Today’s soundtrack: Spanish bombs on the Costa Rica
I'm flying in on a DC 10 tonight
Today at 8:02pm: struggling not to smoke


Trying to rekindle my youth by downloading every Pete Rock remix I can get my hands on. And some Jeru and some old Chubb Rock shit.

Today my toilet broke and I realized I’m developing a weird crush on CNN’s Rula Amin. I don’t know what it is, something about how she’s so articulate despite the accent and all the words come out the side of her mouth.

So yeah the toilet. The chain connecting the floating-stopper thingy has been broken for a while and I’d jury-rigged it with paper clips, but today it finally gave way.

Made a half-hearted attempt to fix it with kite string and the resulting disaster left me with little more than aggravating knots, an unflushed toilet and freezing arms. Toilet tank water is cold, very very cold. If I had to train Navy SEALs I would make them lace a sneaker I’d placed in the bottom of a toilet tank, that would be their ultimate test then after that they get their flippers.

Out the door with a couple bucks. Up the block a couple doors. I bought a toilet-stopper from a Chinese guy, a sandwich from a Vietnamese guy and some OJ from a Chinese woman.

Back in the house I ate, then fixed the toilet, then spied Rula Amin’s picture in a CNN newsfeed and wondered if there’s something wrong with me. At least the toilet works now.

DJ Jazzy Jeff is the most slept-on ‘80s DJ of all time. “Hip Hop Dancer’s Theme,” the second half, I mean come on. Goddamn.

Hey anybody remember Schooly D? What the hell was his DJ’s name? Remember the first time you heard those beats? Holy shit.

Hi, my name is Rain and I can fire laser beams from my chest. One on each side. The left beam comes out of the nipple, which seems sensical, but the right one seems to emit from a random point nearer the sternum. I went to the superhero doctor to see if I couldn’t get that remedied.

“What’s the problem,” said the doc.

“Check it out,” I said, ripping my shirt off and releasing a salvo of smoking hot laser might. The blast from my left nipple burned cleanly through the sheetrock of his office while the right blast went wide, obliterating a Nagel print framed above the water cooler.

“Goddammit,” he yelled.

“Sorry,” I said.

“When was the last time you had those calibrated?” he asked, stepping forward to examine the smoking remnants of the Nagel print. “Were they ever accurate?”

“Accurate?” I said. “Hey Doc, I’m not trying to do Lasik with these motherfuckers. I’m a superhero, man. I burn bitches up with these bad boys.”

“Define ‘bitches,’” he said, poking at the melted frame lying on top of the water cooler.

“You know, like, bank robbers and shit.”

“Please,” he said, giving me a look of disdain. “You are so 1960s-DC-Comics. When was the last time you saw someone rob a bank? Don’t tell me--did they wear one of those masks, like the fucking Hamburgler?”

“Look, I’m sorry about the print,” I said. “If I ever see Patrick Nagel I’ll get you another one.”

“I am Patrick Nagel,” he said, taking his glasses off, as if I’d recognize him.

“Bullshit!” I exclaimed. “Says ‘Dr. Angel’ on the door.”

“S’a fucking typo,” he muttered. “Anyways, if not accuracy, what’s the problem with your lasers? Let me guess, you smoke and you’re worried they have bronchitis.”

“Fuck you,” I said. “The problem is the left one comes out of the nipple and the right one just shoots out of here,” I said, jabbing the spot with my finger.

“So,” he said, unimpressed.

“So I want the right one to come out of my nipple too!”

“You want them both to come out of the same nipple?”

“Jesus,” I said, scratching my head. “What kind of a maniac wants two laser beams coming out of the same nipple? What the hell kind of superhero doctor are you?”

“I am Patrick Nagel, superhero doctor and painter of grey-skinned two-dimensional eighties women,” he asserted.

“I want the right friggin’ laser to come out of my right friggin’ nipple,” I yelled.

“And I want my goddamn 24-by-36 Commemorative #9 Serigraph of Venus In A Loose Sweater And Tight Bikini back,” he yelled.

“If you don’t want to help me, fine, I’ll take my business elsewhere,” I sighed, and went to put my shirt back on, before realizing I’d ripped it off for the demo. Dr. Nagel sat down at his desk, facing away from me.

I picked up the tatters of my shirt. “Um...” I said, looking around. “By any chance you got a shirt I can borrow?”

“There’s a box under the receptionist’s desk,” he muttered, waving dismissively.

In the waiting room I located the box with little difficulty. “Don’t take the smalls,” said the receptionist. “I’m saving them for my nephews.”

“I don’t want the smalls,” I said, digging through the box. All of the t-shirts within had iron-ons of Jim Henson characters on the front.

“Good because you can’t have them,” she said. I selected an aqua-colored XXL that had a picture of, I think his name is ‘Gonzo,’ on the front. I pulled it on hastily. It was a little big.

“Good day sir,” said the receptionist, sarcastically. For some reason that really burned me up so I stole a magazine on the way out. It was just an issue of McCall’s but in this world, you’ve got to take what you can get.

Today’s soundtrack: blue collar turns to bourgeois
Today at 8:02pm: lost, found and everything in between


I turn into a real loser on airplanes. Having flown fairly fucking frequently, I still never get over taking pictures from elevations you can only achieve with help from Boeing.

On the way back the flight was crazy full. Filled with Americans, which is still a strange sensation for me on an airplane. All the flights I’ve taken that stick out in my mind are the long-distance jaunts to Asia, which come with starkly different demographics than your typical LaGuardia-to-O’Hare haul.

For one thing, Americans are simply larger people, and when you’re packed in like sardines that’s nothing but a pejorative. Milk-fed, ham-hock eatin’ motherfuckers to the left and right of me. No place to put my elbows, both armrests are absorbed in ample hocks of Ameri-fat.

Don’t get me wrong, if it wasn’t for genetic happenstance I’d be one of the largest of the large and I wouldn’t give a good goddamn what any of you said. In fact if I was large and you started criticizing my weight, I’d either slap a heavy hand on the pizza stains on my chest to reinforce the fact I don’t care, or I’d lean forward and eat you.

Because you see, I eat when I’m depressed. I eat when I’m feeling bad about myself. Perhaps most embarassingly I eat any and all cookies that are within a five-foot radius of me, regardless of whose they are and whether permission was granted. But gastrointestinal fate and the fact that I’m a spaz prevent calories from sticking and there isn’t a damn thing to be done about it.

My point is humans should be alotted the space they require to be comfortable--instead of eating into my shit. There are limits to the size of carry-on baggage, and anytime you ship a package it’s priced according to weight. Why should humans be any different?

I’m not saying those who take up more space should be “discriminated against,” or made bad to feel about their weight. To be frank I don’t care if you’re fat, just as you shouldn’t give a damn if I look like I formed my dietary habits in a Soviet prison. These are the genetic hands we were dealt so let’s get over it.

A six-foot-three, 270-pound Arkansasian should be able to settle into a big-ass American Airlines armchair and not feel bad about it, having pulled his own weight (literally) to earn his ticket. He should be able to stretch out without absorbing my head into his armpit. Similarly I should be able to let a crack of daylight appear between my legs without having to gouge my knees into the ample thighs on either side of me.

Shirts, shoes and everything in between comes in different sizes. So should airplane seats. Get off my armrest man.

For one leg of my trip I had to take an Embraer ERJ-145 Jet, which is tiny by airplane standards. It’s basically like you slapped wings on a car from the six-train and it’s only three seats wide. I pictured the cockpit having a little tiny-ass joystick, like the kind on Ms. Pac Man, and no buttons whatsoever.

This particular flight was only half-full, and as the pilot put a quarter into the slot or whatever, the stewardess popped up and was like Yo, some of you people in the front have to move to the back to balance shit out. I mean those weren’t the exact words but you get the gist of it.

“We need some volunteers. Someone in the first five rows, please move to the back,” she stated firmly, growing uglier by the minute. No one said shit; no one wanted to move. I stayed in my seat because my little-ass frame wouldn’t affect the flight quality if I was perched on top of the pilot’s head.

After a full minute of awkward silence the couple behind me got up and moved to the back, which took less than 30 seconds because the plane was stupid small. I settled into my seat, dreaming of cookies that, unfortunately, would never come. Short flight.

Sorry, going out of town, last-minute trip. Should be back Monday.

If anything happens to me, I’ll see you in the next life.

Today’s soundtrack: the sound of abject silence
Today at 1:02am: ow.


I don’t know what’s happening. It comes both ways, from the inside and the outside. An energy beam erupting from my chest, searing the flesh into flakes and shattering my surroundings, and a lightning bolt that hits my stomach like an electric mallet and rips up the insides before exiting through my back.

I am scared to look down but I do anyway and there are holes, I am bleeding. I try to hold my insides together but they turn to ash while I look on in shock. Desperately trying to hold it and cup it, but it sifts through my fingers, it’s completely out of my control, it’s all over the floor. My knees, damaged from the years, collapse and come to land in an ashy pile of my own ruin.

I sit in my chair and I shake, I lie in my bed and I shake, and I am not proud of myself anymore. It becomes dark and enemies can see me again, my name unfurls on their lists and I can feel the red circle being drawn around me. I’m not supposed to be in this room. I’m not supposed to feel this way. Gravity is not supposed to stop working and send you crashing into the ceiling, tasting plaster and your own brokenness.

I want to work again. Shed plaster, broken bone, blood, guts and glory. Clay in hand, working it, making the guts again. Stuffing them inside, first this way, then that. It’s not comfortable at first but you wedge it in there because you know it will fucking do.

Get up, get up, look around. You can’t tell if it’s over yet but it doesn’t really matter. Let it come again, you can take it. The clay helps, but ultimately it doesn’t matter either. If the energy beam doesn’t get you moving again the lightning bolts will. And if they don’t, I got bad news for you, you’re done.

Well I’m not fucking done.

(And yes, I realize the irony of putting that statement at the end of an entry, which is why I’ll add this one...goddammit, now I’m all out of tone.)

Today’s soundtrack: She said, "When they get to Dover they'll be be taking over"
I said I'd come to her defense and then she pulled me over
Today at 4:49am: I can’t sleep.


For a non-religious guy like myself, Redemption and Salvation are not things we can look up in books.

Instead we have to seek them out in bars and coffee shops and on sidewalks or the six-train during rush hour, when you’re lucky if you can get a seat wedged between stinking piles of sinful humanity. Thoughts of freedom and the larger questions of life are often supplanted by more immediate concerns like What the fuck happened to my metrocard, Does this sneezy guy have SARS and Why isn’t my voicemail working.

I can’t help but think about the ships I’ve missed, others I’ve passed on and still others I’m unaware I already have tickets for. I think about the times I’ve spent sitting in planes, trains and taxis while the clock hands revolve faster than planet and my bank balance goes up and more often than not, down.

All of this stuff can cease to matter to you in a heartbeat. I saved someone’s life once, she almost got hit by a taxi because she wasn’t looking and I brushed her back. She never said thank you and I can’t remember if she was pretty or not.

The Clash, “Spanish Bombs”
Sinatra, “You Brought A New Kind Of...”
Willie Nelson, “You Were Always On My Mind (Live)”
Stereolab, “Lo Boob Oscillator”
Billie Holiday, “Summertime”
Elvis Costello, “King Horse”
New Order, “Slow Jam”
Esthero, “Superheroes”

The soundtrack to my life is on the blink. My MD player has begun to crap out, rendering sidewalk excursions depressingly music-free at random moments. On a 30-block crosstown jaunt the last thing I want to hear is ambient noise. There’s a reason you can’t download construction workers catcalling women, wailing ambulance sirens and the homeless shilling for change.

Tonight, a Sunday night I took myself out for dinner around 11pm. I sat and had an eagerly anticipated meal in my favorite restaurant only to discover it’s no longer my favorite restaurant. I don’t even recognize the East Village anymore. If the East Village was a person I’d say “You’re not the man I married...I don’t know you” to it and pack up my things and leave while it cried and begged me to stay for the kids.

In early May I’m flying out of town again but this time it’s for me, I’m on a Super Secret Super Mission. I’ve been on lots of planes that, like relationships, had their turbulent ups and downs but this is the one time I really, really need the aircraft to touch the runway in one easy piece. Just get me there safe and I’ll do the rest.

Today’s soundtrack: Well I'm gonna make it on up to you for all the things you should have
had before.
Today at 8:02pm: discussing character development


Time to return to New York; this is my last morning in Arizona.

I’m in the shower at 6:55am, enjoying my last tastes of high water pressure at unlimited temperatures. I want to live the rest of my life in this hotel. I’ll marry, settle down and raise kids all from within room 3211.

The thing about Arizona is it’s super-dry. So this time when I get out of the shower, I open the Aromatic Body Lotion the hotel has included in the bathroom kit and smear it all over myself. I do my face last, and as I’m rubbing it in I smell something...funky. I sniff the bottle suspiciously.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuck! “Aromatic” or no, there has clearly been some chemical disaster involving fermentation inside this bottle of lotion. It smells hideous, spoiled and cheese-like.

Even worse, I’m already running late for my flight and have no time to re-shower and wash it off. Plus how do you wash lotion off, the shit is so oily. Wrinkling my nose, I get dressed and bolt out the door.

On the drive to the airport I’m flipping through radio stations, feeling bad about myself because I smell, and continuing to hate radio DJs. Luckily I come across the Allman Brothers singing ‘Southbound.’ “You guys are fucking late,” I mutter.

Traffic isn’t that bad here. New York rush hour kicks Phoenix rush hour’s ass. I make it to the airport on time.

On time to board, that is, not in time to get a decent seat. The e-check-in kiosk shows I’m in the back of the plane in a nut-busting aisle seat, with no hope of switching. I don’t even know what nut-busting means but that’s how I feel about aisle seats, I hate them.

On the plane I’m acutely aware that I smell bad, so for the next five hours I basically have no self-esteem. The woman next to me tried striking up a conversation with me when we first boarded, then quickly stopped. The guy on the right of me is a humongous gorilla whose arms are spilling into my seat. Every time he sneezes I hold my breath for ten seconds.

For “lunch” they serve some kind of poisonous calzone, and a Hugh Grant movie comes on the monitors. How come flying is never a pleasant experience?

At 5pm New York time our pilot drops the plane onto the asphalt with a leaden touch. JFK is grey and rainy. I sit miserably in my cloud of stink until we reach the gate.

After deplaning I luck out and get one of the minivan cabs. My driver has a turban. Happy to be back in New York, I try chatting him up, but he’s not having it so instead I study license plates on the Van Wyck.

I have to teach my writing class at 7pm, so I direct the driver straight to the workshop, in midtown. This is only my second week so I hope the attendees can’t smell me.

Today’s soundtrack: Never you goddamn mind, and no those aren’t lyrics.
Today at 8:02pm: Traveling an unknown highway.


You know what a transcription machine is? It’s a tape recorder with foot pedals. You pop in a microcassette and use the pedals so you can type with your hands.

Anyways I packed one of those in my luggage ‘cause I figured, since the lectures end in the afternoon each day, I could spend the evenings transcribing the lectures I’d recorded.

But at 4:30pm on Day Three, I realize I have access to two different machines: The transcription machine in my suitcase, and a six-cylinder whip with a full tank of gas buried somewhere in the parking lot.

I pull the Avis rental agreement out of my bag and remove the map it came with. It’s a small map, hopelessly local. I decide I want to go off the map.

By 4:45 I’m sitting in the idling Pontiac, searching in vain for a good desert-highway-music radio station. Come on man, give me some Stones, some Crowes, some Zeppelin. Steppenwolf and all that. I wanna hear Jimi Hendrix offer to stand next to her fire.

Instead I find some chatty DJs. Radio DJs are fucking annoying. They say things so stupid you yearn to slap them. If I were a dictator I would rule a kingdom based on the brutal oppression of radio DJs. I would let them rise up just so I could crush them.

Finding nothing, I eventually have to settle for Merle fucking Haggard. I set the volume only halfway because while I might be looking for music, I’m not a fucking maniac.

Pulling out of the lot, I see mountains in the distance. I point the car that way and begin burning fossil fuels as the sun slides westwards.

Thirty minutes later I’m off the map alright, and sixty minutes later I’m off the cellular grid. Off to either side of me is desert growth, lots of weird cacti, some of them quite tall. I take a turn or two just to mix it up but I’m still sure of the way back.

I drive and drive. Something about the perspective out here is misleading in terms of making progress. The mountains are getting bigger but you can’t ever seem to reach them, like insecurities.

When the sun turns orange I call it quits, bringing the car to a halt in front of a tony housing development out in the middle of nowhere. The houses are fucking nice and I see some of the streets have gates on ‘em, like in LA. We don’t got these gates in New York, this is some sun-culture class-war type of shit.

As penance for polluting the environment with my V6 fumes, I light my own portable poison with a zippo and inhale deeply. I have got to quit these fucking things, and now I’ve got a reason. She’s been urging me to put them down for good without nagging, not an easy balance to strike, and she reminds me of all the right appeals. Like the kind that will have the same last name as you and half your genes. When a girl can make the future matter you know you’re in trouble.

Before I know what’s happened the sun sets, precluding any possibility of me riding off into it.

Well, fuck a cliché. I’ll go back to the hotel when I’m damn good and ready.

Today’s soundtrack: well your daddy’s rich, and your ma is good-looking....
Today at 11:02pm: Taking a 30-minute shower for no reason other than that I can


I check in around 10-something pm. The clerk is a well-heeled gentleman who looks super-soft, like the last guy in the world you’d want backing you up in a bar fight. Calls me “sir” and all that.

“How many room keys would you like sir?”

“Wishful thinking,” I hear myself mutter out loud. The clerk doesn’t say anything. “Just one,” I say, and he nods, animated back into activity.

“Keys to the minibar, sir?”

“I’m good.”

Morning comes. I attend parts of my stupid conference and spend the rest of the time exploring the resort.

To say I am staying in a nice hotel is a fucking understatement. Posh doesn’t begin to describe the joint, I mean I wouldn’t be surprised to see Roman slaves walking around. If it wasn’t for The Corporation footing the bill I’d never see the inside of a place like this.

When you don’t have bad weather to consider, you can build some truly remarkable structures. One of the big features of this hotel is that the line between inside and outside is blurred. There is a markedly huge lack of walls at certain entry points, so the landscaping and the marble floors blend into each other. I tried to capture this feeling on film (on pixel, whatever) but those shots didn’t come out so hot. As with women, I’m not good with lighting.

The “work” portion of the trip was stultifyingly boring. As usual I lied about what I do for a living so I wouldn’t have to have any stupid work conversations. The lectures made you want to throw yourself from a cliff. Sample lecture topic: “Can consumers really tell the difference between cold- and hot-filled aseptic juices?”

The maids clean up after me twice a day. My room has a television roughly the size of my car, with a playstation attached. The bathroom is a slightly smaller version of Scarface’s. Water pressure like a fire hose and as much hot water as you want.

The towels all smell like butterscotch. I resist the temptation to stuff them into my bag and hop in the rental whip. I want to point the steering wheel towards Mexico, crank the Allman Brothers and smash the gas into the floor. There’s a difference between living free and living for free, and at the end of the day it’s the former I’m interested in.

Today’s soundtrack: to hear enough to miss
Today at 10:02pm: Somewhat lost


I lead a low-res life. Seventy-two dpi of an inability to relate to others, relationship failures, bad decisions and occasional good meals.

Every once in a while I approach a high-res, photorealistic life. Three-, maybe six-hundred dpi of love, passion, intelligent decisions and occasional good meals.

Right now I’m working on the most improbable love story of all time. The problem is I’m not writing it, I’m living it, and the story is slipping away from me. The only thing I’m sure of is the protagonist’s motivation. The love interest, the ending, the plot, the climax, all of these things elude me. It’s so much more painful than having an unfinished short story languishing on your hard drive.

On Delancey Street me and the taxi driver get into an argument about the best way to get to JFK. I’m pro-Williamsburg Bridge, he’s pro-Triborough Bridge. I can tell he’s wrong because he’s too emotional and emphatic in his arguments. Feelings won’t get you to the airport on time; logic will.

Then I think of her and get very calm and suddenly this thing with the taxi driver seems like a complete waste of energy. I’m thinking about what in life is truly important, and it certainly isn’t little silly bullshit like this. She made me a CD and I pull the player out of my bag.

“If you think the Triborough’s the way to go, then hit it,” I say, staring out the window, pulling the headphones on. Eventually New York recedes into the background.

Phoenix is a five-hour flight. Cramped and unremarkable, and I am surrounded by people who have all the grace and manners of recently released convicts. Even worse, one of them keeps sneezing.

The plane lands at 8:48pm, whatever the hell that means. Daylight Savings Time hit on the same day I had to go two time zones away, so now my body has no fucking idea what time it is. All I know is it’s dark outside and I’m in the desert.

I pull out of the Avis lot in a cherry-red Pontiac Grand Am with a fucking wing on the back. This car has four doors and no class. I am tempted to neutral-drop it at the stoplight but remind myself I am no longer a young man.

I’ve been to Arizona before and forgot that the desert is actually not deserted. Highways and low-rise housing developments flow in a steady stream out of Phoenix. It’s dark out and flat, with low mountains on the horizon.

An hour later I pull into the resort, which is no fucking joke. It’s a cross between one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces and a gargantuan adobo, lined with palm trees and exquisitely sculpted lawns. The parking lot is about the size of the one at Disneyworld.

I pull up to what must be called the Grand Entrance and am approached by two fresh-faced golf-caddy looking motherfuckers in spotless cream-colored polos. “Valet park you car, sir?” they ask.

I decline--I’m a self-service kinda guy--and they direct me back to the humongous parking lot, where I select my own space and carry my own bag.

On the walk back up to the hotel, I hear the damnedest thing coming from somewhere within the parking lot--swing music. Softly at first but it seems to get louder between SUVs.

Soon I realize there are little outdoor speakers planted at intervals throughout the whole lot. The strains of what sounds like early Sinatra serenade you up to the hotel proper. This is what I like to call a “real classy joint.”

Tomorrow I'm on a plane to Arizona. Will write if the hotel has an internet connection.