Today’s soundtrack: dig this, everybody plays the fool
Today at 2:15am: staring at the monitor in disbelief



I am filled with despair, worry and an overgenerous portion of Pepperidge Farm Mint Milano cookies.

I just lost the gut and now I’ll be getting it back again. My metabolism is faster than the 5-train. I’ll go from gut to six-pack and back again before you can add your Flex Points up.


I’m reworking the script for the Movie Talkers thing and I just can’t get it to flow. I’m also doing a reading this Friday and I have no idea what the fuck I’m gonna read and I’m almost afraid to invite people. I wanted to write a new piece for it but right now I’ve got less flow than an ovulating woman. I’m a lo-flo showerhead that dribbles lukewarm water on your disappointed head.


Tonight is Saturday. My Sunday looks ugly and I’ve got Schedule Stress. Tomorrow morning Wendy’s shooting me for her latest film exercise. In the afternoon, rehearsals for the Movie Talkers thing. In the evening I’ll be at The Corporation, probably until the wee hours, to finish up a project that’s got to go out the door Monday morning. I’m dreading tomorrow. Sometimes I wish the sun would go down and stay down.

I start talking to myself when I can’t get the script to flow. “It’s obvious I require cookies,” I say, thinking that’s going to fix the problem. When it doesn’t you dig up some old Stevie Wonder tracks and listen to them at a volume that destroys the spirit of New York City’s “Quality of Life” campaigns. Or you write a journal entry where you can’t keep the pronouns straight.


Was on the phone for about an hour with Betty, who’s on my back about getting back into the dojang. For a while there I was going hardcore but then I fucked my foot up and eased up a bit.

Now the foot’s totally fine (Dr. Xu is a fucking magician) and Betty wants me back in there. I was starting to get discouraged about teaching the new students and Betty could tell. You know how sometimes you feel you can’t make a difference? You ever stand on a curb and watch the traffic whip past and think, if I stepped in front of this oncoming taxi, what would really be different tomorrow? You ever be doing like, ninety on the West Side Highway and think Hey what would happen if I suddenly yanked the steering wheel to the left?

My head hurts, I oversmoked today. You get stressed out that you can’t quit so you smoke more. It couldn’t possibly make any less sense.

They should do a series of anti-smoking commercials where they show people committing extremely kinetic acts of suicide while smoking. Guy jumps off a building with a lit Camel in his mouth. Guy sucking on a Dunhill steps in front of a speeding taxi. Man at a table lights a Marlboro, then moves it to the side of his mouth to make room for the barrel of a shotgun.

I despise the smell of it and sometimes when I exhale I see a skull and crossbones in the cloud. And yet I...can’t...quit. I want to hit CTRL-Q but I can’t even find the keyboard.


Goddammit. Quick, make a list:

Ten Motown Songs Without Which The World Would Be Even More Of An Awful, Terrible Place


“Everybody Plays The Fool” - The Main Ingredient
“If I Can’t Have You” - Etta James & Harvey Fuqu
“Baby, Baby, Baby” - Aretha Franklin
“I’m Your Puppet” - James and Bobby Purify
“This Old Heart Of Mine” - The Isley Brothers
“Tighten Up” - Archie Bell & The Drells
“Come Get These Memories” - Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
“The Want Ads” - Honey Cone
“One Way Ticket” - Aretha Franklin
“I Can’t Help Myself” - The Four Tops


I’m partial to the Isley Brothers track. I stumbled upon a vinyl 45 of it at that Tower Records on Broadway around 1986, when it was actually Tower Records and I played it so much that even after I put it back in the sleeve the record continues spinning.

I have a grab bag of Motown tracks that saw me through high school, two countries, three colleges, four apartments and a shameful number of exes and that song was always near the top of the pile when I felt uncomfortable and needed to hear music that would make me feel comfortable.

Aretha Franklin has two tracks on the list, that’s no accident either.

It would be cool if they invented an MP3 player with a monitor hardwired to the brain of a psychic, and every time you played a song it would show you moments in your life when that song was playing. I would get that bald chick from Minority Report and hook her up to my MP3 player on slow evenings.


Well, I’ve succeeded in giving myself a massive headache. I am going to go lie down and fall asleep. You start out free and then you become less and less free, but everytime you fall asleep you are truly fucking free. Free like an AOL CD.