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Me and Logan are selling everything we can on eBay to finance our little upcoming show.

Anyone want a laptop? I'm selling my Powerbook, the thing's in great condition. I'll leave 27 gigs of music on it and trust you to delete the files so I won't get in any legal trouble.

Cheers.

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Holy shit. His L.L. is dead-on, ditto the Snoop and DMX, and his Jay-Z is astonishing:

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Today’s soundtrack: we sit in the car outside your house

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Today at 9:02pm: running from West 4th to Bleecker and Broadway with a backpack on

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Physics is against us as a species. What I mean by that is that it's far easier to destroy things than to create them, and this is true for everything from physical structures to human relationships.

The Twin Towers took a few years to put up and Bin Laden took them down in half a day. Houses of cards are undone by opening a window; an elegantly-constructed wine glass at the edge of the table meets its demise when the subway runs past. And any man who has ever dated a woman knows five-star dinners can be ruined by theoretically witty rejoinders delivered in the wrong tone.

Still, I like creating things, and I am going to defy physics.

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Me and her making out in the back of a pickup truck and listening to Journey. In a cornfield.

No wait, the cornfield is too much.

Goddamn it I ruined the fantasy.

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"Hey Ma," I said, getting into the car at Park Avenue, "why the long face?"

Back in the '90s when I was gainfully employed, my parents still lived in New York. Every once in a blue moon we'd meet up for dinner.

So one night my mother drove into midtown, "stood" the car on Park Avenue in front of my office building and waited for her son in the suit to come out. While she was waiting, a livery cab came and "stood" in front of her. A black Lincoln Town Car, the typical deal.

(In New York, "standing" a car means when you park it by the curb and stay in the driver's seat. If the sign says "No Parking" you can often "stand," but if it says "No Standing" you're out of luck.)

The driver of this Town Car gets out, and my mother sees he's got a kufi on, meaning he's a Muslim. He pops the trunk, pulls out a prayer rug. Shuts the trunk. Opens the rear door on the curb side, unfolds the prayer rug across the back seat. Takes his shoes off, leaves them on the curb, climbs into the back seat and shuts the door.

After years in the city you encounter people of every religion you can think of, so my mother knew the deal with Islam; you gotta pray five times a day, rain or shine, which is what this guy was doing. She pictured him bowing repetitively behind the tinted windows of his Town Car and she thought nothing of it.

But while the livery driver is doing his praying, two guys are walking down the sidewalk. This is Park Ave during rush hour, so it's crowded. One of them sees the pair of shoes sitting on the curb, and exclaims to his friend. They stop. The shoe-noticer picks up the kicks, measures them against his own feet. It's apparently not obvious to him that the owner of the shoes is just a few feet away.

My mother sizes the guys up. She's lived in New York since she was 19, so she knows when to get out of the car and when not to get out of the car. So as the guy takes his shoes off and puts his newly-"found" shoes on, she stays in the car. Watches the scene with a frown on her face.

Then the guy and his friend are on his way. Down the block, my mother thinks she catches a glimpse of him throwing his old shoes into the trash can on the corner.

Finished praying, the livery driver gets out with his prayer rug. Looks around for his shoes. Looks under the car. Walks around the car to the other side.

That's when I knocked on the passenger window to to my mother's car, startling her a bit. "Hey Ma," I said, after she'd unlocked the door, "why the long face?"

She pointed through the windshield, and I saw a livery driver in his socks placing a rug into his trunk. He slams the trunk shut, then climbs into the driver's seat. Fires the car up and roars off into traffic. My mother told me the story as we drove down into Koreatown. I can't remember where we ate, but I think I had the fish.

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"L'esprit de l'escalier" is a French term for when someone says something to you at a party or wherever, and you don't think of the perfect comeback until much later, when you've already left. It usually happens to me when I'm lying in bed trying to fall asleep, though the literal translation of the phrase is "the wit of the staircase," meaning it hits when you're walking down the stairs to leave the party.

I love how the French have phrases for everything.

There are lots of urban phenomena that have no name, so I'll attempt to rectify that here with periodic updates. My nomenclature is poor but perhaps one of you with better skill can devise superior titles.

(I just realized these phenomena are not necessarily urban, but I live in a city, so whatever.)


Reactive Asynchronous Perambulation - This is when you're walking down the sidewalk and a car stops at the light, blaring hip hop, and you then have to alter your pace so you're not accidentally walking to the beat, which would look damn silly.

Scatilluminatory Autofillophobia - When a friend or someone uses your computer to look up something on the web, and as they type in the URL you have this sudden fear your browser's autofill will enter the address of some extremely disturbing porn site you were looking at earlier.

Mass Transit Optometrical Estimation - When you're sitting next to or behind someone on the subway who wears glasses, and you look through the sliver of their glasses that's visible from behind, and you observe the degree of distortion to evaluate how bad their eyesight is.

(untitled #1, please provide) - That brief moment where your mind goes "fuuuuuuck"--punctuated by the slamming of a door--when you realize you've just locked your keys inside your apartment or car.

(untitled #2, please provide) - When you've got multiple IM windows open and you send a response to the wrong person.

(untitled #3, please provide) - Living in the close quarters of Manhattan, you often hear the low hum of neighbors talking unintelligibly on the phone or watching TV--but every once in a while you hear a noise that sounds like people having sex, and you always have to stop whatever you're doing and listen closely to be sure. It is only after confirming it is or isn't sex that you can return to your activities.


I'll put up more as I think of them.

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Kirk and the check

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I like the bar. I like taking my coat off, putting my elbows on the wood and having my anesthetic served to me in a highball. Some people say money spent on booze is wasted, but I look at it like I'm putting gas in the tank--I'll never make it to the next state without a stiff glass of Plymouth.

I know it makes no sense but I drank scotch all summer, and now that it's winter I'm drinking gin. I'm out-of-sync by six months.

Six months or maybe eight decades. The twenties, now that was a decade.

Official Reincarnation Placement Request: When next I come back, arrange it so I can drink through most of the 1920s. Keep the location the same. Thanks.

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I don't mind if I peak late.

As long as I peak.

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