Today’s soundtrack: roller concrete clover
Today at 10:02am: Shivering. When the hell did it get so cold?



Morning coffee at the diner. There’s a news van parked out front and you’d have to be Helen Keller not to hear the cacophonous clanging of Chinese drums down the block.

I take the coffee to-go, to see what the commotion is. Down the street is a huge throng of people and a Chinese lion-dance going on. I wince, because I’m still not fully awake and those drums are giving me a fucking headache, but move closer anyway. Looks like some type of opening ceremony.

As I draw near, a group of men in dark suits cut through the crowd, who part for them compliantly, the way fish squirt out of the way of sharks. Who should I see right in the middle of the suits but Mikey Bloomberg.

Let me tell you something, Bloomberg rolls deep. Around eight bodyguards, two tinted-out Suburban SUV’s and a Crown Vic chase car. When Mikey saddled up the security guys fanned out and faced outwards, each of them looking like they were finnah fuck someone up. No one came near. All were impeccably dressed, they looked like burly, angry Ivy League graduates.

I was disappointed to see Bloomberg’s security detail is entirely white. He’s the mayor of New York, for chrissakes! He ought to have a security apparatus more reminiscent of the actual ethnic breakdown of the city. If I was Bloomberg’s security chief, his posse would consist of:

- one of the Ivy-League-lookin’ guys he already had
- one huge black bouncer, of the type that work those clubs in the Flatiron
- one tough Puerto Rican kid from the Bronx who’s small but really quick
- one renegade Shaolin monk in the orange robes
- one big, fat Italian guy in a Sergio Tacchini jumpsuit
- one middle-aged Korean guy who runs a Tae Kwon Do school in Flushing and always looks dissatisfied
- one of those old-school burly Greek diner owners who still keeps a bat behind the counter
- one super-cut gay dude who spends most of his time pumping iron at Equinox

Also they would all be armed with boxcutters. Except for the Italian guy, who would beat interlopers with domestic items like telephones and bowling trophies.

Everyone has their own vision of New York.

Today, Serenity.