, and black sneakers.  He pushed so hard that the car seemed to glide.  In two minutes, we had gotten to my spot.  We pulled forward past my car so we could back it in.  As we pushed it back, she struggled to turn the wheel since the automatic steering had been disabled.  The car was heading for the god damned Mercedes as I yelled for her to hit the brakes.  She did, and missed it with an inch to spare.  Together, we jockeyed the car, pulling and pushing back and forth until we'd finally straightened it out.  We had only left about a foot between us and the Mercedes, but I didn't give a shit.  As long as we could just stop sweating and this poor kid could go on his way, I'd feel a bit better.  I looked up at him as he wiped his forehead from the less prickly spikes.

"Thank you so much man; I truly appreciate it" I said.

"No problem, no problem" he said as he shook my hand.

"Do you need a jump?" he asked.

"Absolutely not, I'm not going anywhere, and I have AAA so I'll have them come by, but thank you so much again, truly a lifesaver."

"Ok" he said.  "Don't worry, everything will be alright. You'll see" he said.

He waved good bye to her in the drivers seat, as she made her way over to the passenger side.  The car had been wedged in so tight, there was no other way to get out.  The Asian wiped his hands on his pants, reached into his pocket and clicked the alarm to the Mercedes.  Stepping back, I wiped the sweat from my forehead and looked up.  He pulled out from the parking spot as I blinked over and over, my eyes stinging and face hiding its surprise behind a smile.

I'd learned something, right there, in that moment.  Nothing I'd expected, or wanted to happen, ever did.  If things happened, they'd happened for a reason.  In the future, I would make sure not to look for the conclusion before it presents itself naturally, because it will.  I guarantee it eventually will.  The hope is that the lessons I learn and the shape my end takes, will not be a circle.