January

Mid-month I found myself standing in front of a room full of I dunno, maybe a hundred college kids, at an auditorium at Ohio’s Bowling Green State University. I like the college gigs but this was the only one I’d land all year, on account of the fact that I don’t have an agent and have proven somewhat incompetent at booking myself. Later in the month I took a much-needed roadtrip to Toronto, Canada. Canada is like America except the people there are still civil to each other.

February

The month I met my girlfriend. She was in town to see "The Gates," an art installation in Central Park mounted by Christo that drew audiences from around the world. Shortly after entering college I was forced to watch an art documentary about Christo. I’ve hated the bastard ever since, and after I transferred schools he followed me, speaking at my college graduation. But now he’s indirectly responsible for introducing me to my girlfriend so I can’t badmouth the guy.

March

During a snowstorm, I was coming out of a movie theater when I got a phone message informing me I’d won a Van Lier Fellowship, a prize that provides material support for aspiring writers to complete (and hopefully sell) their manuscripts. I’d vied for this prize before, and lost, so winning it was confirmation that I was right not to hang myself after earlier missteps.

April

Went to Los Angeles to visit my girlfriend. We got in a car and drove past San Diego and into Mexico. I only got to lay my eyes on it for an afternoon, making it the shortest international trip I’ve ever taken, but it was well worth it.

May

Began renovating the photo studio I manage. Also my parents, who used to live upstate, finally retired and left the Empire State for greener pastures. Following by ten years the departure of my brother to the interior of the country, this left me the only Noe in New York.

June

After almost a decade of study I took and passed my black belt test in Hapkido. For a guy who’s never finished anything, this was really a milestone. The pre-test was so grueling (nearly nonstop from 11pm to 5am, trying not to throw up or collapse) that the actual test was almost a breeze, even though I got my eyebrows singed because the girl who set my boards went nuts with the lighter fluid.

Peep how everyone else’s flames are normal but mine are like, fucking face-level.

July

We convened the gang, a weird group of writer-types whom I met years ago on the internet. There’s Alex from Toronto, Paul from L.A. and Ed, also from L.A. We’ve taken turns rotating through each other’s cities. It’s always a good time, but the fact that we all met because we blog is a source of constant shame.

August

I turned 34. To me, my age is like calculus--I know it’s real, I just can’t get my head around it. The birthday came and went, met with my usual mild disbelief. Later in the month I got on a plane and went to meet my girlfriend in England. Two backpacks and two Eurail passes.

September

The girlfriend and I continued our rail journey across Europe. (I’ve yet to finish extracting complete blog entries from my notebook, but once I do it will go up.) After the trip, I returned to New York and Handsome Dan left for Hong Kong.

October

Buried under editing work for Theme Magazine. On one day the publisher needed me to help him move two cars on loan for a photo shoot, a $20,000 Scion and a $70,000 Lexus SUV. The Lexus had flatscreens and a DVD player with a remote control. I got the first car, a zippy little stickshift. It was fun getting that thing across Manhattan.

November

I finally finished the first draft of my book. It’s not a spectacular piece of work, but I guess it’s better to have something mediocre and finished than something hot and made out of vapor. I submitted it to a book editor assigned to me by the Van Lier. Thanksgiving came and went and I was actually thankful.

December

On Christmas my only mission was to find someplace that was open so I could eat. No one was really around this year. Two days after Christmas I finally heard back from the editor, who suggested a couple much-needed changes for my book. He said he’d be back in town by January, so I’ve got my work cut out for me.

A good year overall, one of the best I’ve had yet. I met my girlfriend and got to see a number of foreign countries. I took steps to improve my fledgling business and I made good progress in terms of professional and personal development. I was happy more times than I was unhappy.

But I was unsuccessful in improving my financial situation, in fact I sunk even further into debt. The Corporation that I needed as much as I complained about it stopped calling me in, perhaps due to discovery of this blog, and these days when I shake the freelance tree nothing falls out. A lifetime of avoiding a full-time career has now distinguished me, in sharp terms, from my more successful peers who "stuck with it" and now eat out at nice restaurants and buy nice things, while I have condensed to two meals a day and am selling everything on eBay.

And maybe I’m deluded, but I still feel the route I have chosen was worth it. 2006, I hope, will confirm or dispute the accuracy of my map.

Today’s soundtrack: nadei e quando cansei, resolvi boiar
Today at 8:02pm: down at the neighbor’s, my turn to cook


I hate when you’re walking down the street and a little bug flies right into your eye, and you can’t get it out in time, and then your eye basically digests the bug. Really bothers me.

Today’s soundtrack: that forces you to act this way
Today at 8:02am: sleeping ‘til the DHL guy hits the buzzer

Today’s soundtrack: and the police broke down the door
Today at 7:12am: doing weird stretches


Like most of you, I don’t like getting up at six in the morning. But last week I overslept for my Obscure Kung-Fu training (which I will henceforth refer to as OB-KFU--like OB-GYN) but this week I resolved to make it on time. So I got up this morning at 6:05am. After cutting up a pineapple I exchanged sleepy telephone words with my girlfriend in her different time zone, then grabbed my pre-packed gear and was out the door.

It’s impossible for me to walk past any diner in the morning and not order coffee, so I dropped eighty cents for the privilege of burning my mouth while I speedwalked to the subway station.

Trotted down the subway steps, hoping the platform would be crowded. But it was empty, meaning I’d just missed a train. Dammit.

I ran my Metrocard through the slot but something was wrong.

“Hey, hey, HEY!” yelled the token-booth clerk. At me.

I turned around like “What?” all confrontational.

“There’s no trains,” she said, the way you would talk to someone who has just smeared themselves with feces.

“The strike’s on?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

Shit. You stop reading the paper for two days….

I made the Charlie Brown face and ran back up the steps, panicked, knowing taxis would be in short supply. But I was in luck--two of them were at the red light right outside the station, both of them with their numbers lit up.

I ran over and had a does not compute moment--though both taxis had their signs illuminated, indicating availability, they were both filled with people. Christ, they must be ride-splitting, which I’ve only seen in Korea, never in New York.

The first taxi driver rolled his window down and pointed his chin at me.

“Uptown?” I asked, hopefully.

“Downtown,” said the cabbie. He rolled the window back up, the light turned green and he left exhaust fumes in my mouth.

I ran the two blocks from Broadway to Centre Street, spilling coffee the whole way, and managed to stop a cab oriented in the appropriate direction. There were already two people in the back.

“Where you going?” asked the hack.

“Twenty-seventh and Seventh,” I said.

“Get in,” he said.

I climbed into the front and strapped myself in. The two guys in the back were suits having a conversation, though their formal talk told me they’d just met each other. If you sit next to a stranger in the subway you don’t have to say shit, but I guess when you’re in the back seat of a taxi together and both wearing ties you feel obligated to make small talk.

Me, I talked to the cabbie while guzzling what was left of my coffee. “You guys are gonna make a killing today,” I said, referencing the transit strike.

“Yeah, but traffic,” he said, shrugging.

Then I noticed his meter wasn’t on, which is never good news. “Uh, how much?” I asked.

“Ten bucks.”

“Each?”

He nodded. I grimaced, but didn’t have any other options. My OB-KFU is only once a week, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna miss it.

As Centre Street gave way to Lafayette, I looked around me and saw the strangest thing. Swarms of yellow cabs, all of them with their numbers lit, but mostly filled with passengers whom I presume were strangers to each other. Some taxis were pulled over by the curb while the hacks negotiated with hapless-looking pedestrians apparently desperate for a ride.

Before I got to my destination, the taxi driver dropped both of the suits off at different locations, and picked up and dropped off another fare. Each one of us was paying ten bucks (except for one of the suits, who misheard the cabbie and gave him a twenty. The cabbie didn’t correct him). By the time I got out he’d made fifty bucks in about eleven minutes, and the strike is probably gonna last for a week or so. So if your dad is an NYC cabbie, you won’t exactly be getting a lump of coal for Christmas this year.

Today’s soundtrack: I’mmmm on a straight line
Today at 1:02am: that Bauer guy is really something


After watching seasons one and two of 24 on DVD, I’ve decided for America’s next president I don’t want a Republican, or a Democrat, or even a politician. I want an actor. Specifically, Dennis Haysbert.

The American people should elect Dennis Haysbert President, and he in turn should hire the writing staff of 24 to be his cabinet. Haysbert as President David Palmer always says and does the right thing. He looks presidential, speaks clearly and is always composed. He’s tall, powerful-looking and has a tendency to survive assassination attempts. And with 24’s scribes guiding his actions our country could finally get back on track.

The President is a role Haysbert was born to play. The only catch here is that he’d have to stay “in character” for 365 a year, for four straight years.

The salary--about 400 grand annually, last I checked--is high in comparison to most quotidian gigs, even if 1.6 mil doesn’t seem like a lot (by Hollywood standards) for what would basically amount to a 1,460-day shoot. But let’s face it, Haysbert could use the work; guy’s been shilling for car insurance since his gig on the show ended.

So Dennis Haysbert, if you are reading this, your country needs you. And it would be so awesome if at the first Presidential debate, you would say something, then after you finished your opponent would start talking, but then you’d push a button and he would get drowned out by that electronic ticking-clock noise.

Today’s soundtrack: tell me something I don’t know
Today at 12:02pm: setting up photography lights


On Friday I saw King Kong, the movie about a woman who gets kidnapped by an ape and develops Stockholm Syndrome. When my friend Tony quietly made this observation during the movie I almost laughed out loud, but didn’t because I am still aware that I live in a society. Which is more than I can say for the couple to Tony’s left, who talked out loud, made lame jokes and guffawed like they were in their own living room. Between schmucks like these, the seat kickers and the twelve-dollar tickets it’s enough to swear off cinemas altogether.

I wasn’t really blown away by the movie, but I’m admittedly a tough critic. One thing I was impressed by was that director Peter Jackson had so much clout the studio gave him total creative control for this movie. Still, you know at some point in the process they tried to mess with it.

Today’s soundtrack: oh no, you’ll be deceived
Today at 11:02am: on the phone, clearly enunciating forced responses to an automated system


Signifier #238 that the world is moving in the wrong direction: Icons have become little illustrations. Like on computers and stuff. That’s just wrong--the whole point of an icon is that it’s a simplified rendition of something, not a finely detailed, miniaturized illustration.

In my eyes, the only icon that “keeps it real” these days is the Bathroom Guy. His head floats and half the time the motherjumper doesn’t even have feet, just little rounded nubs. But he tells you everything you need to know. Overillustrated icons provide too much information I don’t need to process.

The Bathroom Girl always wears a skirt, like it’s the 1950s. She may not want to, but she’s obligated; if she left the house in pants women wouldn’t know where to pee.

Still, being an icon must be easier than being human.

Today’s soundtrack: I want the friction
Today at 7:17am: reaching for the seatbelt


What’s worse than jerking awake in a spastic haze at 7:07am when you were supposed to be up by six? And getting that sinking feeling of failure because you were supposed to be somewhere at 7am?

No time for coffee, dammit. Hastily dressed, I ran out the front door of my building with my arm held high, in case a taxi was passing at that exact second. One was. And even though the cabbie was jabbering into an earpiece, he spotted me out of the corner of his eye and slammed on his brakes, screeeech. Gotta love Manhattan.

For the first few blocks of the ride the driver was yelling at somebody in Arabic, but he put his conversation on hold at the corner of Houston. “You want me to take Lafayette or Sixth Avenue?” he asked. I love when cabbies give you the option, because it speaks of a certain level-headedness.

“Sixth Avenue, make it so,” I said. (Except for the “make it so” part.)

The rest of the ride--a horizontal rollercoaster of near misses, accelerative bursts and sudden stops overlaid with what I assume were Arabic curse words--woke me up in a way coffee couldn’t. Sure, caffeine will dilate your pupils, but sliding around in the back of a V8 Crown Vic piloted by an experienced hack will access your adrenaline glands with a thoroughness Starbucks will never replicate.

I gave him a big tip, because I liked his driving and I’m bad with money.

When the going gets tough...

...the tough get going.

Going away, in my case.

First I went to see my folks, who have thankfully
retired someplace nice with unusual foliage.

Then I went to see my girlfriend, who is just out of frame
in this picture. I could have put her in frame, but to me
it is more interesting if you don't know what we look like.

I used to hate Los Angeles, because I'm from New York.

But lately I've changed my thinking.

On some level, life in SoCal is very, very seductive.

Everything is nice, and clean.
Plus the weather's always perfect.

There is something awesome about a Californian
freeway, something you cannot initially understand
or appreciate if the subway is your transit milieu.

Angelenos rush just the same as New Yorkers, but they do
it in their little boxes. Main difference is the Angelenos
can't just bump into each other the way we do in Manhattan.

Los Angeles car dealers have sequenced the human genome,
and in celebration they tether balloon representations
of it on top of their dealerships.

Whomever puts billboard ads up needs to start paying attention
to awkward juxtapositions. The ad on top features a bunch of
overjoyed children; the ad on the bottom has two screaming
Korean men about to kick each other's nuts off.

Today’s soundtrack: I said ‘shotgun’
Today at 7:32am: Obscure Kung-Fu



Thinking about going to see that Narnia flick. Partly because there’s not much else out and partly ‘cause I’m curious to see what $180 million buys these days.

I hear the Narnia books were written with strong Christian overtones, which I didn’t pick up on when I read them as child. (I also couldn’t grasp that the Earth wasn’t flat until I was nearly in junior high.) But by most accounts the filmmakers didn’t make religion overt in the film, in order to make the film enjoyable for the religious and non-religious alike. So unless the Pevensies speak Aramaic and they conclude the movie by nailing the lion to a cross I think I’ll be okay.

Finally saw Syriana, it was good, really good. If I had a little more time right now I could write a review of more than five words, but since I don’t I’ll leave you with Fat George Clooney speaks Farsi. Peep it.

Today’s soundtrack: we can be happy underground
Today at 12:22pm: receiving a fortuitous phone call: College booking!



People had a lot more patience in the 1970s, which is why The French Connection is mostly shots of Gene Hackman standing in doorways watching people. I watched it tonight. It’s a cop thriller but there’s only one car chase and one sustained gunfight, the rest is mostly sidewalk shots.

Which I didn’t mind watching at all, since it’s set in New York and much of the action takes place in two neighborhoods I’ve lived in. At one point the camera sweeps past Grand Street, where I often buy sandwiches; I was thrilled to see Italian Food Center still has the same sign they had over three decades ago.

It was also a thrill to see the New York I remember from childhood, with the yellow street signs and the blue license plates with yellow letters. If I remember correctly the yellow signs are also in the opening credits to The Odd Couple.

The city looks so good on grainy film. I recognized most of the locations and was happy to see they actually cared about continuity back then, there are no quick jumps from one neighborhood to the next. In the opening scene of Men in Black Wil Smith runs from Grand Central to the Guggenheim in ten seconds, like the fucking Flash. In Die Hard III the bad guy is supposed to be driving down FDR Drive, but they cut to shots of him on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. That shit drives me nuts, and if that’s a character flaw I’ll take it.

The fake blood when Hackman shoots people is hilarious--it’s bright red, almost orange. Like what you’d expect to see if you shot that pitcher-shaped Kool-Aid man.

Although the scenes are snowless, The French Connection was clearly shot in winter; there are telltale signs of bitch-ass-coldedness in New York that haven’t changed at all in 34 years. Like when you look out the window and see the exhaust of an idling car: when it’s super-cold and windy out, the exhaust fumes are a sharp white, and the wind snatches it away quickly so it looks like a silky rope being ripped out of the tailpipe.

The car chase was okay. Like the car chase in Bullitt (which is probably the worst movie I’ve seen this year), the thrill of it is not in the actual kinetics, but in the sounds of those glorious American V-8 engines. There is something about the sound of wasteful amounts of fossil fuels being burned through 350 cubic inches spread over eight cylinders that gets me amped up. When Gene Hackman stomps on the gas of that Pontiac it sounds like a Tyrannosaurus Rex clearing its throat.

Back when they shot the movie, I was living in a womb in Queens (which was small but rent-free). Several months later I’d quit being a fetus, I came out around the same time the movie did. 1971 and the city looked really good. It’s funny how the infrastructure was so dilipidated back then, but now that New York is all fixed-up and Disneyized, I feel it’s deteriorated in a much more profound way. We’ve lost more than our patience.