Today’s soundtrack: Blame it on Cain, don’t blame it on me.
It’s nobody’s fault, but we need somebody to burn
Today at 9:42pm: Staggering home from the dojang.

Hi, I’m disgusted with myself. No one thing in particular, just a general sense of ill-being.


I love martial arts because it’s a philosophical, mentally stimulating form of exercise. It makes you stronger and you can draw conclusions that are useful in your everyday life.

Today Shanghai Betty ran me through the paces. After three hours of sweating, heaving and reflection I isolated some serious personality defects of mine that are holding me back. I’ve always thought I was a pretty decent guy who occasionally had bad luck, but now I see I have some fucked-up things in my nature that are hobbling me. Must brew the medicine.


Mike just let himself into my apartment (he’s got the keys) and he was wearing a suit, which is unusual.

He’s a photographer, and tonight a super-rich Japanese client of his took him out on the town with his family. Dinner for five and Mike peeked at the bill: $980 fucking dollars! Afterwards they had drinks at the Bryant Park Hotel. They each had one drink and the tab came out to $370.

Next month Mike’s leaving town; his client is sending him to Japan and Korea to shoot some stuff. One month paid residence in Tokyo. Hot chicks, free booze, get your passport stamped. Lush life! At least my friends are doing well.


Tonight Mike has a bunch of rented photo equipment down the hall that he wants to test out, so in a few minutes he’ll be shooting “portraits” of Shady and I. Oughta be funny.

I’ve gone location-scouting with Mike a couple times, just riding bikes around the city. Whenever he spots a promising setting for whatever job he’s shooting, I have to stand or sit in front of the place while he uses me as a test subject for lighting, etc.

Lots of us have served this function. If you ransacked Mike’s places you’d find an assload of photos of all of us. Boxes and boxes. Most will never see the light of day. Maybe one day in ten years we’ll go through all of them and laugh and point and marvel.

Nowadays when the group of us goes through old photos of us, like from five years ago, everyone is surprised by how different everyone looked. Except for me; I always look the same.