Today’s soundtrack: I got news for ya Johnny, win yourself a home
Today at 8:02pm:trying (and failing) to do a side split



Feeling depressed? Quick, make a list:

Ten Songs I Couldn’t Live Without

“I’d Rather Go Blind,” Etta James
“Belle,” Al Green
“Want Ad Blues,” John Lee Hooker
“Hey Hey What Can I Do,” Led Zeppelin
“Someday,” Ronnie Dove
“You Were Always On My Mind (Live),” Johnny Cash
“Spacemoth,” Stereolab
“Return of the Crooklyn Dodgers,” Jeru
“Another Viewpoint,” Cornelius
“Sleepwalk,” The Stray Cats

I’ll try to write something tomorrow. Got a bad case of the Mondays, and it’s only Thursday.

Today’s soundtrack: It shall be rough, rough and tough
Today at 5:02pm: Left foot searching for a clutch that isn’t there



Reality catches up with me somewhere around 33rd and Park Avenue, when I come out of the tunnel and back into the sunlight.

I’m gliding through Manhattan traffic in a large and shiny Chevrolet sedan. An Avis key tag dangles from the ignition. I’m wearing a cheap suit, a cheap tie and the eyeglasses I now need to wear when I drive. In the backseat is a dual-processor G4, a 23” Sony flatscreen that I couldn’t afford in a million years and, you know, my hopes and ambitions and all that.


So The Corporation where I currently work, like many GloboCorps, has their world headquarters in midtown Manhattan and a large Tech Center in Jersey. The Tech Center is where guys with big, paunchy stomachs, hair in their ears and a propensity for math do all the technical shit related to The Corporation’s products.

Travel between Headquarters and the Tech Center used to be by means of corporate helicopter, but a few years ago the chopper ended up sideways in the East River and one of the executives died at the bottom. So now you’ve got to rent a car to get to the Tech Center.

Tomorrow I have to go out there to give a presentation, hence the Chevy and my work computer loaded into it. I have to leave around 7am so I’m bringing the car to my house tonight. I told my boss I already have a car, but Corporate Policy demands I rent a car with Corporation-Sanctioned insurance. I got a full-size.


After dinner (chicken sandwich) I hoof it through Chinatown to deposit a check and get more green paper from the ATM. On my way back I run into my roommate Shady, my ex-neighbor Annie and Sandi, whom I used to hang out with back in the day. Back in the day meaning 1999, when we’d still go to clubs and party like it was, well, you know.

I get “Heyyyy” in stereo from the girls and a “Whatchup to” from my roommate.

“ATM,” I say. “You?”

“Just finished dinner, now we’re gonna go check out Annie’s new apartment. Wanna come?”

“Yeah, I’ll drive us there,” I say, explaining the big-ass Chevy I’ve got sitting in front of the building. It’s novel having a car this large and it’s not like I have to pay for gas.


Back at our building I stop by Mike’s studio, where he’s working on shit with Thomas, another photog. Mike shot Uma Thurman earlier today and he’s retouching her image on his machine.

“Put it down,” I say. “Take a little break. I got Sandi, Annie and Shady outside, we’re gonna go check out Annie’s new place.”

Five minutes later the six of us are rolling down Houston, comfortably seated even though we’ve got four in the back. American cars are basically a big-ass engine towing two couches.


Annie’s apartment ain’t bad for the East Village, meaning it’s slightly larger than a jail cell. It is of course comfortable--gotta love a single girl’s apartment--and the six of us can sprawl out without overlapping. The seating devices are random--a a leather easy chair, a school-room chair, a weathered loveseat, an ottoman for aformentioned easy chair, and a large Pilates ball.

“We have to get up to a rooftop,” says Sandi, holding a rolled-up copy of Time Magazine. “It says in here you can see Mars tonight. I heard it’s so close it’s going to be the size of the moon.”

“Oh, I saw the weirdest thing with Ezra,” says Annie, referencing a friend of hers. “Down on 1st. We saw a True Mirror. It shows you what you really look like.”

“What’s a True Mirror?” asks Shady.

Though I’ve never actually seen one, I’ve heard of True Mirrors. “It’s like this,” I say. “Every time you look in a mirror, the image of you that you see, is not what other people see. You know what I mean? Like the part in your hair is on the other side and shit.”

“So?” says Mike.

“Well it goes beyond that. Most people, their faces are not truly symmetrical. Take me, I got one eye that’s bigger than the other if you look close. My bigger eye is on the left, but in a mirror I see it on the right. So the reflection of you that you’re accustomed to, and the You that other people see are two very different things.”

“So this mirror, what, it’s just sitting out in the street?”

“No, it’s in a store window,” says Annie.

“Let’s go check it out,” says Sandi.


The six of us put our shoes back on and head outside. Thomas, Mike, Shady and I haven’t hung out in the East Village in like forever, and we’re surprised by how much it’s changed.

“Hey,” I say, on the corner of 1st and 1st. “Like ten years ago there was this little joint right here, this tiny-ass one-room restaurant where one woman did everything. She’d take your order, then go in the corner and cook the meal, and afterwards she’d do the dishes.”

“Oh shit that’s riiiiiight,” says Shady, suddenly remembering. Me, I last ate a meal there in 1992 with a girl I was dating in college. I have no idea what happened to her and vice versa.


After half a block or so we come upon the store, which is called “True Mirror” and dedicated entirely to selling the things. A True Mirror itself sits in the window. It’s a glass box that, through clever use of multiple, angled mirrors, presents you with your true image.

I’m the first person to look into the thing, and it’s jarring. The initially weird thing is that you raise your right hand and see your reflection raise its left. After that, as you look closer you see a face that looks very similar to yours, but something is definitely...off. The eyes are all wrong. Birthmark on the wrong side. Jawline not the shape you remember it.

“S’fucking creepy,” I say, backing up.

The others take turns looking into it, and narcissistic though it sounds, it becomes sort of mesmerizing. You see this person who looks so, so much like you and yet they are not the person you know. An almost exact replica, but one sure to be sniffed out by an expert. A near-perfect doppleganger who could charm his way into your friends’ kitchen, but an accidental cut while making a sandwich would reveal the green alien’s blood within.

Before we leave I take one last look in the mirror. It’s depressing enough seeing my normal reflection--eyes not as bright as they once were, little lines forming where the skin was once smooth--but something about the True Mirror draws it into sharp relief. It’s the visual version of hearing a recording of your voice and recoiling at the unfamiliar tone.

When I spin completely out of control and lose the rest of my senses, I will run right out and buy one of these mirrors. Subsequent purchases will include a ski mask, latex gloves, unfriendly-looking knives and perhaps a pistol.


Afterwards the six of us push three deuces together at a sidewalk café. It’s been so long since we’ve done this it’s almost awkward. Half of us order wine, the other half, ice coffees.

We used to hang out at these things all the time. Then again I used to not have to wear eyeglasses at night or a suit during the day. I would show up at work and memorize the specials and note which wines we’d run out of and make sure I had extra pens. I had a bed in Brooklyn, a girlfriend living in a dorm and my head in the clouds. Twenty-five was far away and thirty-two seemed unthinkable.

Tomorrow I head out to the Tech Center. It’s my first time; I never did get to ride in that chopper before that guy died and ruined it for everyone. At least I got to eat in the one-room restaurant.

Today’s soundtrack: don’t try to bite, the ‘ands that feed you
Today at 12:32am: pineapple stroll



Walking home from work and I stopped in at the Jivamukti Yoga Center for no good reason.

I am going to reprint the rules from their pamphlet here, verbatim with typos, also for no good reason. I will then insert my own mindless commentary, for a very good reason but one that I will never, ever tell you.


PLEASE RESPECT THESE GUIDELINES

1. Dress appropriately when you practice asanas. Do not wear see-through clothes that reveal too much. Both women and men must wear shirts at all times.

That means you, friggin’ Vin Diesel lookalike with the tattoos. No one cares that you have a retarded tribal pattern and a crucifix on your back. Speaking of which, shave your back. You are an animal.

2. No street shoes are to be worn inside the Yoga Center.

Or, wear your shoes inside the Yoga Center if you’d like to receive the beating of your life at the hands of our Head Yogi. He might not look like much but take it from me he’ll fuck you up quick.

3. Be sure to turn off your cell-phone and/ or beeper before entering class.

It makes us mad that we even had to write that out. Motherfuckers should know to turn their shit off, and yet they don’t, ring ring ring and then Yogi has to unstretch, raise up and beat that ass with a curtain rod. You might not think curtain rods hurt much. So leave your phone on and see what happens.

4. Do not undress in the asana rooms or in the hallways. Please use the dressing room for this purpose.

What the fuck did you think the dressing room was for, doing lines? Man take your naked monkey ass out of this hallway before Yogi twists you into a pretzel.

5. Store your bags and personal items in the shelves under the windows or under the stage area (in Brahma).

Didn’t I tell you not to bring your bag in here? Well, let’s just see what’s in this bad boy. How does this zipper work, oh there we go. Now lessee what we got here. Okay the cash is mine, back up ‘fore you get smacked up. Ooh what do we got here, a cell phone? Yeah you’ll get this back at the end of the semester, punk.

6. Please take all refuse (tissues, water bottles, etc.) out of the classrooms with you when you leave.

Are these your nasty-ass tissues? Does Yogi look like a garbageman? Police up your shit before we make you fight Dhalsim.

7. This is a place for spiritual peace but it is still a public space in the middle of New York City. The Yoga Center is not responsible for lost or stolen items. Take responsibility for your own belongings. Take all valuables with you into class. Better yet, rent a locker to be safe.

Remember: While you’re looking for Nirvana, someone else is looking for your wallet. I’m the type of cat who’ll find both in the same place. You’ve been warned.

8. Always remember these Ten Yogic rules of conduct:
Do not harm
Do not steal
Do not lie
Be modest
Do not be greedy
Be clean in thought, word and deed
Be content
Work hard, be disciplined
Study
Dedicate your effors to the Devine

If I catch you breaking ANY of these rules I will take a deep breath, put one leg behind my head, and beat you like a circus monkey.

9. Our Center is committed to a space that is free of discrimination and harassment based on race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability or any other basis protected by federal, state or local laws. In an effort to prevent such illegal harassment or discrimination from occuring, we communicate this policy to every student. Not student is exempt form this policy.

Any student who believes he or she is being discriminated against or harassed based on any of the grounds stated above should report it immediately to the center management.

Now don’t make me angry.

Today’s soundtrack: [NBC News lead-in music]Today at 8:02pm: chilling



T.G.I.F. But Still No A/C

Friday morning I’m almost surprised I wake up at all. If Al-Qaeda had their shit together you’d think they’da done something fucktacular last night. I think these sleeper cells are gonna get reamed at their next performance review.

I still keep my jump bag by the front door, in case Blackout Day Two has any surprises that announce themselves with explosions or radio reports of noxious clouds.


When the Going Gets Tough...Get In Your Air-Conditioned Car and Go Someplace Else

The news radio says we should start conserving water, that there’s a chance it will run out, which means we won’t be able to flush the toilets. It’s imperative that that situation never comes to pass, or Mike will obviously let himself into our apartment and leave “presents” in our toilet.

Hoping for the best, I get dressed and walk around downtown Manhattan to enjoy the deserted city. My favorite thing in the world is large public spaces that are deserted.

It’s a ghost town, alright. Nothing’s open and very few people are in the way to fuck up the pictures I like to take. I sit on a curb and snap away.

The novelty wears off when it starts to get hot and I realize I can’t have any ice coffee. I mean I can make the second ingredient but the first ain’t gonna happen. Me and thirteen million of my closest neighbors lack the technology to make ice.

I could spend another night here “roughing it,” but why bother? This is a big country and I’ve got a fuel-efficient car. Traffic looks nonexistent and there are other ice-coffee-serving cities within range. I want A/C, CFCs, ATMs, CNN and all those initials that everyone but the Amish currently enjoy. I’ve got a friend in Boston, maybe she’d be free this weekend.

I head back to my apartment to dig her number up and see if we can’t get our long-postponed chess game, hopefully in an air-conditioned Dunkin’ Donuts. I want to throw pawns at her Queen with donut glaze all over my face and ice coffee rings all over the table.


Score: Lam - 110, Rain - 0

My cell phone comes in and out of service, and before I can call Boston Lam finally gets in touch with me. He’s back at his place in Queens.

“How’d you make it back?” I ask.

“Yesterday I was sick, left work early,” he says. “Got home at 3:30.”

“Lucky you,” I say. “Do you know when the power’s coming back on?”

“You mean you don’t have power?” he asks.

“You mean you do?”

Western Queens, it turns out, has power. Which means Lam, Ben, Eumi, Hae-Sun, Jenny and all those guys are sitting in air-conditioned apartments. Whereas I am sitting in a puddle of my own sweat and soon, perhaps, my own filth.

“You know they’ll probably turn Chinatown on last,” Lam points out. It’s a well-known fact that during the last big blackout in 1977, Spanish Harlem was the absolute last to get power back. Minority communities are considered economically low-priority.


Queens Time for the Straight Guy

Mike, Logan and Shady’s brother all take off to different parts of the city to check on parents and girlfriends and whatnot. Mine are upstate and assure me they’re fine. I call Hae-Sun to see if they have space, then head up to the garage, confirming along the way that traffic is nothing like yesterday’s; I should be able to get out of the city no problem.

The garage guys have hoisted the electric door open, and after fumbling around in the pitch-black basement garage I manage to find my car. I feel like a god turning the headlights on, illuminating the entire room.

Driving back to my building requires I pause judiciously at each intersection, since none of the traffic lights are working. Running a dead light is no fun; it’s more thrilling when it’s red.

I park next to my building and run upstairs to grab my jump bag, laptop, and something I could use to cut a mutant’s throat in case Queens turns out to be a clever zombie trap. On the way out I run into Shady, coming back from checking on his grandfather in Chinatown.

“Where you off to?” he asks.

“Queens,” I say. “Jenny and Hae-Sun got power.”

“Maybe I should go too,” he says, considering it.

“What do you mean ‘maybe?’” I say. “It’s like a garden paradise over there. They’ve got A/C, cable TV, internet access, couches with little flowery blankets on them and there’s a Dunkin’ Donuts down the block.”

“Let me grab my shit,” he says, running upstairs.


Ciao, Suckers

Coming over the Williamsburg we see the strangest damn thing--cars are lined up to get into, not out of, Manhattan. Lined up like lemmings running over a cliff.

An hour later I’m sitting in Dunkin’ Donuts, sucking down a heart-attack sandwich like it’s nobody’s business. Thirty minutes later I’m reading nytimes.com in Eumi’s air-conditioned apartment.

There was some looting here and there but nothing major. Amazingly, the Times reports, there were 850 arrests in the past 24 hours. It’s amazing because the average, as the article points out, is 950. Which means 100 people outran cops last night or people actually behaved themselves.

We ate inexpensive Korean food, then watched cable TV. So that’s how my blackout experience ended, climate-controlled and anti-climactically. In this day and age I love both of those things.

Today’s soundtrack: (static)Today at 9:02am: Ironing my shirt, then deciding not to go to work. (Right decision, it turns out)



Four-Eleven P.M.

The laptop is my constant companion and good friend because when I stare at it, it always stares back. Even when the light bulbs on either side of it flickered and died, the laptop’s illuminated LCD announced its unwavering dedication.

Frowning at the lamps, I shut my good friend down and stood to investigate. My apartment was still brightly lit from the skylights, but the clocks on the microwave and stereo had abandoned me, and the A/C appeared to be taking an unauthorized break.

Opening the front door to my apartment, I was greeted by pitch-blackness; the hallway lacks skylights. I locked my apartment and felt my way down the once-familiar hallway, which was suddenly creepy in its complete lack of light.

“Rain?” I heard Yuka call, from her doorway.

“You too, huh?” I said. We went downstairs to find the diner was lit by nothing but fading sunlight.

Sticking my head out the front door of the building yielded a strange sight: In every direction, every storefront of New York that I could see was dark. The traffic lights were out, and drivers began making their own decisions at intersections.


Ex-Static

Ever since 9/11 I’ve been carrying a small, battery-powered transistor radio with me everywhere I go, pre-tuned to 1010 WINS. I turned it on to hear what sounded like a reporter crumpling a large plastic bag.

I fiddled with the dial to find all the other stations were also playing static. After slowly going through all the stations I finally found WCBS was still on...but they were talking about sports or some other bullshit.

Five minutes later they finally mentioned something about a blackout. Two minutes after they announced power was out in all of Manhattan. Queens. New Jersey. Connecticut. Detroit. And fucking Toronto.


I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream...

Sitting in my apartment with Yuka, pondering terrorism and the lack of electricity, I knew right away what we had to do: We would have to finish all the ice cream immediately. I mean it’s gonna melt, and this might be the last nice thing I do for myself.


Like Gloria Gaynor

After successfully transferring all the strawberry Haagen-Dazs from the container to my stomach, I began centralizing all my candles, matches, canned food, camping stoves, gas canisters, and backstock of bottled Gatorade. Shady came home soon afterwards and broke out the weapons. My roommate and I have a reputation for what you call being paranoid and for what we call being prepared.

Yuka went down to her apartment to sort her things out while Shady and I made ready our jump bags--all the essentials, passport, radio, socks, assorted survival supplies, etc. Ever since 9/11 we are well-stocked for both sit-tight and let’s-get-the-fuck-outta-here situations. I am psychologically prepared to roam the darkened streets of Manhattan blowing mutants away with a shotgun. Unfortunately we don’t have any so I have to make do with a serrated combat knife and the strong desire to eventually collect Social Security.


To Mock a Mockingbird

It starts getting dark by the time Mike shows up. “What’s that?” he asks, spying our jump bags.

“We just packed some essentials in case we have to bolt,” I explained. “You should do the same.”

“You’re right,” says Mike, pretending to look worried. “Let’s see. I’ll need a hairdryer, some hair gel, some exfoliant....”


Cannabalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers

As the news radio tells us, the subways are all out, cell phones are out, traffic is at a standstill, and the streets of Manhattan are flooded with stranded commuters. As the sky gets dark, we’re outside the building waiting for people to show up. Both Shady and I know people who work in Manhattan for whom we would be the only place they could go.

I’m waiting for Lam, but he never shows. Shady’s brother shows up, exhausted from a two-hour trek from midtown. Mike’s fellow photog Tommy comes by, looking like hell.

Tommy was taking the subway from 110th Street when he said the train slowed to a stop and all the lights went out. After sitting in un-air-conditioned pitch-blackness for 15 minutes, he said it began to get very hot. Eventually a conductor led everyone onto the tracks, at which point people used their cell phones as flashlights. They emerged from the long-closed and abandoned 103rd Street station, after which Tommy walked to our place, which took three hours due to the pedestrian-clogged sidewalks.

The radio reports rescued subway commuters are coming out of the sidewalks like C.H.U.D. Crawling out of manholes, sidewalk grates, you name it.


Microeconomics

The sidewalks are jammed with people walking in every direction, and the foot seems mightier than the wheel. With no working signals, car traffic is starting to get dense, hectic, and agitated. Cars are jammed bumper-to-bumper and door-to-door at all angles. Me and the fellas sit on the stoop and watch them go nowhere.

If we had any brains we woulda done what these people did: An enterprising family starts buying crates of Poland Springs at the grocery, and carries it ten feet to the curb--where they sell it to people stuck in traffic for double the price.

The grocery gets hip to what’s going on and starts raising the price of batteries, which are rapidly selling out. Nice to know people are there for you in times of crisis.

Logan shows up soon afterwards, covered in sweat and dirt; he too was in the subway. “In a situation like this, there is no place I’d rather be than at you guys’ place,” he says, asking if we have any weapons. Shady pulls a machete out of a box and puts it on the table.


The Pros of Being a Con

By 9pm the radio is saying nothing new, our apartment is hotter than Thailand and we’re starting to get hungry. Shady and I bring the camping stove and a large pot filled with water up to the roof, and he begins cooking enough pasta to feed all eight of us.

I look over the edge of the roof at a completely darkened Manhattan. The only two buildings with lights on are City Hall and Central Booking, both of which have backup generators.

“That’s so fucking unfair,” says Shady, referring to the illuminated jail cells of Central Booking. “The prisoners have electricity.” I wonder if they have A/C, and briefly contemplate getting myself arrested.


The Stars at Night, Are Big And Bright, Deep in the Heart of...Er...Chinatown

One strange benefit of a citywide blackout is that for once, I can see stars in the sky. Normally the light pollution renders them invisible, but now they peek down at me cheekily. Almost like they’re bragging, the little bastards. “Look at me. I’m a gaseous ball of energy many solar systems away, completely independent of Con Edison.”

Looking down the street I see occasional pinpoints of orange light: People here and there having cigarettes on their fire escapes. An anti-smoking sniper could have a field day out here.

Other than that, the city is creepily dark. Headlights from the occasional passing car are all you get. We make the requisite zombie-movie jokes, then Shady goes back to cooking the pasta.



Dodging Chicks

After downing the chow, the lot of us are sprawled out on the dark sidewalk in front of the building, ‘cause inside is hot. It’s still pitch-black and occasionally a few people walk by with flashlights. Police are nowhere to be seen.

“Who wants eggs?” we hear Mike yell from the window, and all of us instantly leap to our feet and sprint to get underneath an awning as Mike starts pelting the sidewalk. He almost gets Shady but a half-dozen eggs later he’s out of ammunition.

“Motherfucker,” we yell up.

“Warrrrrrrriors...” Mike starts screeching, clinking two bottles together. “Warrrrrriors...come out to playyyyyyyyyy....” (I think you have to be older than thirty to get the reference.)

Five minutes later we’re back on the curb, but a well-placed water balloon sends us back under the awning.

“Motherfucker,” we yell.

“Warrrrrrriors....”


Ghetto Dessert

Yuka and Ryo take off on their skateboards, and somehow they come back twenty minutes later with four cups of ice.

“Where the fuck did you get that?”

“Deli on Houston. Freezer is connected to car battery,” Yuka explains. “We gonna make kagiori.”

“Kagiori wa nani?” I ask.

“Shaving ice,” she explains.

Five minutes later Ryo comes down from the kitchen with a shitload of bowls and some plastic contraption that has a crank in the top. He loads the ice into it, starts cranking, and ice shavings come out. Yuka doles this into the bowls, douses each with some type of syrup, and all of us have a makeshift dessert. It’s fucking delicious and more importantly, cold.

Which is just the opposite of my bedroom. As I find out an hour later, trying to fall asleep in this heat is a miserable experience; although my bedroom is completely dark, it feels like the sun is in my hallway, floating next to the answering machine.

Another weird thing is that it’s quiet and eerily still. No subway rumbling underneath my building. This, I think, is completely barbaric.

Today’s soundtrack: I am the holder of the three-pack bonanza
Today at 8:42pm: Sweating out the forms while Betty calls out the numbers.


Hey man. So yeah, we had our cleaning day at the Hapkido dojang. I’m going to stop italicizing “dojang” because I use the word enough that by now you know it means “school.” Unless you are reading this journal for the first time in which case you are screwed, man. (Screwed I can italicize.)

Mike has the keys to our apartment. Here’s the problem with that--I get home from work today, enter my bedroom, pull my tie off, and spot this poster taped above my bed:

If I was in the middle of drinking something, I would’ve spat it out. I could just picture Mike cackling as he carefully centered it on the wall. This fucking guy!

Earlier this year I was visiting an accountant to get my taxes straightened out. I’d left some important information in my computer at home, so I called Mike from the accountant’s office and asked him if he could go down the hall, let himself into my place and read me the numbers.

When I got back, my desktop background had been replaced with photos of a man holding a leash...attached to the nipples of a naked man wearing a leather mask.

I have to admit I had a good laugh at the poster though. Then I took it down and did what any sensible person would do: I taped it carefully to the inside of my roommate’s bedroom door. He usually leaves the door to his room open, with that side of the door against the wall, so I’m guessing he’s not gonna find this little gem for a few days or so. I hope it’s when he has people over.

Today’s soundtrack: I swear it’s getting warmer
Today at 6:42pm: Clearing my throat and adjusting the microphone.


I finished writing the story at 5:30pm and printed it in a hurry; the reading was at 6pm.

It’s been nearly two months since I did a reading, so I found myself incredibly nervous on the way there. Ten blocks later I was at 308 Bowery at 6pm on the dot. The place was virtually empty.

Poetry and spoken word gigs always start late, so I cooled my heels on the sidewalk while the place gradually filled up. Ishle, the organizer, appeared and after fifteen minutes there was maybe 20 or 30 heads inside.

I was having a cigarette out on the sidewalk when I saw something interesting: An elderly, blind black man in a fedora, dressed like a jazz musician, was being escorted into the place by an assistant, a young Asian kid of maybe 22 or so.

The black man looked like a Somebody. I watched them go inside and people seemed to treat him with reverence. He looked familiar to me; I knew I had heard or read something about this man but I couldn’t remember what. After the show, I found out who he is.

The show went pretty well. I was bookended by two eloquent poets, Anantha Sudhakar and Maiana Minahal, and it’s nice to be part of such a classy reading.

The story I read got a pretty good response, but after reading it aloud I was only half as happy with it as I could have been. It’s definitely in need of some work but seems to have a good skeleton so I’ll try to revamp it for a future reading.

I posted the date and time of the reading about two entries down, and someone from LJ actually showed. Some cat from Toronto who was in town for the week and decided to stop by. He seemed like a nice guy and didn’t try to stab me so I thought that was good.

So after the show I’m walking out to leave and the Asian kid I’d seen on the sidewalk rolls up alongside me. “Steve Cannon wants to talk to you,” he says in my ear, in the same tone someone might say Don Corleone would like to have a word with you.

He leads me to the bar, where the blind man is sitting. I’m a little nervous because it’s obvious this man is important.

“Hey man,” says the blind man, introducing himself jovially. “Steve Cannon. I liked your stuff, man! S’funny!” He starts asking me what else I do, what am I working on, how many finished pieces do I have, etc.

I like him right away; he’s energetic and talks in the ambling, jazzy manner you’d expect of a beat poet or a lifelong scat singer. He does most of the talking, light on the bullshit and heavy on the “Here’s what you ought to do, now get your shit together” and I call him “sir”; I tend to address elderly black men as such, out of respect because, as Chris Rock said, these men have experienced true racism, lived through the real shit.

(When I say real shit I’m not talking about things like being denied a job; not that that’s not bad but I’m talking about when churches were being blown up, little girls spat at on their way to school and people you looked up to were assassinated.)

He tells me he puts out Tribes magazine and to send him some stuff. His assistant, the Asian kid whom I find out is named Paul, hands me a couple flyers with contact info on it. Man. I gotta thank Ish for hooking me up with this gig.

A woman director also approached me, Korean by the looks of her. In the loudness I couldn’t hear if she was directing for film or stage but I got the sense she was working on a smaller-scale type of production. Said she was looking to cast some roles and she gave me her card. I’ll follow it up and let you know what happens.

I’m not expecting much, I tend not to get my hopes up too much with these kinds of things. I’m not an actor and I don’t really have what you’d call Actor’s Looks; I’m a short writer and have more of what you’d call Gollum’s Looks.

She talked a little bit about the project she was working on. Since I couldn’t hear most of what she said in the din, Lam pointed out that I had probably just volunteered for some type of porno.

I’m going to play Gollum in a porno.

Afterwards we grabbed some chow at a Vietnamese joint, then headed down to Silk Road in Chinatown for some tea. Lam and I went over both the book project we’re working on and Lam’s screenplay, which is pretty fucking good. I can’t wait ‘til he finishes it.

My own book of short stories is in Writer’s Hell, but the book project Lam and I are working on is proceeding apace. We’ve got a rough six-month timeframe and I’ll post news as it nears completion.

I’ve gotta get to bed now. Tomorrow our little writing group is meeting to work on Jenny’s project, and my hapkido school is having a cleaning day. Have to scrub the floors and such. I think this week will be busy. Right now I’m listening to New Order and Elvis Costello full blast on the headphones and feeling tired, but good. Good times around the corner.

Today’s soundtrack: shadrach, mesach, abednago
Today at 8:02pm: trying not to hit the floor with the staff (I suck at it)


Well, I put the Russian kid in his place, a couple weeks ago in Hapkido. (Just verbally, none of that Gordon Liu shit for me.) Turns out what I had mistaken for uppity-ness was just overenthusiasm, and ever since the guy has been very polite and respectful.

Anyways this guy--let’s call him Anatoly, since I was just reading something in Newsweek about Kissinger and Anatoly what’s-his-face, from 1973--was in the lockerroom today. Earlier I’d observed him having some difficulty with a couple of the kicks, so I was trying to give some helpful advice as we dressed to leave.

“Anatoly, where ya going?” said Mark, a cheerful orange belt, entering the lockerroom. “You’re not gonna stay for the groundfighting class? What are you, a pussy? C’mon!”

“I have to go to hospital,” said Anatoly, in his Russian accent. “My brother is there.”

“Oh shit,” said Mark, his face turning ashen. “I’m sorry to hear that. What happened?”

“He was, stab. Stabbed,” said Anatoly, miming a knife in the chest. Now he had everyone in the lockerroom’s attention.

“Holy shit,” said Mark, putting his hand on Anatoly’s shoulder. “Is he okay?”

“Yes, he is fine,” said Anatoly. “The knife, it goes between his heart and his spine, just missing. But lung is, collapsed.”

“Jesus christ,” I said.

“What happened?” a third person asked. “He was just standing on the street and some guy stabbed him?”

“No,” said Anatoly, almost...smiling, but I wasn’t sure if it was out of discomfort or what. “He and other guy had, you know, meeting. Other guy has knife. My brother has--” Here Anatoly put one fist on top of the other and mimed like he was hitting a home run.

“A pipe? A bat?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “So he swings--” Anatoly swung his arms again--“but other guy does, like this.” He mimed a looping stab, like a hook punch. Again he delivered the descriptions with a creepy sort of grin.

I gave Anatoly my condolences and left, suddenly disturbed. Not so much that his brother was stabbed; I don’t mean to sound like a jerk but people get stabbed all the time. But was Anatoly or his family mobbed up?

“Meeting” in the street with a bat and a knife could be the result of a simple fender bender pushed to the next level by traffic-frayed nerves, or it could be the result of something more...organized. Perhaps I’m buying into Brooklyn-Russian stereotypes, but I started to worry about what kind of person I was instructing.

Let me point out that I am far from a martial arts expert, I'm purely intermediate; but the knowledge even an intermediate acquires is dangerous. I’m not saying I could pull it off in the street, but I know (at least theoretically) how to cripple, how to separate the knee, put a shin in two pieces and a smattering of other nastiness.

Me, I’ve practiced this stuff in the hopes that the crazy guy who tries to push me off the subway platform is going to get a free ambulance ride instead. But here I am helping someone else acquire dangerous knowledge when I don’t have any goddamn idea what they’ll do with it.

Anatoly smiling while he recounted a tale of distasteful violence could have been some cultural thing I simply wasn’t up on. (I discovered people in China and Vietnam will often smile when they’re uncomfortable, so if, say, a hotel clerk lost your reservation and you started arguing with them, they might suddenly break into a cheeky grin, and if you didn’t know better you’d maybe think they were laughing at you and start to get pissed off.) Or maybe violence is integrated into his, er, lifestyle.

A modern dojang is nothing like in the old days, where people were carefully screened, slowly taught, and scrupulously observed. Anybody with the green can walk in and sign up; this is reality.

I like to think that by being an assistant I’m helping people, and I’ve naively assumed people who walk into our doors are seeking to better themselves, lose the spare tire, achieve spiritual peace and all that Deepak Chopra stuff. It sounds dumb but I never really considered people might sign up just so they could learn to fuck other people up.

My Master has ejected people from the school before and barred them from returning. In particular there was one ex-military walking time bomb of a man I wasn’t sorry to see go.

Another guy was an ex-cop with one fucking eye. I think he enjoyed hurting people and he was one of the first to show me the knife disarms. I will never forget his scary-ass, eyepatched face pointing a wooden knife at me and saying, “The first thing to remember in a knife fight is that you are going to get cut the fuck up. You are going to get cut.”

“Martial arts always attracts some crazies,” my Sabumnim explained to me, after I’d watched him explain to Army Time Bomb that he should come back two weeks after Never. (Cyclops got the boot too.) Another lesson I should have paid more attention to, I’d almost forgotten it.

Maybe he’s harmless, but I’m going to stop focusing on Anatoly’s kicks and drill him in the disarms, and maybe I’ll be doing both of us a favor. I don’t want him wearing an eyepatch and mopping the floors with some wide-eyed white belt.

Today’s soundtrack: you better carry, carry me back
Today at 11:58am: general corporate suffering


Dickhead Corporate Power Games and the Men Who Love Them
by N. Rain Noe - 26th grader


Elevator Games 1 - The Crossover

When waiting for elevator, stand to the left of the door. Eventually someone else will come and stand on the right. When doors open, step in first and cross over to the right, interrupting the other person’s stride for no reason. Do this especially if the other person is carrying hot coffee.

Most often played by: Dickhead lawyers from law firm on 12th floor.

Elevator Games 2 - Only The President Has Access To The Button

When multiple people are waiting for the elevator, sometimes latecomers will want to push the button themselves, even though it has clearly already been pushed and is illuminated. Position your body in such a way that latecomers cannot access the button without saying “Excuse me,” revealing their intent and thereby making fools of themselves.

Occasionally you will encounter aggressive latecomers who see no shame in saying “Excuse me” so they may push the button again. To defeat these people, wear headphones and resolutely stare straight ahead.

Most often played by: Me.

Elevator Games 3 - The Escape Pod.

When entering an elevator alone, if you suddenly hear from behind you the hurried footsteps of someone trying to catch it, immediately avert your gaze and press the ‘Door Closed’ button.

Warning: This tactic will not work if the second person happens to be a T-1000-model Terminator.

Most often played by: Douchebag lawyers from 12th floor, that woman from Marketing who pretends she never sees me, me.

Revolving Door Games 1 - The Turn-minator

When going through a revolving door and talking on a cell phone, suddenly use your foot to slam the door to a halt because the conversation you’re having suddenly got intense. Hold door completely immobile until you have finished your conversation as a confused line queues up behind you.

Most often played by: Fuckface greaseball young lawyer guy with pinstripe suit from 12th floor.

Revolving Door Games 2 - The Spin Doctor

When exiting revolving door, immediately come to a flat-footed halt, leaving no room for the person behind you to exit. If executed correctly, this will leave the poor second person no choice but to continue going around inside the revolving door, thereby temporarily transforming that person into some sort of circus monkey.

Hint: In order for this to work, you must initially provide significant force on the revolving door, thereby creating the inertia that will prevent the second person from stopping the door after you jam them up.

Most often played by: Dickwipe lawyers from 12th floor.

Toilet Games 1 - The Shit Buddy

When entering a four-stall bathroom where the first stall is occupied, immediately and noisily enter an adjacent stall, even though two stalls further away are completely unoccupied. Proceed to take a loud, smelly, and seemingly grueling shit complete with sharply interrupted breathing and occasional cursing. If possible, spread your feet so they actually intrude into the floorspace of the person in the next stall.

Most often played by: I’m not sure, but he has some cheap-ass shoes.

Toilet Games 2 - The Pee and Flee

When using a urinal in a bathroom where someone is in one of the stalls taking a horrifically odorous shit, pee as fast as you can. As toilet paper noises come from within the stall, hasten your speed and wash up as quickly as possible, in hopes of escaping the bathroom before the Stinkmaster emerges from his stall.

If the Stinkmaster comes out before you have finished and you make a positive I.D., you have lost. Minus ten points if it’s someone you work with.

Most often played by: Me.

Toilet Games 3 - The Toilet Paper Race

Combine Toilet Games 1 & 2.

Hint: To build a speed advantage, prepare individual toilet paper wipes while you’re still taking care of business. Balance them atop the toilet paper dispenser carefully; standing too fast will create a gust that sweeps them onto the floor, destroying your lead.

Most often played by: Me.

Today’s soundtrack: in the bars, with the men who play guitars
Today at 8:02pm: Avoiding inattentive jackasses on the Major Deegan Expressway


Went upstate to see my folks today. Over dinner I mentioned Cuba and they raised an eyebrow, but at this point they’re like “Our son is both weird and in his thirties, so, whatever.”

I’d been letting my hair grow out but last week I had to shave it again, I couldn’t take it. Hair gets itchy and takes time to dry and looks all fucked-up when you wake up in the mornings and that’s one more thing you have to worry about when you’re already late and wearing the same tie you wore yesterday. Yeah it’s not for me.

Got home and ate a second dinner. Shady and his girl brought a bunch of weird foodstuff back from Norway so I scarfed it. Reindeer salami, caviar in a tube (like toothpaste), a hunk of orange goat cheese and a big-ass slab of lox, which I sliced up with Tony’s cleaver gift.

Reindeer tastes good and I plan to serve it to my children, which should put an interesting spin on Christmas lore. God bless the woman who’s going to marry me. We’re going to sing songs about Rudolph and then we are going to eat him. I’ll serve it with a stem-free Maraschino cherry and the lot of us will do rock-paper-scissors to see who gets to eat it.

Felt kind of guilty having a good time last night on the same day as Bill’s wake but I know this all part of the “circle of life” or whatever. I’ll try to be patient with the students in my classes like Bill was. They printed his bio at the memorial service and I found out he was a Special Agent over at the State Department, and his latest job was to break in the new agents. Cool, right?

After the memorial service yesterday Jason walked out of there with me. He’s a black belt who started a family and moved to Jersey so I haven’t seen him for a while. He was telling me about his experiences at other hapkido schools with masters more “traditional” than ours, and it was interesting to hear how other schools do it.

The “traditional” master he met asked him why, when performing a certain technique, Jason kept stepping to the side. “To avoid the other hand,” he said. We’re always taught that if you’re doing a technique on one of your opponent’s hands you’ve gotta get out of the way of the other, because no one throws a single punch and just leaves it out there; if you managed to tie up the right punch, well, get ready for the left.

The traditional master kind of scoffed at this, which we didn’t think was right. To prove his point Jason demonstrated on another student, but he had the good sense to do it behind the traditional master’s back. I’ve noticed most martial artists these days don’t take kindly to criticism. Egos, face and all that shit. Well, whaddaya gonna do.

I mean I know what I’m gonna do, which is to watch out for the other hand. If I get punched out I’d like to think I tried everything I could to prevent it.

Speaking of which, I always thought it would be funny if, at the beginning of a sparring session, I put my guard down and tried to reason with the other person.

Maybe not.

Today’s soundtrack: I know they don’t sound the way I planned them to be
Today at 9:02pm: having a plate of banh cuon and some laughs


How can I be thirty-two? This doesn’t make any sense.

People came over for dinner and it was fun. My crowd would bore you though. Out of the fifteen of us, none of us is really into loud music or booze. We’re into chatter and chow. We order take out en masse and can talk for hours about television, storytelling, horrifically embarassing childhood experiences and pop culture.

I like getting my film snob friends all riled up about how I think Michael Bay is a genius. “Fucking face it,” I say. “The Italians had Fellini, the French had Truffaut, the Japanese, Kurosawa. We’ve got Michael Bay.”

I don’t really think Michael Bay is a genius, of course, but I enjoy his movies immensely. Most stories these days suck anyway and at least he gives you the visuals. I saw Bad Boys II and while the “story” is horrible, the set pieces were worth every penny of my ten bucks.

We have Michael Bay for the same reason the Romans had gladiators: For the spectacle. If I want the meaning of life I’ll find it my fucking self, outside of a movie theater.

They got me an awesome cake. There were no candles though because I’ve reached the age where you can’t put a candle for every year or it would be a confectionary conflagration. I think we tried that shit up until around 26 and the birthday “boy” almost lost his eyebrows.

Dressing up, or well is not very high on my list of priorities--I’m trying to be a writer, for chrissakes--but today I had on the standard Asian outfit: A black button-down shirt and grey slacks. Everyone’s used to seeing me wear the same old tired clothes so several commented that I looked nice today. I felt kind of funny telling them I was dressed this way because I was at a wake in the afternoon.

In the middle of the party or dinner or whatever you wanna call it, my roommate and his girlfriend came back from ten days in Norway. They were super-tan. For part of their journey they stayed in a village so far north that the sun never sets, it just keeps going around and around the horizon. Cool, right?

Cia got me this picture book of Cuba and Tony got me this awesome fucking cleaver. This wickedly sharp Chinese cooking knife, the type of thing you grab when you’re getting a drink of water at 3am but you hear a noise on the fire escape. Henry a/k/a Smokedpanda got me that Po Bronson book (I’d been dying for this bitch) and Ed got me Jonathan Lethem’s “Motherless Brooklyn.” I spent eight years in Brooklyn so Ed said the book would have special relevance for me, I look forward to reading it. It’s about a mob detective with Tourette’s.

They all just left and I just finished the dishes. My roommate and his girlfriend went out to get some chow with Mike and Yuka. They tried to get me to go but I’m tired and I need some A-time. Looking forward to sleep. Tomorrow’s a Sunday but I have to get up early to work on a project.

I started off writing this journal entry thinking it would be about something else but it hasn’t turned out that way so I’m gonna just roll with the punches and go to sleep.

So last week, right, I’m coming outta the dojang and who should I see but Bill Lee.

Lemme tell you ‘bout Bill. He’s a Chinese cat in his 50s, but though he’s closer to my parents’ generation he speaks just like you or me, because he was raised locally. He married a Puerto Rican woman so his Spanish is good and he has a reputation for being a killer cook, especially where Latin dishes were concerned.

So Bill was one of the first guys I met at the dojang, one of the first to teach me anything. Like me he was small, wiry and smoked, I remember.

Anyways I was a little surprised to see his hair had gone grey, but we greeted each other warmly and I asked him what he was up to. Said he came by to see the Sabumnim (Master). I knew Sabumnim wasn’t there but I sent Bill upstairs anyway, so he could say hi to some folks and leave a message. I didn’t bother mentioning this in my journal because there’s nothing special about running into people on the street, happens all the time.

Well yesterday I get to the dojang and there’s a picture of Bill on the door. Underneath it is his name and a date, July 30, 2003. That’s like two days ago.

Well what the fuck.

I enter the dojang and see my Sabumnim. “Sir, did something happen to Bill?” I ask, after bowing. “I mean I just saw him last week.”

My Sabumnim looks up, distracted. “Bill’s dead,” he says.

So two days ago Bill went into the hospital for an operation, I’m told he had colon cancer. Anyway during the surgery something went wrong and he lapsed into a coma. After that, he lapsed into the thing that comes after a coma.

Betty tells me I was one of the last people at the school to see Bill. He’d come by to see Sabumnim but they missed each other.

Today is my thirty-second birthday but I will be at the dojang at 3pm for the memorial. There’s birthdays and deathdays, and it’s eerie when there’s overlap.

Yesterday on the way out of the school I looked at Bill’s picture again. He’s smiling and wearing his red belt. He never did get his black belt. I always thought he’d come back someday and test for black. He must’ve got caught up with work.

I kept staring at the picture: A face, a name and a date. I know this is selfish of me to think, but one day there will be a picture (or a hologram) of me somewhere with my name and a date on the bottom.

The best and worst part is not knowing if it’s going to come at thirty-two or sixty-seven or one hundred and twenty-five. One hundred and twenty-five being when your pulmonary nanobots crap out and you crash your flying car into a Wi-Fi tower. Death will take all of us, every last one of you reading this post, every single person I saw at work today and on the subway. A bunch of skeletons on the train with different dates floating above their heads.

July 30th was an ordinary day for me. I got up early and went to work, not particularly happy about either situation. After work I trained at the dojang then came home to eat my pathetic little take-out dinner at the kitchen table and read Newsweek so I know what’s going on in the world outside of my miserable little apartment. Then I watched Conan, had a few dark laughs and went to bed.

Bill’s sword is still up at the dojang. I know ‘cause I saw it last week when I was going through the swords, they’ve got everybody’s name on them. I figured he would come back and get it someday. Bill put the sword back in the sheath sometime in 2001 and that was the last the sword ever saw of him.

R.I.P., Bill.

Since we were living out of a tent
my car became our lockerroom.

Sunday morning, it’s time to go. Everyone is packing stuff up and cleaning the house. I try to take a shower but there’s no hot water left, so I resort to squatting in the tub and slowly dousing myself with handfuls of water from the tap. Takes me forever to get the soap off.

The first group leaves in a big-ass GMC truck, I think it was a Denali. I get in my car with my carmates, crank the ignition, and...nothing. I crank it again. Nothing, not a peep.

I’d been coming out and sitting in the car and playing the radio every night, and it looks like I killed the battery.

We back Lila’s truck up to mine, I do the thing with the jumper cables, then we’re good to go.

The drive back was lonnnnnnng. The girls, all of them socially conscious, began having political discussions I was desperate to avoid. Luckily they were pretty wrapped up in it and asked me no questions.


The next morning I got up to go to work, and saw in the mirror that I was bright red from the weekend in the sun. It looked less like a tan and more like Shame. Just my luck, I finally get some sun but now I’m apparently allergic. I spent the whole day at work looking embarassed for something I didn’t do. At least I got to train.