After a Period of Inactivity

I'm thinking of turning this into a picture blog since I finally sucked it up and bought the damn iPhone. Would anyone actually look at my boring pictures of buildings and historical shit? Who cares. I'll do it anyway.

THE FEAR

And then one day you realize, that figure that lurks at the foot of your bed when you awake late at night is now sitting next to you on the subway. His eyes are coals. And, unfortunately for you, he does not disappear when you turn on the light.

The floor of the subway car is the same type of linoleum that is in your kitchen and bathroom.

The people around you are all dead. You are slowly dying, too. Each and every day your teeth crumble a little bit more on the hard bread of a shitty deli sandwich.

There's never enough mayonnaise.

Beer rots the roots of your molars, and your breath is constantly stinking of stale day-old sugar.

SAVE DOMINO.

You see that same fresh-faced NYU couple get on the Subway few stops after you in the morning. They grab each other and pull on the fabric of their new clothes. His stubble is neatly trimmed and manicured. Her eyes are blue. You stare at them and they pretend not to notice.

You are now old and creepy.

You see an Ad in the Subway for a trip to the Caribbean and for the first time in your life you actually want to get away. When ever before did a photo of turquoise water nearly bring tears to your eyes?

The free daily papers promise continued downturn for the economy, fare hikes for transit travel, rents that rise with crime - none of the charts seem to make sense. How can this thing be going up while this goes down? Does it all add up? What about the Law of Equalization? You need Al Gore to spell it out with a documentary. Otherwise your understanding of economics is limited to being able to baffle people in social situations with bullshit.

BAFFLE WITH BULLSHIT.

Every once in a while, a golden light floods down between the chasms of buildings and just for a second, you think that this is all worth it, you really made it and somehow you might just be better than the rest.

"This must be the promised land."

"It's a filthy, yet beautiful place."

Other times, the ringing in your ears continues long after the brakes stop squealing.

This is the symphony of the city which drove Brian Wilson insane. A symphony in which invisible strings connect all inhabitants. There plays the brass band of taxicabs. The baton falls out of your hand and the music continues. Someone else picks up the baton from the sidewalk. The dancing bums seem to be the only others who can hear this shattered song.

This fear, this irrational fear, is what makes you pound the pavement underneath your feet from the Subway to the front door, minimizing the time among the hyenas. You spin around the tourists who are always checking their maps in the middle-of-the-fucking sidewalk and cuss them out under your locomotive breath. Your jaw is clenched and you can't wait for some motherfucker to bump into you. A long stream of cutting witticisms is locked and loaded, ready to be released in a rapidfire of vengeance.

"Whoa, buddy."

Are you the Evil one, or is it some maniac that emerges out of the subterranean levels of the city and enters your thoughts late at night?

Has a mind gangster slowly wrapped his hands around your neck as he slowly squeezes your larynx so that breath is an impossibility?

The mind gangsters are still everywhere, and years later, they cannot be escaped. As far as one may travel, there is a network and in all it's vastness ("Vastness: that's a weird word to say. Vast-ness".), those creatures of the mind manage to find YOU.

"Ah, I moved to the Big City to find myself. Well, and to escape my demons from before."

I'm still of the firm belief that PEOPLE DO NOT CHANGE, only circumstances do. If you'd like an explanation of said theory, please tune in next week for a better, more in-depth rendering.

The Future

I'm afraid of the future! What that means isn't necessarily clear, nor does it need to be. I don't want to have to buy a flat-screen TV for digital cable. Call this number: 877-393-4448.

I'm afraid of this! I get freaked out when I see TVs on top of taxicabs. I get freaked out when I see a TV in my house. I wonder how many times people with iPods listen to the Rolling Stones' song "Satisfaction" underground everyday while in the MTA subway system. Leonard Cohen has a very dark album from the 1990's called "The Future". I can't recall the lyrics right now, but you can pull it up on Pandora and freak out everyone in your office, too.
Do you think that I'm crazy? Do you think that I creep in the night and sleep in a phone booth? I can't even find a phone booth to sleep in anymore with all the Bloomberg fuckers swarming around with these microchips in their ears. Bluetooth headset gnawing away at the synapses that would have otherwise be firing in the left side of their brains. Buy, sell, trade, overweight, anorexic -- THIS IS WHERE MAIN STREET & WALL STREET INTERSECT!

"The next stop on this train is Lexington Avenue. Stand clear of the closing doors."

Thank you for your time,

The Daemon

I. The First Conversation

A white eagle circled, serpent in its claws,
the dogs of the town all howled and hid under porches;
Hairs prickled on the backs of necks and
the daemon was near.
The wells of the town pumped blood
for the remainder of that day
and blind men could see,
but what they saw was not the earth:
A shadow realm
from whence the daemon came,
a place of haze where no right angles are present
a skewed horizon, speckled with petrified trees.
Infinite space,
frictionless surface,
dark viscous liquids,
and hazy shadows, all slide across the coaxial plane.
Where the shame of the daemon
burns upon a Sea of Fire.

The World's Shortest Story

"For Sale: Baby Shoes: Never Used."
-Ernest Hemingway

SHOPPING IN SoHo

The Seventies SoHo loft with space enough to casually toss canvases about now goes for $17,000 a month, or $23,000 for the penthouse. Either way, it's a good place to live, or die. Below all of these Viking ranges & awkward couches, one skips down the cobblestone streets to find high-end boutiques, white tableclothed bistros, & women wearing shopping bags like bracelets. In a zone such as this, the shopping trip is a status grab, living through a line of credit, on-line, off-line, thick, black Am Ex.
Lay it onto the counter with a cool “click”.
“This should take care of it.”
One day, I wandered into Dean & DeLuca in dire need of a shot of espresso. The morning espresso or coffee is essential but the mid-afternoon espresso fires up those synapses in the brain for the remainder of the day in the best of ways. The place was teaming with fresh aromas, impeccable displays, eager purveyors yearning for eye contact & a “free” taste, a butcher with a snow white apron devoid of blood & guts -- it was a perfect, gourmet scene. At Dean & DeLuca, everyone can be a “top” chef who uses organic goods that inflate the cost of a meal to the restaurant level. One might call it gastronomical proportions. On impulse, I grabbed a chocolate bar with Hazelnuts (the nocciola flavor, in Italian, to refer back to those days of cookery).
Once in (on) the check-out line, I lusted after a four dollar peanut butter brownie but abstained, thinking that the small chocolate bar would “sorensify my sufficiency”, as my grandmother would say. The shock came when the cost of the chocolate turned out to be six dollars. At the risk of looking like the broke fool I was, I opened my wallet and handed over the cash. Who knows if my stone face & glasses hid my sheepish embarrassment? Everyone has the inherent fear of appearing cheap & a seeker of bargains in a luxury setting. Why shouldn’t a shitty deli coffee & a Snickers bar suffice for all of two dollars? Why didn’t I call upon my acquaintances at Vosges Haut Chocolat for a sampling of nouveau-fusion, miso-truffle delights? Why is New York the most expensive city in the United States? Why am I a corporate whore? Why do I not live in that cold water flat for 80 bucks a month with salsa music blaring & Puerto Ricans screaming below my feet? Why do I live in no man’s land in between Bushwick & Williamsburg? Where does East Williamsburg begin? Where does it end?
Even so, I’ve resolved to pay the dues. As the great Hunter S. once wrote, “take the ticket, take the ride.” The view will always be free.

INT. CAFE DELLE COSE SPORCHEE’. MID DAY

FURAMA sits at a small table flanked by a mixed group of individuals, some are dressed in cowboy attire while others resemble turn-of-the-century Italian anarchists.

The CAFE DELLE COSE SPORCHEE’ is an ornate, wood-paneled place with high nicotine stained ceilings. There is one BARISTA wearing a bow tie, standing in front of a huge stainless steel espresso machine.

FURAMA smokes a metallic pipe ferociously. He puffs like a steam-powered train. The AUDIENCE does not see his face.

In a LONG SHOT, LANGDO enters the cafe, brandishing a single-shot pistol. He is holding it high with his arm at a ninety degree angle.

As if on cue, FURAMA ducks to the side as the bullet strikes a less vigilant & self-aware ITALIAN ANARCHIST in the shoulder.

There is a loud CRASH as the bullet exits the shoulder & smashes a mirror into tiny pieces.

ITALIAN ANARCHIST
Che’ cazzo fa?
(Subtitle: What the fuck is he doing?)

LANGDO drops the pistol casually and queues up at the counter.

LANGDO
Prendo un cafe’ doppio.
(Subtitle: I’ll take a double espresso)

BLOOD spurts all over the table like cranberry juice.

A CLOSE UP on the HAND of FURAMA - ornate titanium ring on the marriage finger - as it reaches for his espresso cup, which is splattered with BLOOD.