I Like Art! I Hate Art! perpetual motion roadshow tour diary [part two]

[disclaimer: these are my opinions, everyone sees the world through their own prejudices and experiences. I'm not omniscient, yada yada yada]

MONTREAL

By this point you may have noticed that Troy isn't the best communicator. None of us are, really, or we would have aired our grievances right off. He's just the least passive-aggressive. Anyway, the whole time I had one pair of car keys and Troy had the other, either because we were more confident in driving than China, or because of some subtle misogony that we all silently subscribed to. Troy would never ask to drive, or not to drive. He would just get to the car first, and sit where he felt like. For some reason, it was my sickass' time to drive, which was fine. China had bigger worries than I did, as she had been turned away at the border before. She'd been put on some sort of international list after being kicked out of England some years back, and there was a 40/60 chance it would happen again. Meanwhile, Troy was pissed at China over not getting some money she owed him. I wasn't pissed at anyone, just embarassed about all the sniffling.

Our trouble came to a head just before the border, with Troy and China yelling at each other and me driving, with no radio signal and fuck yous flying.

"HEY! Motherfuckers! Maybe it would be a good idea if we waited til after we're across the border to settle this?"


Do I Like Art? [Montreal]

And we made it. Montreal radio was the best of the trip. It was an even mix of French and English, with dancy synthpunk sharing a frequency with profane bootyjams like Spank Rock's "Put That Pussy On Me" and Freak Nasty's "Da Dip" (perhaps the best song ever written about rimming strippers).

Everything was perfect in Montreal. Almost too perfect. It seemed as though we were in some indie film from the 1990s where everyone wa intelligent and well dressed, witty and urbane. There were wide bike lanes insulated from traffic and nobody's clothes had any writing on them. No irony, and no designer labels, even the bums were dressed pretty well.

We performed in the Toc Toc Cafe, home of the Bibliograph/e Zine Library. Toc Toc was amazing, it seemed to be far more interested in holding community events than acting as a cafe. We drank hemp beer and pawed through zines before the show started. Montreal even had the best local acts. There was Shanghai Triad, who played Chinese pop songs from the 30s and 40s on an accordion and a Chinese violin and a fantastic writer whose name escapes me right now (I'll update this as soon as I can find it).

Our host apologizes to us in advance: I've noticed that American audiences are more willing to donate when you pass the hat than Canadian audiences. I think it's because the government funds so much art here that they forget the concept of starving artist.

I sell a few zines though, and it feels better than anything to get paid for my art in a foreign currency, even if it is just the next country up.

Later that night, Troy and I went to a noise show that would have been amazing at an underground club or a basement, but was only interesting in a cozy, well-lit bar. The one downside to having so many open-minded people is that antisocial art isn't relegated into the scumbag places where it belongs. In Chicago, I'd have been dancing my ass off and throwing myself around like a goon, but in this bar, I can't do anything but appreciate it. I climb into bed with China with my clothes on. This is the set up when there are more people then beds. It's nice to be able to lie next to someone, especially with the knowledge that I'm going to be the only one not to get laid on this trip.

We spend the next day exploring. French pastry, a record store nestled into some guy's apartment. I get a Munich Machine album, and one by Friends of Dean Martinez, and really regret buying beer and not taking out more money at the border. I'm still getting over how awesome Montreal is, and given that, why I didn't like it more. It certainly bears further inspection.


No wait, I do like art! [Montreal]

OTTAWA

So far, everyone has warned us that Ottawa will suck, and I still haven't figured out why. It was an interesting place, whose gay center was completely integrated into its downtown, with dyke hobos, liquor stores where your beer comes in on conveyor belts, and a shwarma joint on every corner. It was a place where adventures kept almost happening.

We performed at a dildo store called Venus Envy. Our opener is a funny poet who seemed far more sad than funny in his constant self-deprecation and nervous delivery, but who brought out the only audience we had in that city. China read a piece about the history of the dildo written by her daughter for the first issue her zine Dildo, and another about being clitblocked by her daughter and her daughter's girlfriend when they were both sixteen and hated her boyfriend. It was the only time she read either of these pieces, and it was her best performance of the week.


I Like Art! Also Monsters! [Ottawa]

Outside the store, there's a crew of leather daddies with hip floggers and trenchcoats smoking. The oldest one smiles at me, and asks if we want to go to a party.

"What kind of party?"

"We're having a pansexual play party. You can join us...as my guests...if I could maybe flog you?"

"Cool."

We head back to where we're staying, to drop our shit off and change. Troy is daring me to go, as if he doesn't think I will. I think he misjudged me somewhere along the line, where I wouldn't think that a pansexual play party would be the coolest thing to do. I decide to go and China comes as my escort.

At the door to the party, a nondescript and very nonthreatening hallway, an older woman sits with a clipboard, in lingerie that shows off her saggy tits and what I presume to be a pretty hard life. Past the hallway, there are bloodcurdling screams that can't be the product of anything nearly as interesting as our imaginations are conjuring. The woman looks surprised to see us, we explain our encounter in the parking lot.

"Oh, okay. Guests pay just twenty-five dollars. Oh and there's an all-black dress code so ou may need to find something else to where...."

On the way home, China tells me about another encounter with a stranger. She was trying to decipher the procedure at the beer store when an older gentleman came to her aid (and lets be clear that when I say gentleman, I mean a big, burly, tattooed and bearded biker).

"Hi, my name is Al. Captain Al Caholic."

Apparently, China met the leader of Ottawa's only bike gang and he invited us to a party at his place, The House of Pain, but China couldn't find the address and none of my calls to Chicago bike people yielded results.

It was clear on Troy's face that we had ruined his evening when we showed up back at the house. We explained what happened and he said nothing. At all.

He turned on the movie Anchorman and we all watched in silence.

C'est la vie.


I like Art! Also monsters! [Ottawa]

TORONTO

Toronto is where it all finally comes to a head. China is driving, she knows that if she gets us to our last city alright everything will be fine. I sleep in the back, even though she wants me to navigate, just so I don't have to deal with all the tension and all the crazy. I should have made the sacrifice. The argument happens over something so stupid it's ridiculous.

China nervously drills us about the last exit. At the off-ramp just before ours, Troy notices the sigm.

"HERE! Here! Here! Here!"

China slams on the brakes.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

"You said here, right?"

"The sign, the SIGN you've been asking about is here. The exit is NEXT. Drive!"

I've had enough. The least I can do is defend her, though it should've happened earlier.

"Dude. You're yelling here here here at an off ramp. I would've freaked too."

"Well I don't recall asking you what the fuck you thought, did I?"

"Well fuck you cause I'm saying it."

"What? You got something to say to me?"

"Yeah, and I said it."

"Fine, we'll see when we get out of this car."

"Fuck you."

We're all jittery and pissed when we park at a grocery store, and Troy's already waiting outside my door. I've been in this situation before and lost. At least I'm sober this time, just groggy. I open the door and step out, and Troy shoves me back in.

"You got somethin to say to me, huh?"

Our sensitive little singer songwriter has gone all aggro.

I don't do well in fights, seeing as I haven't opted to get into a one-on-one since grade school, and I'm a little shaky, but I want to hold my ground.

"No I said it already, I want to get my boots out from under this seat. What's your fuckin problem with me?"

I grab my boots and he gets up in my face.

"You wanna go?"

Go as in fight. I don't wanna go. The car is in Troy's name. If I fight and win I've got to find a new way home. If I fight and lose, I've got to find a new way home. Troy's about the same build as me, same height. Leaner but not particularly muscular. I don't know what his skill level is, and he doesn't know mine (at least if I still do have my old boxing training ingrained somewhere). The fight could go either way.

"No, I wanna know what your fuckin problem with me is."

There's a macho staredown then I walk to the curb to put my boots on. I'm guessing he's not mad enough to kick me in the face while I lace my boots but I'm prepared for it anyway so I feel comfortable enough to start bitching.

"What's your fucking deal anyway? I've treated you with nothing but respect for the past fucking week. I've been fair about money and personal space and tried not to be too annoying so what's your fuckin' problem?"

He growls and walks away. I spend the next minutes shaking and calling Chicagoans for advice. My Dad laughs, my Mom is worried. China and I agree to ditch Troy and the rental car and take a bus back to Chicago after Sarah looks up the schedules.

We all end up at the hotel where we're performing. It has three bars. An art bar, full of bad charcoal nudes, a jazz bar, and a fancy bar. There's a country band in the jazz bar, by the name of Woah Nelly playing as I set up my stuff. I've got all my bags now, and I'm drinking gin.

Despite the wack name, Woah Nelly plays some beautiful country western music on drums, guitar, steel guitar, bass and accordion. The accordion is played by their singer who is beautiful. I'm drawn into the room, almost against my will when she starts singing "We'll Meet Again" (you know, that song from the end of Dr. Strangelove).

We blast through a show with another funny poet and a performance artist. I read shit I haven't read yet, even though I'm drunk. By the time we get to the Greyhound station, I have enough leftover funny money to buy condoms, candy, soda and a tofu dog. It's time to go home.


Fuck art already! [Toronto]

EPILOGUE

One of the first things I noticed about Troy and China was that they both have scars on their arms like I do. I figured that this unites us. That we must have had some shared insight on the world that drove us to be in the same place here and now. Really, all it means is that we were three sad people.

It's my birthday, and I'm riding a Greyhound from Toronto to Chicago and I can't wait to feel my bed. Sharing this train with me and China are a bunch of podunk Canucks heading home after seeing a Tool concert. They're drunk and bolsterous but I think I could sleep through em. No point in making any connections now.

There's a stopover in Detroit, where we watch the sun rise and I take pictures that don't come out on my last disposable camera. I would think that the Detroit Greyhound Station would have to be just the saddest place on Earth but that distinction goes to the station in Gary, Indiana.

None of that matters. It doesn't matter that i'm out of books and cds to care about or that my adventure wasn't as adventurous as I'd imagined. It's my birthday and I'm going home, and for once it's where I want to be.


I Hate Artists! [Cincinnati]



[Currently watching Run Ronnie Run]

I Like Art! I Hate Art! perpetual motion roadshow tour diary [part one]

[disclaimer: these are my opinions, everyone sees the world through their own prejudices and experiences. I'm not omniscient, yada yada yada]

"I guess you could say I went west. You know .. the way of Horatio Alger, Davy Crockett, the Donner Party..."

The quote comes from Grosse Point Blank. It's not a very profound movie but for some reason it had a strong effect on me. Everyone goes West. Kerouac went west. Hunter Thompson went West. Unfortunately, my references end there but as far as I can gather, West is the way you need to go if you're looking to understand this country. Further unfortunate, I went to LA earlier this year and was completely unmoved. I didn't like how the sleaze battled with the gloss like vinegar and water and the whole time I was there I felt like getting pissed on.

Back in September, I had the unique opportunity to go on the road with a couple of strangers and pimp my writing on the East Coast and Canada. Seven cities in eight days. The Perpetual Motion Roadshow.



Chicago

I've never left Chicago, not in any way to speak of. I've never been on tour before and I've never gone on any road trips, nothing that lasted longer than a week anyways. Apparently, not too far outside of Illinois, you start seeing hills and mountains. That seems like something I should have known by now. China and Troy teased me about it for three states, not my lack of knowledge but the amusement I got from driving through hills.

We started out at home, my home, and I got to feel like big shit.

It wasn't much different from any other reading I've done at Quimby's except that my family and friends were there, and my pet rat, and some puppets, and a singing saw. We went back to my place for Walgreen's dollar pizzas and beer. Troy snooped through my records and got laid. China crashed out on the couch. I said goodbye to Sarah. We rented an SUV and went off.


I Like Art! [Chicago]

CINCINNASTY

There was no reason Cincinnati would be the city I liked the best, but it was.

The city had everything I like: there was a lot of grey, a lot of blight, a lot of young people, and a lot of fat people. It was a very Midwestern place, where motherfuckers gave a shit about the Bengals and ate disgusting food like Goetta.

After a couple redneck altercations and missteps in Indiana, and a few dozen mutilated raccoons, we were at the show (an hour late). Shawn Obnoxious read short, funny poems and The Seedy Seeds played dancey electrofolk with kazoo, banjo and electronics. They would have the first of three accordions we would have the pleasure of hearing on our trip.

After the show, Faith took us to the house we'd be staying at, with somewhere between five and twenty other people. It was like a cross between a punk house and a frat, only the majority of the residents were in their late twenties and thirties with legit jobs, cool toys and open season booze. People came and went at all hours, and slept everywhere on any surface available.


Though Gemeos' art is in Cincinnati, is it of Cincinnati?

To give you an idea of the mindset of the place:

It's our first night there and we're drinking on the porch. Some crusties come up and ask, sheepishly, if this is the house where the bonfire is.

"No," Faith says, pausing for a moment to think, "Would you like to have a bonfire here?"

I talk to some girl who says that the two guys she's with wouldn't be hanging out with her if she hadn't given herself a chelsea cut earlier. China talks about anarchist child rearing with a really nice guy with a heavily tattooed face. When he pulls out pictures of his son, it's just about the cutest thing ever.

We stay there for another day. China gets laid. I steal a scarf and buy 7"es by As Mercenarias and Carpet of Sexy. We watch Drop Dead Fred, Kung Fu Zombie, and the amazingly funny Trailer Park Boys at various locales. We visit the contemporary art museum. We drink heavily and leave, but by this time the dynamics of the group have changed.


I Like Art! [Cincinnati]

CLEVELAND

I've never talked less about myself in my whole life. When I'm around more dominant personalities, I tend to yield my own. Troy has been exhibiting moody diva qualities, which is fine, because we're all artists and melodramatic. He seems to prefer conversations that give him a chance to say something impressive about himself, and when he's not in the mood to talk, he'd rather not listen (or even hear) anyone else talking either. China, on the other hand, has a habit of talking whenever she gets nervous. She told us that she went on the Roadshow because she felt like she was getting too neurotic acting out her daily routine in Baltimore. Because of this, she talks a lot, some of her stories are interesting, some aren't. She can feel the tension building betwen her and Troy, but I don't think she's figured out why. We're no longer drinking jovially as we drive, which is probably a good thing.

You can tell in the first few seconds of conversation whether or not you're going to want to fuck a city or not. We were a few minutes inside city limits wbefore we realized that Cleveland didn't turn us on at all.

The woman at the bookstore looks like Harvey Pekar's wife (from the movie, at least). Apparently she's not. Perhaps all of Cleveland's bookish women look like this. Unfortunately, she fucked up and we didn't have an opener in Cleveland. Or anyone to see us.

We decide to hit up an open mic to try and sell our wares. The closest one is in a lounge underneath a grungy rock club called the Grog Shop, where a cat by the name of Q-Nice kicks all kinds of ass as the emcee of an otherwise unremarkable show. It's perhaps the worst possible fit for me and China, in that it was nothing but hiphop. Troy changed his act from some John Mayer shit to a slam/soul sound. I made a big faux pas when I didn't realize that there was a much higher percentage of churchgoers in the crowd than in the audiences I'm used to. Halfway through a very slammy Jewish-angst piece, I realize that I'm about to blaspheme heavily, offering that...

if I have to spend one more Christmas with [blah blah blah doing Jewish-people things in Florida] I will pick up a holy hammer, build a holy time machine and spread [Jesus Christ's] palms myself.

Sigh.

We were all received alright in the end, but we didn't sell shit and had to dip into our pockets to get out. We couldn't get out soon enough.

New York

New York was New York. No one was very impressed with anything, and we weren't a huge draw even though we had an alright crowd. I could feel a cold coming on in Cinci and by the time we got to Williamsburg I was a snotty pile of gross. I read my retard piece but the timing was all off.

The only good thing I could say about NY is that we all had our own friends there. This would be the last chance we had to seperate before leaving the country. Luckily, I had my old friend Marisa to take care of me, and take me out to dinner with her theater friends for her 22nd birthday, and let me use her nice-smelling girl bathroom, which was a godsend after the weirdo Christian book guy's place in Cleveland, and the predictably icky shower in the Cincinnati party house.

With a snoot full of Cold-Eeze, Ibuprofen, and Emergen-C, we endeavored off to Canada.


I Like Art Criticism! [New York]


[Currently watching Brick]

Piece from "A Gigantic Orgasm of Anger/Depression about Work"

[I have a piece in Issue 21 of Foul: A Gigantic Orgasm of Anger/Depression about Work or I Dream It, He Builds It. You should buy it. It costs one dollar and features Brandon Wetherbee, Emerson Dameron, Sarah Joyce and other people I don't know]

I'm writing this from work. I have a lot of opportunity to write here, because I'm working at a public school and all the websites I like are blocked.

After a month of depression and unemployment, where I went on tour and blew though my savings, the jobs started to filter in. Pinky got me a job at a dj company. Sarah gave me the heads up on a temp agency. My Mom hooked me up with a part-time gig at the school where she works, and that's where I am now.

This was the second of four grade schools I attended, and the one I liked the most. It wasn't that much of a surprise coming back, in the sense of finding everything so much smaller than I remembered it, but the school is so much cleaner, so much less ghetto. There are murals and mosaics and a miniature shinto temple where sad brainy kids can plot their bloody revenge during recess.The playground, which used to be a half-block of concrete with a rusty jungle jim and a batting cage is now a lush field with one of those high tech playgrounds where the only way you can hurt yourself is by eating peanuts. Apparently, there are kids who can't eat peanuts now, lots of them, and kids who are vegans, and a shit ton of kids who play soccer.

I have been made aware of this because I work in the office, right across from the wooden bench that I used to sit when I had an ear infection, or faked an ear infection, or had gotten beaten up or pissed myself. It is honestly the hardest job I've ever had, worse than retail, construction, and actual teaching. I don't know anyone's names, I don't know any of the intricacies of afterschool judo or tap that the parents are curious about, or about high school service hours. I don't know what teacher works where or where the first aid kit is. I can't understand what anyone is saying before I buzz them in. It would be the easiest thing in the world for a pedophile to sneak in under my watch (and probably anyone else's).

"Hi, my name is [any possible combination of vowels and consonants]. I'm here to pick up [anything at all that sounds more like a name than a sentence] from after school."

My job, it seems, is to briefly intercept all the electronic influx, and stall it for a second before sending it back into the system, in as pleasant a tone as possible.

A stampede of tapdancers blows past the doorway, clicking like cicadas, and as overwhelmed as I feel, an administrator asks if I want to expand my hours: A full time gig helping a boy with muscular dystrophy. It seems like something I shouldn't say no to. A month ago I vowed not to turn down any job I was offered, ever, but I don't think I can handle the morning commute, or the responsibility. Still, I remember how hard it was to be a special needs student at this school, and not to have anybody worth a damn there to help out.

I don't want to think about it. There is a surprising amount of stylish, young Dads who come to pick up their kids and flirt with the surprising amount of sexy, young professional women that work around the office. I don't rememer any hot chicks when I was a student here, god, fifteen years ago, and I was a horny little kid. Then again, maybe that's why I spent so much time faking sick in the office.

[Currently listening to Tupac]

Untitled

"Two years after it happened, I come home and the house smelled like cookies, I didn't know why. I grabbed a beer and sat down in my chair and started drinking. The TV was on but I couldn't tell what the program was, I was so tired I wasn't paying attention. Dori came in, and bent over and kissed me, and when she kissed me I caught a brief glimpse of her breasts down her shirt and I pulled her on top of me. We kept kissing and I was rubbing her back under her shirt and we started heading upstairs. Just like that. She still had her oven mitt on.

And we stripped out of our clothing and got onto the bed and everything happened so gradually and so naturally we didn't even think about how long it had been, and I lifted her up onto my face and went down on her. It had been years. It was like I was seventeen and just discovering her body, just so full of lust and excitement. I flipped her over and did her from behind and then with her on top and I kept pushing the hair out of her face so I could look at her and she came and I came and we laid down next to each other in silence.

And that's when it hit us. We felt so good, but it wasn't pure. We felt right for a second, and content. And then we felt guilty, so entirely cheap and petty we could barely stand it. It was like the time we had a nice dinner and went to the movies last month, and stayed up all night talking. For me, it was like last summer when we went to the World Series and won and celebrated. It was the first time we'd had sex since that bastard murdered our son, and it hurt to think that we could go that long, just a couple of hours without thinking about him, for it to happen. It hurt to think that we were getting on with our lives."

Family Film Funnies

ELR: No, but you should really see Mystery Train
Dad: I dunno, I haven't really been too impressed by Jarmusch
ELR: You liked Ghost Dog.
Dad: I dunno if I did.
Sis: I liked Ghost Dog, or maybe that was Ghost World. I always forget which is which.
ELR: Ghost World had the two girls, Ghost Dog had Forrest Whittaker.
Sis: Oh, I liked Ghost World.
Dad: Your mother liked Ghost.
Sis: I liked Ghost Dad.

[laughter]

Bonus Funny!

Betty: Oh, you should come out. Minax is having a party.
ELR: I don't know Minax, what kind of party?
Betty: It's a pansexual fetish party for sex workers.
ELR: But I'm not a sex worker.
Betty: It's okay, they'll let you in.
ELR: No they won't, they'll be all like Get a job! and I'll be like I can't I work with children. I don't think I can get paid to do both.
Eric: I think most sex workers also work with children.
ELR: You're thinking of sex abusers

[Nyuk]

[Currently listening to the Clash]

11 Dream Journal 11

Is there a such thing as a boot iron? It's like a cloths iron with a rubber sole, that vibrates slowly. I used one in a dream a few minutes ago and it helped me get all the paint and blood off my new boots. The dirt came right off. It also came in handy when the zombies made their way onto the train.

I'm assuming that it's fake because in the dream, my boots were just a red rubber skin wrapped around a woven cotton nest, kinda like the inside of a baseball.

Thanks to dream-Greg for lending me the boot iron, even though I put the moves on dream-Liz after you were eaten.

There were other dreams last night:

I was back in high school, but the classroom was set up like a grade school with the chairs that were permanently attatched to desks and motivational posters all over. George W Bush was our teacher and I hated him the same way I hate the real one, but I was able to antagonize him the way I did my real teachers. He used a word that I didn't understand, "roarman" or something and I asked what it was.

Fed up, he threw a chair at me. It went over my head and into this kid Aaron Einhorn who threw it back at me.

"What the fuck? I really have never heard of that word before."

"You know what, Eric? You're a really annoying motherfucker."

I looked around, Aaron had the consensus. Some people nodded the agreement, and it just showed in the others' eyes. I put my head down, and decided to not talk so much.....

I invited a few friends to help me carry equipment to a private dj gig. A cold building downtown, a dusty old freight elevator with a rusty grey switch, a nondescript hallway decked out with minimal pictures of flowers. An attractive black woman in her mid thirties opened the door, which led to a sunlit penthouse loft. She was getting completely made over, hair cuts, acid skin peels, and all sorts of other shit I don't understand in her apartment. She hired me to play music that would add to the ambience that included catering and vials of scents strategically placed around the apartment. Things started going wrong before I set up. My friends invited friends. No one expected everyone to show up but they did. Soon the entire Rat Patrol was there. People I didn't know were showing up and getting drunk. The client laughed it off:

I'm sure all these attractive young people will make my skin fight harder.

Then she saw the guy passed out on a table by the door, resting his head in a tray of brownies. Then she fired me......

I was in a dark, crowded bar when I eyed some sort of punk rock sexual goddess. A short Mexican girl, with no hair, a Monroe piercing, and a perma smile in a spotted dress, eyeing me from across the room.

I walked up to her, or perhaps I stood there in space as the room receded. We were face to face, seperated by a thin wooden table, and then we were fucking, over the table, in front of everyone. I looked back and saw that Brandon could see us. Luckily, his girlfriend Kelsey wasn't paying attention. I was drunk but pangs of conscience were creeping in.

I spent the weekend around Brandon and Kelsey, afraid that one of them would tell Sarah, guilty, and ashamed that no one did......

It was the middle of the night, in a storefront theater off the interstate. We were sharing the space with a local youth theater group, setting up as they were shutting down. I was trying to figure out what my actual pay was, before I wa in too deep. The old lady who acted as our corporate liazon was effusive, at least if that word means what I think it does. She was trying not to tell me but when I gave her an ultimatum, she produced a chart.

$6.75/hr.

"That's less than half of what the ad said in Craigslist!"

"That's because you didn't get your Bachelor's in education."

"That's bullshit!"

"It's more than minimum wage."

"Fuck minimum wage, I can't live off that."

Hillary and I planned our escape, we were in the middle of nowhere. We would have to hitch, and we would have to wait til after the old girl had fallen asleep. Ronny had a more direct approach, more in line with his personality:

"Yo bitch, I wanna talk about some of this."

They went into a small room and I could hear him tear into her. Go Ronny! Then the yelling stopped. At least the yelling of words, and we started to get an idea of what was happening there. About a half hour later the door creaked open and Ronny comes out in just a shirt. I catch a look at his cock, which looks red and worn nd bigger than I would have expected for someone his height.

"Look guys, I'm gonna keep fuckin this bitch and then come home tomorrow. Yall should probly go."

Then he walked back into the room and I saw her. Her stern, pointy face and grim stare, like a real-life Cruella DeVille in a pink nightfrown with her legs together at the knee. It was disgusting, but I was surprised to catch a hint of jealousy from somewhere deep down.

Hillary and I walked out, into the cold clear night and stuck out our thumbs.

currently listening to 1990s hip hop: Gza, Fugees, the Pharcyde, all that good shit; currently reading "Zero Girl: Full Circle"]

AAAAHH! Teevee!!!

Did anyone else see the commercial where Wal-Mart salutes our veterans?

While the announcer talks about how much our fighting men and women, past and present, deserve our respect and gratitude, there is a montage of Wal-Mart employees, labeled "sonar technician", "paratrooper", Sergeant, 1st Class" and the like.

How the fuck depressing is that? They all work at Wal-Mart!

And next week all the commercials are gonna be about Christmas...I'm glad my tv is broken. I don't care how much Tania wants to watch "Flavor of Love", I don't want a to go back to it.

Apparently this is an insecure week for me. An unsure week. A bitter week, too. I realized this after going back and reading my last few blogs.

Apparently this is an insecure week for me. An unsure week. A bitter week, too. I realized this after going back and reading my last few blogs.

It's annoying being this self aware. I hate knowing that everything, every emotion and everything tangible is impermanent, and still having no control over it. It isn't excruciating but it ain't easy, waiting for the pendulum to swing back to manic from depression. It's probably cause I don't have any good books right now, that I have to embrace it.

I blame my dreams.

You know the ones. Not the one I had last night, with the dinosaur people. That one was alright, but all the rest I've had this week, full of mundane horrors where everyone is an accuser. Where I am guilted for desires I repress, but regret the the times I haven't acted on them, all in the name of being acceptable.

I blame my luck.

I have new things. New opportunities. New securities. Something is bound to go wrong. Everything is about to go wrong, and I don't know how.

I blame the weather.

It should be raining, but it's not. We've had dark skies for as long as I can remember (which isn't very long, as weather goes). I hide from the cold, because the skies are waiting for me. I go outside, and find it temperate and comfortable. The skies get thicker. When it gets me, it's gonna be bad. I should have gone out earlier, becauseI can't go out now.

I blame the attack ads...

We're all gonna die. We're all gonna lose our jobs to terrorists and Mexicans. If the war doesn't get our children, the pedophiles will, and if not the pedophiles then global warming, and if they somehow manage to wriggle free from the grasp of all these bogeymen, they'll be strangled by their own longevity when they find themselves old, broke, and without health care.

In a few hours, if I wake up in time, I'll have to grit my teeth and vote. I will vote for Greens and Libertarians wherever I can, and I will hold my nose and vote for Republicans. A lot of them. I'm sick of all the clout, the nepotism and cronyism, of the Democrats in power in this city. They expect my vote. They expect me to vote Democrat, or vote for ineffective third parties or not vote at all, but they don't expect me to vote for a racist, homophobic, Xenophobic Grand Old Party just to get rid of them, so that's what I'm going to have to do.

I keep going back to ten years ago. I think I appreciate the novelty. That I was a mostly formed adult human. Fourteen: cocky, sexualized, and opinionated. I was an anarchist then. I believed in collective farming and some sort of shared cooperative utopia, completely forgoing what people wanted. It would be so much easier to be an anarchist now, to work through defensive action and totally discount the current power structure.

At least I get to use one of the new voting machines. It'll be like using some negative ATM, that's all service charge and no payoff.

That's a terrible analogy. It'll be like donatng blood to a Klansmen.

On the brightside, as far as the machines go, there's a good chance my vote won't count. I know because I trained the people who'll be working it, and I know how hopeless they are.

I start working as a tutor today. 6th, 7th and 8th graders, all black. Old enough to call me on my bullshit, savvy enough to know how cheeseball the lesson plan is. I'm hoping they're desperate enough to work with me. I don't think I would have.

[currently watching: CNN]

Growing up is fucking weird

My first girlfriend got married this year, and now she's knocked up.


Sure, he looks harmless, all curled up in his amniotic sac, floating around and developing a circulatory system all day. But to me, he's a threat.

To make matters worse, the only girl I've ever lived with (in a nonplatonic sense) had a kid this year. He looks like this:


I've got no beef with him. He's a nice enough kid. I'm just getting older.





[currently listening to Fela Kuti]

1. lame story that other djs might find amusing. 2. perceived class identity problems

So I was doing a show at the Globe Pub yesterday. It's a good spot, outside of the kinda lame English sports bar motif. Friendly staff and a crowd that has absolutely no interest in Top 40 music. I set up, plug everything in, put on my headphones and... nothing.

No sound at all.

I scramble around plugging and unplugging everything and doing the same thing over and over when I realize that I didn't bring my 1/8" to 1/4" adapter, I brought my RCA to 1/4" adapter!

I call up my girlfriend (and DJ partner) Sarah, begging her to bring over an 1/8" to 1/4" adapter. I'll even pay for the cab and...she brings my other RCA to 1/4" adapter!

We're both mortified now, and thirty bucks poorer, with useless headphones, and a book of cds I'm only kinda familiar with.

Luckily, I was able to fake competence until my good friend DJ Demchuk came through and saved the day.

I can't believe people still let me do this. Thanks Dan, thanks Sarah.

----

Today's story (totally destroys the ego I built up yesterday):

I'm riding the train to a show. It's a corporate gig, so I'm dressed as nicely as I can but I still feel like a scumbag weirdo. I'm sleeping on the train, clutching my DJ bag, which is really just the messenger bag Kyle gave me when he got a new one.

I wake up when someone sits on my coat. It's a really young guy with really impeccable everything. Perfect jeans, perfect coat, perfect haircut. Perfect best friend with in similar accoutrement. It's all designer vintage so they don't look like tools. They're going through gay, college student drama.

"She wants to cheat on him and then date a woman, to get back at him."

"Jesus, I feel bad for her and all, but get over it. Dude doesn't even live in the state anymore, does he?"

"No, he's here for like four days every four months."

"Hey, Remember that party where we met?"

"With that twink kid?"

"God, what was he, like fourteen?"

"Yeah, and he was homeless and sleeping on the street and all like, 'You can't laugh at me, I'm just a kid!' "

"God."

I had two chances to feel inferior to these guys. First was when I was the bum they woke up on the train, and second when they came into the bar I was spinning at with a bunch of second-string castmembers for Wicked.

It wasn't a great night. I couldn't tell what the crowd wanted, so I did like I was told and played pop R&B all night after. It didn't feel right, the bar was playing better music before I got there. Verve shit, downtempo house, things I didn't have on me.

At the end of the night, I'm feeling like a hot mess, when fifteen theatre guys and fag hags (to be fair, they were probably just girls from the show who were outnumbered by their gay accompanyment) who only wanted to dance to show off how outlandishly the could dance. It was annoying. They wouldn't keep it up from song to song because they were just doing routines, and they kept me an hour after I was told I would be, or could probably handle.

It's alright. This is probably the best job I've ever had, and the closest to what I actually want to do in the world. Actually, it is what I want to be doing in the world. I just don't know how to deal with it sometimes. It being people, as well as my own perceptions of class, self, and expectation. I feel like a huge fraud, and it's not just there. On Sunday I went to a punk show where I felt overdressed, in practiacally the same clothes. I've always felt stuck inbetween, some sort of middle class guilt/shame.

I have no idea how to end this, because it's far from over, so I'll end it tritely, by saying that next week is another week and tomorrow is another day.

[currently listening to Anavan]

A walking tour of magickal places

A walking tour of magickal places I've never had sex in but would like to***

I'm talking about the neighborhood I grew up in, and you probably don't live there, so you'll have to start on the Red Line.

I don't know how many trains the CTA keeps in circulation, or for how long. I know that the cars are made in a way that they can be removed, switched and exchanged but I don't know if they are, so perhaps the concept of individual trains is null. No matter, lets assume that the trains they're using now are the same ones they were using twelve years ago. Get in the car. Head north. Look around.

I've spent more time in that car than I have in my current apartment, and probably my last apartment and the one before that, and experienced the full range of human emotion. I've cried there, and slept. I've eaten, I've laughed, I've fought, I've gotten high. Extreme hate, extreme lust. I've been dumped on the train to Howard, but I've never screwed there.

Get off at the Jarvis stop. Ignore the pun. Embark, due East. Past the comic book store that doesn't exist anymore, the seedy gay bar that is now a shiny Irish pub, Honest Don's, the Elf Man's cobblery and the only 7-Eleven I've ever seen fail and shut down. Past the first house I ever did get naked with a girl.

Stop when you hit water.

The Jarvis beach is the neighborhood's only secret. At night it belongs to witches and gangbangers, but never at the same time. _____ taught me how to cast a circle there, a week before we fucked for the first time. ___ and I would go there to smoke Phillies and hide from our Moms. You may still find small rounds of stones there, and you may find stray bullet casings.

In the 1980s, dead fish would wash up on the shore and pile up. Hundreds of em, midway through summer. The city has since released a predator into the water that eats them before they get a chance to die on their own. The beach is clean now, and it would be a great place to fuck.

If you've never had sex on a beach before, the only bit of advice I can give you is, bring a towel to lie down on. What it lacks in spontanaeity, it makes up for in not having grains of sand grit into places they can't get out of. If you're adventurous, bring it to the rock island. Leave your drawers on the flagpole, they belong to the ages. Don't throw your condom into the water, it'll only come back, unwanted, like all those empty fish.



Head back west, to Glenwood. East Glenwood. Hook a left.You will pass a number of amazing places. Turtle Island. The Independent Video Alliance. Eagles Aerie Shamanic Counseling. Phantom Limb. Some still exist, some are just ghosts now. Swing a right on Lunt.

The Heartland Cafe may be the very soul of East Rogers. The scumbags, the artists, the yuppies, the dealers, Loyola students and dirty old men have all made their home there. The waitresses all have dreadlocks, the waiters are all on heroin, and none of the bartenders know how to mix a drink. I've been told that my number used to be scrawled across the stall in the women's room but no one ever called it. That's fine. I'm not interested in the women's room, I'm interested in the roof.

You may have noticed it from the train. An unused patio, and a replica atom bomb cracked over the Heartland sign. As an ultimate tribute to the 'make love, not war' ideals that both the restaurant and I espouse to, I wanna bend someone over that bomb. Think of it as the sheer force of lovemaking overpowering the threat of nuclear holocaust, that has made equal parts slave and rebel out of us all for the last sixty years, or something...as viewed from a train.



Head South. Glenwood West. A street that is still paved with brick, that is half street and half alley, a block of jazz, revolution and voodoo, courtesy of the artist Dzine, who has since sold out. Hop the wall that splits Glenwood and you'll find the city's thinnest forest. A surprisingly dense row of trees that seperates the street from the train. Kizer died here when he fell onto the tracks. Fuck in memorial, fuck as a testament to life.



When I was dating ______, she told me I was the second best fuck she'd ever had. It ranks among the highest compliments I've ever been paid. She didn't know who number one was, only that he was white and pinned her up against a dumpster in an alley outside of a bar. When you're done with the mural, the train, and the forest, hit the alleys. South. East. Back towards the beach (you're walking in a rhombus).

Along the shore of Loyola Beach, you'll find the art wall. Every year, local residents repaint a half-mile of bench, in three-foot by two-foot rectangular increments. You'll find mysticism here, callouts of the government, pleas for environmental action, inside jokes, and obscure gangster folk art. There's nothing sexy about the art wall, it's just something cool to look at as you head to your last stop.

The beach heads into a park, where a statue sits, a giant white loop with a big white lumpy thing off to the side. When I was little, the loop was the biggest thing in the world, and climbing it was the tallest I would ever be. My first best friend, JJ, and I spent the day there before he moved off to Hawaii in first grade. It was a sad day, and a fun one, and I've revisited the statues many times in the years since. I can climb it in a couple bounds now, but it'd still be taller than the tallest bed, and whether sunk into the concave or arched over the convex, I think it would be a good spot to get laid out.

I would be on the bottom, watching the stars, following her curves, following the curves of the statue.

That's it.
I'm done. You're spent.Or perhaps you're not, perhaps you're Spartacus, and still full of vigor. But you've exhausted the neighborhood. So go home.




***This is actually the verbatim route that I walked day in, day out when I was really depressed. Some of the memories had already been forged by then and some were still waiting for me. I'm trying to reclaim it, turn it into a a list to be checked off, a place to look forward to, a den of ill repute, a secret couples destination. I'm doing it in an attempt to combat my writer's block, which is as bad as any kind of impotence.

[currently watching: Mystery Train]