“Simply”

it happens all the time
i glance at a word,
in the most recent case it was Simply
and just as i read Simply
i hear the word Simply
in the song i was listening to
this has happened to you too
, hasn't it

European film debut

i was laying in bed and heard a careful footstep slowly pressing down a loose floorboard in the living room. the delicacy of the creaking noise made me suspicious so i carefully turned over and saw the shadow of a person on the outside part of my door from the light bleeding in from the window. i was preparing myself to say in a loud voice, "that you, percy?" (cause that's what your supposed to do when you suspect cat burglars) but the person went away. as the quiet resumed i decided it was probably just a roommate so i went to sleep...

some reputable film maker was releasing his second feature film and i went to see it. everyone was very excited -- it was an exclusive preview showing... i forget the title but it was dark, sort of tim burtonesque but much much scarier -- well, most of it was boring but parts of it were terrifying. i was in the film, which must have been why i was admitted. at one point me and the protagonist -- some frail and pale cartoon girl with black hair and black clothes -- flew, using our arms, to europe in the black of night. the earth was pitch black and silent while we flapped our arms through the nothingness... it was magnificent.

when we got to europe the entire continent was lit up in insane vegas-like lights and sky scrapers and -- this was the scariest part -- two giant dolls that were bigger and brighter than anything else, swaying lifelike in the wind in the manner of those inflatable neon people at used car lots. we came down and landed at the right foot of one of them, on the roof of the belgian museum of freemasonry.

the final scene involved an ancient egyptian artifact with 5 little dashes running across its face. the protagonist, the sickly girl, began swiping her finger across the dashes thereby transforming them into E's. each E was a little different -- some had tildes and macrons, some were lower case, some upper case. the process of revealing these E's was inexplicably horrifying so i begged her to stop. she refused and when the fifth one was scratched off i awoke with a jolt and a sweat.

i went into the living room and said goodmorning to my roommate. i asked him if he'd been walking around near my doorway the previous night. he 'definitely had not.' on the living room table where there were two unopened jugs of pino noir and a DVD copy of the film i'd just watched / been in. my roommate had picked it up from one of the bootleg guys in the subway. i told him how scary it was and we sat down to watch it. suddenly it was night and although it was the same movie it was totally different ...it was now some kind of ice cube hip-hop comedy, complete with midgets and fumbling police officers.

Reincarnation

Somehow I left the house without a scarf on Tuesday. After work I went to Trader Joe's, which is a bit of a walk from the station. I bought a new scarf for $5. What's odd is that when I got home my old scarf was nowhere to be found. My scarf had not been missing and when I bought the new one I did not consider it a 'replacement.' Bob Dylan talks about Robert Johnson in his Chronicles vol. 1, he describes a farm boy who is "mysteriously" undocumented historically, Ike Zinnerman, who taught Johnson how to play the blues. Whenever I read that passage I can't help thinking that Dylan is implying that he is the reincarnation of Ike Zinnerman. As far as my scarf is concerned, I'm now faced with the tough question: did it simply transform into another pattern and color?

Hottie and Mean-Face are nicknames my former roommate and I gave the baristas at our former local coffee shop. I realize these crude labels probably say more about us than they do about them but that's beside the point. Hottie, so named because my roommate had a crush on her, had been reading Plato's Republic for over two years. Mean-Face, (who was actually friendlier than Hottie, but more severe looking) was constantly talking about man problems. Neither of them ever gave us the time of day. Sometimes I would order a cup of coffee, pay for it, put a dollar in the tip jar, say thank-you, and leave, all without the slightest gesture from either of them. One day which stands out, they had an unbroken conversation about their periods over my transaction.

Months later a new coffee shop opened in a property that had previously been a soup kitchen. It was slightly closer to our apartment, significantly larger, and the baristas were friendly, (both dudes). The coffee was even better in the new place. We started going there and the Park Slope lifestyle was in full swing. The guys at the new place knew my name and were interested in who I was - they even sold my band's CD's behind the counter... so it was a shock to go in there one day and discover Hottie and Mean-Face had been hired. My first impulse was to apologize for abandoning the old cafe, which would obviously have been absurd. I also wanted to tell them that that it was my band whose album they were selling... but none of this ever happened. They intimidated me and the new cafe essentially became the old cafe.

I was back down there for the first time since August a couple weeks ago, just to reminisce. I didn't recognize the barista. The coffee really is exceptional, good coffee is a perfectly valid reason to move to Park Slope. I tried to read my book but wound up repeating the same few paragraphs, totally absorbed in the banal conversation the barista was having with an older guy who apparently went there on a daily basis but never stuck around. Today he decided to stay. He talked with the barista about the Oscar nominees, about how high school seems to perpetuate itself in adult life, about 'difficult but gratifying' novels... he was a big Jeff Bridges fan. The barista, who I didn't recognize, was convincingly interested in the dialogue and I resented their mutual dullness. The resentment I felt, I then realized, is a perfectly valid reason for getting out of Park Slope and into the anonymous polish diners of Ridgewood, Queens. Which is where my scarves should be.

Bedrooms

Walking along the stillness of a winter morning sidewalk. Muscles tight, steps small - careful not to slip. We are all at our most pale, our skin is dry and our clothes are heavy. Descending the steps into the station I think the cold wet stairs seem to belong in a prison, it's amazing that people never slip on them and crack their heads open. Early morning rush hour on the train, lucky to get a spot standing in the doorway that only opens at Myrtle Ave, and Bedford Ave. Everybody scowling. It's the first day of February and we all miss our bedrooms.

I'm listening to my headphones loud, hardly aware of the music. We pull into Montrose Ave and a large, young mother enters the train with her son, maybe seven years of age. They are both heavily bundled up. The child tries to move away from his mother and she grabs him hard, scolding him inaudibly below my fortress of noise. She has a piercing near her lip that gives her the look of an overgrown teenager. The child tries again to defy her and she shakes him with greater rage than before, squeezing his shoulders. For a moment I pretend she is his older sister. She is carrying a bag with watercolor looking roses printed on it. Her jacket is a very light plaid, just thin stripes of primary colors crossing each other like a spacious suburban city. I remember my childhood bedroom, which had similar wallpaper. It was my "older-kid" wallpaper, it replaced the scary wallpaper with the toys and dolls all over it.

For 19 years I'd been living out of bedrooms with purely painted walls, no wallpaper. My current bedroom has one wall that is wallpapered, you can call it an 'accent wall.' The rest of my room is white with five and a half Mellow Orange dodecagons, which is the term for a twelve-sided figure. The mother and her son both wore vibrant rubber rain boots. I can only imagine how wise an investment those have proven to be but it's February now and much too late for me.

Flu-induced half dream diary

1.
long after things started improving i began to wonder if the witches had put a spell on me. in retrospect, i knew it all started with the first drag from that mentholated cigarette. i realized something, whatever it was, had changed when i listened to mingus' "let my children hear music" three times without knowing it was on repeat. i also became aware that i couldn't stop moving my feet back and forth, back and forth. i'd noticed that much earlier, actually, but attributed it to the mugwort which i am no longer accustomed to. when i finally turned off the music i listened to the ticking of the clock, which would occasionally mute itself, as if Time were taking dramatic pauses through the vast, spaceless night.

it seemed as though i hadn't slept so when i awoke i asked myself what it was i'd dreamt and my answer was "the theme of the dream was pink" and, whether or not this image was in my dream, i've attached to that sentence the image of a framed pure pink on a white wall. i only mention this dream at all as a kind of validated parking; to show i slept at all. i felt achy and weak. my girlfriend was there, looming above me and sorting through her work clothes. i've told her about dreams before but usually they are more interesting than that.

i must have fallen back to sleep because when i woke again she was gone. i had a lot of stuff i wanted to do with my day, primarily finish painting my bedroom. i'd left the job unfinished the previous afternoon, before vanessa came over and took me to visit the witches and the transvestite, (friends of hers). the main witch had filled the house with paintings of naked female vampire creatures with third-eyes in their vaginas. i spent most of the evening playing with the cat, zora, who was also transgender, or was a female with testicles. vanessa helped the witches cook pasta and the transvestite mostly stayed in her bedroom, probably studying victorian literature, which she had a masters degree in. after dinner we all watched a movie in someone's bed. before the movie we smoked a cigarette to help digest the meal - i don't usually smoke cigarettes. the transvestite did not watch the movie with us, she took over the kitchen after we evacuated it.

the longer i laid in bed the more difficult it became to get up. i couldn't fall asleep either, things just got strange. existence turned into a series of half dreams in a half sleep. i was like an exhausted treasure hunter, hunting aimlessly for sleep without a map; contorting myself as if i were a key and sleep were a door i could unlock. the sun would go down and the darkness was preferable, not because it was easier on my eyes but because maybe i would not notice myself when i got back from work. somewhere in the course of things i'd become a hologram. inevitably, the real gus was going to come in and either A) be terrified when he saw me or B) climb into bed and take up all the space. in darkness, even the moonlight through my window would burn my eyelids. i was obsessed with sleep. the clock ticking along beside me, the hissing radiator with its steam sounds, and my feet flapping crazily off the edge of the bed, doing some kind of satanic dance. time passed, perhaps days went by.

2.
i went into the kitchen and my roommate was there with her nephew. they were picturesque, sitting in chairs, drinking wine and talking to two ancient looking mongolian women via skype. they smiled up at me as i came in and i waved silently at the mongolian women in the computer. the four of them were speaking in mongolian while i looked for my box of blackberries in the refrigerator. they were talking about me, concerned about me.

"hi gus, i didn't know you were home?"

"yes, i've been in bed. i heard you listening to that cee-lo song. first in the explicit version and then in the radio version. i heard you making love with your boyfriend, and i'm glad the burns on his hands are improving."

her nephew laughed and said hello. we shook hands. i knew him because he lived with us for a while. i liked him. our conversations were mostly about bruce lee, who is currently buried in washington state. my roommate's nephew does not sleep in beds but prefers the floor. i never found my blackberries. perhaps i didn't own any. i returned to my bedroom empty handed as the mongolian women waved goodbye from mongolia.

3.
i asked god how many hairs were on my head and god replied, "what language has the least words?"
"i don't know god, which one?"
"i'm asking you because i do not know," replied god, "but it is the only language in which i can answer your question."

i was accepted into, and then dishonorably discharged from, a street gang. there had been a misunderstanding about my credentials. during that time, my glasses were rendered useless were i not wearing my contact lenses beneath them.

much earlier, it must have been 1998, my mom tricked people into thinking she could teleport by way of a secret passage in the house we lived in. i tried to explore the route on my own but wound up with a colony of stray dogs following me back out of the dishwasher and into the present. there was a nervous rabbit there too, who the dogs were trying to give a heart attack. that was a dream and it was overwhelming -- and so was the one in which a million orbs appeared in front of my eyes and each one was a question i was supposed to answer. explanations, one after another after another, shooting from me like a machine gun -- like my feet, revolving like a tennis ball gun -- hurling questions at me instead of tennis balls.

4.
kevin returned from europe and was sitting at his drum set. my bass guitar was suspended over my chest by strap-locks. it came to pass that i mentioned the sickness that had plagued me. i was surprised that kevin did not remember it, did not remember my physical absence or at least my mental absence. i know now that i got sick and got better within a two week period, because that's how long kevin was in europe. he told me about madrid and i told him about the night i watched blazing saddles with those witches and their strange ceremonial daggers and the job applications i submitted in the throes of a hallucinogenic illness that spoke through my ankles. the whole band was very excited for my job interview. outside, the streets were still covered in snow.

Advice (3,2,1,0)

 Advice 3

if you don't own
a lot of clothes
it's important to remember
not everybody
sees you everyday



Advice 2


all your heroes

had heroes

who they looked up to

to tell them

, in business terms

, what not to do


Advice 1

 the best time to get someone's advice
on something
is when you need reminding
that nobody knows
what's best for you


Advice 0

your nose stops running
when you stop worrying about it
and it starts running
when you realize you've got no tissue


January 3, 2011

The train pulls into the station and it's packed -- car after car glides passed you and you're psyching yourself up to do some gentle stranger-shoving. Then an empty car catches your eye. Thinking it's your lucky day, you and a few other naive commuters trot down the platform to the vacant car and look greedily over the abundance of vacant seats.

You may first notice a slumped over figure in the corner; probably sleeping, covered in blankets or coats, perhaps with a black garbage bag full of stuff on the floor near their legs. But more likely, the first thing you notice is the scent. That impossible stench of neglect so profound and low it can only exist in the greatest and most crowded cities on Earth. If you didn't transfer cars between stations you did so at the next stop.

But sometimes the scent is only terrible enough to evacuate a portion of the car. Such was the case on January 3rd, around 11pm on the M train. To be honest, for the first few minutes I was asking myself if the stench was coming from me. The smell felt weirdly familiar to me, it was a calm smell and I glared slyly at the tops of my shoes. When I looked up I realized many of my fellow passengers were holding their noses shut and shaking their heads at each other. The smell, I soon realized, was emanating from a man and a woman standing at the far end of the car. They were the only ones standing. The rest of us were seated.

They were tall. They seemed to be the largest people in our car, not obese or anything like that, they were powerful rectangles, planted alongside one another like redwood trees. The man stared out one window and the woman stared out another. They didn’t address each other, but they were obviously together. Aside from the rawness of their faces they did not look like New York's broken down and undead. It was confusing they should smell so bad.

The woman was statuesque, ferocious. High cheek bones. Looking - almost defiantly - out the window and at nothing at all. She was proud. Both of them were reasonably well dressed. They each had a large rolling suitcase in front of them. The woman had a knotted plastic bag on top of hers. The man wore a long brown overcoat. Just gazing out the window, the both of them. Tired. Tall. A little bit smelly. Crossing the Williamsburg bridge into Brooklyn.

The others continued plugging their noses and exchanging glances. Propping themselves up in exaggerated discomfort beneath the fluorescent lights of the train; making a campfire out of their mutual disgust. I was ashamed of them. If the smell was so bad they could have left - the other cars were just as empty. The fact is, they all secretly knew it wasn’t such a horrible smell. They were just trying to bring themselves closer to each other.

I wondered about the man and the woman. I wondered about their destination, their relation to each other. I imagined they were on the way to a new apartment. The stench they gave off was an accumulated stench. No person could develop an odor like that in just the three days we'd spent in 2011. They still smelled like last year. I think 2011 will be a better year for them than 2010 was. I can’t say the same for the other people on the train.