Today’s soundtrack:
Doot doot dootit
doot doot dootit
doooot, dooot
doooot, dooot

Today at 8:42pm: Following Harlem River Drive. Why is this shit so twisty.


Hey did you ever hear that song “Spacemoth” by Stereolab? It’s [7:35] long. I just heard it for the first time today. It’s pretty good, yeah?

Actually the beginning and middle are just okay but I really like what happens to the song around [5:20]. This thing starts happening with the harmony, I don’t know musical terms well enough to describe it, this thing. Radiohead does it, Faye Wong does it too in one of her songs. Do you know what I’m talking about? It makes me see certain colors and I feel something in my guts.

One of the weird things about working at a multinational conglomerate is that everyone refers to continents as if they’re people. i.e. “Africa really wants to move forward with this,” “Europe has been pressuring us to get the ball rolling...” and “If we don’t get this stuff to Asia by Tuesday, we can forget about...” etc.

They’re all out to get you, every last one of them. Don’t fool yourself, it’s just a matter of time. Learn to read between the lines in the meanwhile.


It is our pleasure to serve you. (But one day the shoe will be on the other foot, and when that day comes, boy are you gonna be sorry.)

While supplies last. (After our supplies run out you can go fuck yourself!)

Sorry, we’re CLOSED. (I am at home right now, drinking my face off so I can forget I have customers like you.)

Thank you for your patronage! (If there was no money changing hands here I wouldn’t have to talk to you.)

Please do not touch the display. (The truth is I’m dying for you to touch the display so I can smash your face in with this bowling trophy I keep under the counter.)

Hey so where was I. Right, Saturday night. After the reading Cia and Eggtart broke out and I had to get something to eat. I purposely avoided eating before the reading so I was starvin’ like Marvin. (I swear I didn’t make that rhyme on purpose, I hate you for thinking that.)

In the street there were all these clusters of people who had attended the reading. Some of them approached me and said nice things about the piece, which was flattering. Sometimes strangers freak me out but I feel I acted very normal. They were all in groups but I was by myself.

The thing I’ve found is this: When you perform something in public and people respond positively to it, of course you feel pleased but you also feel this peculiar unease, this weird, discomforting feeling. I don’t know what it is, I don’t know how to describe it. But I understand why famous people like movie stars surround themselves with posses and sycophants.

I walked over to Brooklyn Bagel Café on Fifth and 32nd to get some chow. Figures I’m starving in Koreatown and what do I do? Bypass all the Korean joints and go straight for the chicken sandwich.

I got my sandwich and sat on the stoop outside, trying not to spill my lettuce all over the sidewalk. I spilled some anyway because I was chewing fervently, it probably looked pretty gross.

A group of well-dressed Koreans about my age walked past and then this huge cockroach came the other way. They didn’t notice the roach; they stepped right around it and it started heading towards me, like it was going to gather up my lettuce. I finished the sandwich inside.

Stomach full of chicken I took the elevator up to the Skybar on the 14th floor. It’s small but pretty cool, a rooftop deck in the middle of Manhattan. That’s a photo of the view up above.

At the party I nursed a drink and performed the very important function of holding up the wall with my back. Got into a conversation with this cute girl from Philly. In the first few moments she made an offhandedly clever comment and I liked her right away. On the shallow side I liked her jacket and something about her eyes.

I had to leave early, though. Hapkido shoot early the next morning. I haven’t gotten to sleep in in like, three weeks. Shit is killing me.

At 9:30am on a Sunday any self-respecting agnostic should be asleep. Instead I’m completely vertical and ironing my Hapkido uniform while yawning.

By 10:15am I’m at the dojang, and the photographer is already waiting. “Thank you for arriving on time,” he says sincerely, and I’m not sure how to take that since I’m plainly fifteen minutes late.

Eventually Kendra, my designated “partner” for the shoot, arrives. The two of us get dressed and start warming up on the mats. What followed was an hour of bizarre, slow-motion Hapkido between Kendra and I, choreographed by Betty and directed by the photographer. I kept expecting him to scream “More passion more passion! Give it to me give it to me! Yes yes yes! Love it! Love it!”

While I’ve grown accustomed to grappling with women (physically, not emotionally) it’s ultra-weird in slow motion with some guy named Ari telling you to “show it to the camera.”

I was out of there by noon. Dropped the gear off at the house then spent a couple hours traipsing through Chinatown, photographing more uninteresting buildings.

Handsome Dan a/k/a Pretty Boy Floyd showed up a little after two, photo gear in tow. He set some lights and that weird umbrella-thing up in my living room, then I sat in a chair and followed directions while he shot me with a camera approximately the size of my head.

Pretty simple stuff, my only props were books and a laptop. The whole thing was relatively painless and it was over in thirty minutes. Whenever I have to hold poses my eyes get pretty watery so I’m not sure how the shots will come out. Shady comes home in the middle of the shoot and seems surprised.

Afterwards we wanna get some chow, so I call Eggtart and Cia to see what they’re up to. By coincidence they’re two blocks away (god I love this city). Tired from boy-watching, the two of them swing by to rest while Dan and I run out to pick up some Vietnamese sandwiches. Whaddaya call ‘em, banh mi so.

In due time Mike stops by with beers, and eventually Epak a/k/a Epak Chopra comes through. For an hour or two it’s seven of us sitting around in various states of repose, just shooting the shit and making perverted jokes while the sun goes down on another autumn Sunday. See it’s comfortable like this, just like this.