this thing on?

dudamel

gool locks

grandel

grandel

dudamel

frandel

Ten reasons why

I tried to write a rap song today but it just didn’t work. I got a beat from a friend and tried to flow, but there were all kinds of obstacles—the beat was pretty fierce and I couldn’t figure out how to loop stuff properly in GarageBand. Then I got frustrated trying to get the cadences right even for the short beat passage he had provided. I watched the Biggie Smalls bio-pic a few days ago in MTL and I guess it “inspired” me, but who knows, maybe I’ll never rap. Seriously, these are the lyrics I typed out:

i shaved a cigarette

it’s new york city

this is what it sounds like when i rap about my liiiiife

i made some tea

just a minute ago

i put milk into the bottom and watched the afterglow

of a face

that i knew from history

he looked into my eyes and blew a kiss to me

i’m blessed

that’s clear to see

take a life like mine

Report from Canada

office? office!!!

Hey OK what’s up I just turned 18 and I’m working for the first time ever in an office environment. I work at the New Eyebrow Pickler-Intelligencer in Mawn Tree Awl, CANADA. Above, a photo of my office! Uh, actually, I should come clean. I’m just visiting my dad here in the office. He works. I just play and pray to God every day. I don’t have a picture of my dad because if you try to take one, he told me, your face will fly off!

OK: By that I mean. Been meaning to link to this egg-sellent interview with Robert Sullivan up at TheRumpus.Net! Jawbone lately noted it was too short, or by that he meant that he wanted it to be longer, he wanted it to go one, but that statement seems to have exploded and disappeared in the air of the Internet.

OK: I’m going to come out and say that this is the best article on a free summertime public screening of Reality Bites yet, so far this summer.

I blog sometimes, but sometimes I just drink coffee and hang out with friends.

Do not lock up yr bike in the West Village!

Vacation time is over

OK. School’s out! It’s been fun, but this phase has completely passed. It is totally “–30–”. I’m officially throwing in for an ESL job in South Korea by EOD today if I cannot find a part-time job. I’m going to shave my thinnest trailer-trash mustache, rub salt on all the Bay Area patchouli stains on my thinnest worn tee shirt, leave the jeans that I slept in on, and march confidently in to all my favorite Brooklyn bars to ask for work. I’ll lie about my experiences bartending on the far-off West Coast, offer false references. BTW, does anybody know of any openings? Possibly some of the people who come to this blog by searching names of the several Brkln demi-players I’ve recently blogged about?

Here’s a scene. Maybe one of my writer friends would know what to do with it. Twenty-smthng dude awakes, early in the morning, poss. at the cause of alcohol-related tremors. He is in the bedroom of his Brkln sublet. He tosses, he turns. Hears sounds of middle-aged homosexual fashion industry-employed roomie doing his morning thing in the common areas of the apartment, showering, drinking a cup of water, preparing for work. He waits out this time in bed to avoid an awk. morning run-in. Eventually the coast is clear, he gets up, walks to the kitchen, and prepares himself a big glass of tap water, which he quaffs ably on the walk back to his street-facing room. He draws the curtains and decides to put on the clothes he was wearing the night before, now lying in a heap on a coffee table. He swiftly shucks his boxer shorts and reaches for his ash grey Hanes. At this precise moment, a sidewalk stroller on a cell phone stops in front of his window, as if noticing something. She is wearing sunglasses, her cell phone convo. continues apace. She could not be looking at him, but maybe she saw? Whatever, his Hanes are on now, he’s pulling on his APCs. He runs to the other room to be embarrassed for a bit and when he returns she is still there (!) out on the sidewalk (!!) and it looks like there are movers and she is moving in next door!!! Hilarity ensues?

this is not my problem but i’m loving this kid!

current mood

Greenpoint Devotion

I had an excellent time wandering around my adoptive neighborhood with a certain longtime local resident who uses the improbable sobriquet of a made-up R&B singer, has said name tattooed across his chest, and happens to be one of the sweetest pies cooling on the Northern Brooklyn shelf. “D” knows a lot about local history and spins narratives easily of what might be called Old Weird Greenpoint, or maybe Olde Weirde Greenpointe (ref.), so walking around with him, watching him check out all the posted city permits for construction or refinishing, etc, peering into windows and wondering about repurposing and the ghosts of Greenpoint, and just, you know, being aware of surroundings, is an edifying, expert-tourguide experience in the vein of touring Siena, Italy, and learning about the horse races and the use of dried animal penises, etc, while touring the grounds before lunch. Anyways. A whole lot more on this TK v. soon, I hope, but here’s a shot from a building D has some interest in, what is now Wizard Electroland on Manhattan Avenue at Milton Street. We ran into some old friends while scouting this spot, after eating Peruvian 1/2 chickens one night last week. To my surprise they called D by his Christian name, a big o___O for me.

Snapped this today while on my way back from the bank. Nice day today. I never would have noticed the finishes on the building, which you can still see above the scaffolding, had D not pointed them out.

unclear about this facebook thing

what’s it going to do for me

for my career

as a young journalist

as a poet

as a professional prosituto

cooed the winsome lass

in falsetto true

what if i get too many

hella

wall posts

about my work?

tiny professional prostitutes

have to worry about shit like this,

i think,

but it’s so much easier

to just paint houses for work

joder mio

or how do you spell that

the things these kids

have to worry about

in my day it was

so

simpleandtrue

what if i slip too much spanglish in there?

she queried me again

will

the people on fb

be all

impressed?

all

in my shit

because of it?

i told her not to worry about it

today

Always Late

Been meaning to post something along these lines for a long time.