I bet you're hot to trot to get back to school.

Christmas 2008 in Brooklyn.
Remember when 8 balls were cool? Like, on shirts, and people had 8-ball tattoos and thought that drawing an 8-ball with perfect shading made you awesome?
It's still cool up here.
As well as wearing Looney Tunes shirts. Grown men wearing shirts with Sylvester and graffiti tagged writing at the bottom that says "Bad Cattitude."
Still hot.

Free Williamsburg released there top 25 records of 2007. I'll review them myself.
25. LCD Soundsystem: Sounds of Silver
Dance dance dance music. Where shoes with no socks and ironic t-shirts while trying to bring back the hustle. Oh yeah, hate that you live in Brooklyn, but tell everyone it's the best.
24. Pole- Steingarten
Glitchy dance electronic music. Shave only one side of your head and think about Germany.
23. Phosphorescent- Pride
Along the lines of Will Oldham's alterna-country-rock-depressing-whatever style of music.
22. The Cave Singers- Invitation Songs
No fucking clue. I don't want to know.
21. Deerhoof- Friend Opportunity
I treat Deerhoof like the The Moldy Peaches, like, cool for a second. This album was actually good though. Cheers Williamsburg.
20. Bon Iver- For Emma,Forever Ago- Oh, you shop at that store on the LES too? I paid $80 for this t-shirt that says "glitterfarts." Don't copy me.
19. The Besnard Lakes - Are the Dark Horse- I've always liked The Besnard Lakes. I bought their first album Vol. 1 back in Denton. Yeah I'm that guy that's only heard of them.
18. Papercuts - Can't Go Back- No. Got deleted from my itunes last night actually.
17. Liars - Liars- Fuck yeah. You can't go wrong with Liars. Never ever ever. Fuck yeah. Never.
16. Black Lips - Good Bad Not Evil- I really enjoy Black Lips. Go to youtube and watch their video of the time they spent in Mexico. Jared Swilley's mustache goes a looong way.
15. Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog- I got tired of Iron and Wine after "he" covered The Postal Service's Such Great Heights. Yeah. It's over. Finish with your experimental phase and become the Capt. Beefheart of our generation.
14. Okkervil River - The Stage Names- Great guys. Seeing them at Andy's was great because I snuck in. Sorry, I enjoy the music, but not to pay an $8 cover charge.
13. Explosions in the Sky - All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone- Yeah. It's good.
12. Apples in Stereo - New Magnetic Wonder- Always a fun time with Elephant Six bands. Does anyone else remember seeing Jeff Mangum at that house party on Oak? It was awesome.
11. Wu Tang Clan - 8 Diagrams- So my roommates have been blasting this album nonstop for days. Yes. Listen to the track they do with George Clinton. And to put ODB on the background in like, a viking burial!?
10. Various Artists - After Dark- Glass Candy is awesome.

The rest suck. Except for Band of Horses.

New York: A Third Rate Babylon

St. Martins To Union Square. Union Square to Madison Square Garden. Madison Square Garden to Chelsea. Chelsea back to Union Square. Union Square back to St. Martins.

Christmas Shopping is 75% complete.

Peoples Improv Theater has proved another stage rival to that of Rubber Gloves where those nerds, who instead of standing with arms crossed and cheap beer at there feet glare ahead of them, actually enjoy the comedy.

Comedy nerds are a lot like music nerds: they listen to it first and laugh, then again they listen and think about why it's funny, and the last stage, critique their life, think how they're never going to be as funny and subsequently go back to their normal jobs and think about Bill Murray.

The crowd is usually full of people there to perform as well, with a few onlookers who just like to watch improv. Some of it's great, some of it's lame, but everyone ends up getting drunk together and laughing anyway. Giving false hope to those who aren't funny- God I hope so. We all need something to float our boats.

Reading Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain. He was the writer who left his life of playboy decadence and became a Trappist Monk in Kentucky. I wrote on Thomas Merton's essay No Man Is An Island
where I had a a diagram of Hawaii stapled to the back. I got a C+= the writing was great but I failed to understand the material.
Now I'm watching a documentary of St. Francis Xavier.
It's getting Monk-y around here.

You kill me and I'll see that you never work in this town again.

You're day will come in peace.
It's... Saturday. I only have two days off a week- Wednesday and Saturday- and I find that on these days, like the days I work, I have to get up early so I can jam pack my entire day doing things I need to do. Here time is everything.
I've recently felt the pangs of addiction with the sudden and harsh realization that there is not a single spot in the NYC area (including New Jersey) that serves Shiner. It was swift and alarming, and I found myself searching for tickets on a Chinese bus (notorious for turning over, catching fire, but with reasonably cheap seat fare) to Philadelphia, where a bar somewhere has it on tap. I have designs.

Saturday- I've been drunk since 11am, which isn't uncommon when you're brewing beer with your girlfriend. The glass bottles (the size of pony kegs) sit in the living room, fermenting. There is nothing like the smell of fermenting hops when you open the door, nothing like it. They sit and they stir and wait to be bottled. It will be a great day when they finally get to be poured into the many bottles we've (I've) accumulated with my constant drinking.

On another note: I've joined an Improv team that performs at the People's Improv Theatre on 29th street between 6th ave. and 7th. ave. Comedy galore. I haven't yet perfected my 8 minutes of stand up, and found myself rather enjoying the haphazard and racing feel of improv.

Fuck Brian for not calling me about Zack Galifianakis.

Most people have strange thoughts, but they rationalize them.

Things my neighborhood doesn't have:
Cooking scales
Thermometers
Bags of ice that don't stick together in the freezer
working anything

Things my neighborhood does have:
Puerto Ricans
Broken-down Minivans
Loud music
Bushburg (cheap affordable housing for hipsters?)
Large, sweaty everything

He woke up with egg on his face.

So, I think I committed my first New York sin last night and threw up on the train. The MTA workers were pissed, even after I offered to clean it up. A girl slipped in it with her Ugg boots though.
Snow for the first time today. I'm a bit weary of going out into it.

I could dress in black and read Camus.

It's very very cold.
Heavy jackets for everyone!
Ryan and I have already gone out and purchased ours. We both had settled on H&M winter wear. His is a lot more classy than mine, but I want something more utilitarian. Heavy and thick.
I've been spending my time between Raymond Carver and Dostoevsky. Both great. Erin and I are only going to read Russian authors for winter, which I think is a great idea. It leads me to ask questions: which authors would be good for Spring? or for Fall? I think there are certain feelings music gives you that correspond with the weather and the time of year, literature has to. Anyone have good ideas send them here.
I've been working a lot of overnights at work- shelving, setting up displays, watching homeless people mill around Penn Station- and it makes me think that I'm Andrew McCarthy and I'm in that movie Mannequin. Except the books don't mysteriously come alive and I don't have sex with them. And no Hollywood Montrose.
Last thing. Erin has bought us great seats for the Magnetic Fields show that was already SOLD OUT a week ago. How great is that. I literally shed a tear like a girl. Then I listened to a bunch of Fucked Up and wanted to hate things. But still, greatest gift ever, and it's not even until February.

It would be unfair for me to choose favorites.

At long last it's crashed, it's colossal mass has broken up into bits in my moat.

Everything that seemed to be roaring and flying past my head has settled into a fine lump.
I actually got some shopping done today. After riding to work with Erin, I backtracked over to Union Square and went to The Strand and The Virgin Megastore. I saw Hillary Swank being filmed, thought she looked like a dude still but this time I didn't say it aloud.
Excited that Erin found an apartment down the street from me, not even a ten minute walk. They're opening a new bodega and another Natural store right between our blocks,along with Grand Kingdom and The Wyckoff Starr being so close, I wouldn't want to move from this neighborhood at all.
Two things I have lined up:
Winter with the Russians (All Russian authors all winter long)
and
Getting Lynched by David Lynch (Watching all of David Lynch's movies in a row as well as Twin Peaks)

Far between sundown and midnights broken toe.

I had to heavily made up girls tramp (verb) into the store today, look around, and ask if J.Lo and Marc Antony were going to perform upstairs or downstairs.

So tomorrow I have my interview with Skuawk. I haven't done much research, but it seems legit. I think I'm going to focus my time right now getting back into music journalism. It was a medium that I found myself very comfortable with, and it doesn't feel like work. Check and check. Now if I can never leave my apartment, I'll be set.

Drew's drunkenly messaging me from some Karaoke place in K-town. Nice.

And with all that to worry about, birthday gifts and job interviews, postage and what to eat (or to eat) on a daily basis, I have to move at the end of the month again. The lease is up on this apartment, and my roommates have decided they would rather leave Neil and I with it as they trek across town to Greenpoint. So, I have the option of staying in a cheap four bedroom apartment and finding people to fill the two empty rooms, or begin to sell my self online again. I'm just going to title all my postings: Not a Murderer: friends are alive and can vouch. I'm not to terribly afraid of my circumstances, not yet at least.

I started The Giver by Lois Lowry. I never really read it when it was all popular.

I've had the pleasure of seeing both Scout Niblett and Will Oldham at Rubber Gloves on seperate occasions. Come to think of it, I saw Niblett this summer.
It's a very quiet day in Brooklyn. Jamie is in the living room, we talked about a soap making workshop and the screen printing workshop their having at Ad Hoc down the street. I'm doing research on Harlequin Romance novels because the accept unsolicited manuscripts, and of course if you throw in enough "manroot" and "dashing" in your story, they'll pay you.
I thought I'd also share a playlist.

Devendra Barnhart- The Body Breaks
T. Rex- Spaceball Ricochet
Akron/Family- Suchness
Sigur Ros- #8
Okkervil River- Our Life Is Not A Movie, Or Maybe
All The Time Me- Batter Charger
Jesus Love Me- CoCoRosie
Can't Do That- Forrest Gray
Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone- Neutral Milk Hotel

well, what I have listened to in the last half hour.

All I really want to do is baby be friends with you.

So, tomorrow I'm going to scout furniture out.
I live in a house that has no rules,save for one. No furniture off the street. This makes it extremely hard when you walk past a table or a chair and think of how good it will look next to your iron heater or your mobile clothes rack. Or your Ikea bed.
So, day 3 of missing Ipod as well. Only today did I panic and think it not being here or in the living room. I noticed how much it's really saved me from having to listen to people on the train.
Finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Right now I'm reading the essays that Pilsig had written about it's success when no one wanted it. How the counterculture of the 1960's wanted nothing to do with it and everyone else paid no attention to it. The Swedish term kulturbarur translates into the English culture-bearer, which had been what the early critics called this book. Pilsig's only reply that was books aren't written for the weight of culture to be placed on them, that they're only strong enough to carry it.
Still have to finish The Game. I think next will be Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. Then the Russians. I have a plan.
Other things, great and small:
- Jamaican Beef Patties- fucking great. Tastes like biscuits and spicy sausage with every bite, and eating them will kill you. They're only $2 every where, and with coco bread, you might as well never eat anything else.
- AM News- free newspaper that you get slapped with when you leave Penn Station, or anywhere near 34th Street. It's like Dallas' Quick.
-Cool Weather- Sweater weather. No more of the insane humidity that makes normal people smell homeless all the time.
-Rapping Homeless people- Give them money. Even a penny. This talent can't be surpassed. Oh, and the homeless stand up comics. Those guys are even better.

Work in the morning. I did some internet housecleaning as well. I need to sign up for a zipcar account so I can zip over to Target and pick things up.
Oh. and apparently the largest rooftop party in Brooklyn happened a street over, and I didn't wake up for it.

Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.

A beautiful day in Brooklyn. All of NYC I'm sure.
Early morning, coffee, the L to the Q allll the way down to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.
Anyway, it was a real picaresque day with the sun and the breeze. The Gardens are huge, we didn't even get to see some of it. Maybe another day.
Going to schedule more days just to see things. I know most of the time on my days
off I don't want to get out of bed, but there's really too much to see here. I think the next trek out maybe to the MOMA again.
Right now trying to order these two gems.This
and this.

Maybe not having time to think is not having the wish to think.

The BBQ on Troutman (Heralded as "the" place to be on a Thursday evening) was a success. In echoing much of days spent in college there was a lot of cheap beer, pita, hummus and hot dogs. A lot of people showed up, music was played and people sat around the fire trying to tell the best ghost story in all of Brooklyn. Whoever won was awarded with free coffee coupons to Oslo.
Listening to: Paul Simon. I had his album Graceland for years and years, and somehow through all of everything it slipped through the cracks. I heard a snippet of Mother and Child Reunion the other day from one of the Bodegas on Central Ave. and it was a very Proustian moment. Gems: Kodachrome, 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, Rene and George-Magritte With Their Dog After The War.
Reading: The Game- Neil Strauss and Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance- Robert Pirsig. The Game... it's gotten a lot of heat over the past few months. It's basically a social look at this underground group of men who use basic psychology to pick up women. They have techniques and styles they apply to get a number from random girls wherever they are. A lot of customers (dude customers) treat it as a guide book though, wanting to learn the secret art of wooing a woman. I think there is a pretty high success rate of some of the men in the book, but still, it's like watching that documentary on people who prefer the love of a rubber doll than that of a real person. Some people I talk with say the methods really work, some just laugh it off.
Zen and The Art... It's great. I've never read a lot of philosophy (outside of Kant and Wittgenstein) but it's actually very captivating. Pirsig retells his tenure as one of the radical professors at Bozeman during the 1960's, and the philosophy that he was teaching. He ties it in to motorcycle maintenance simply by analogy- two types of people, one who works on their motorcycles themselves, and the others take it to a mechanic. Classical though and Romantic thought.

I was really hungry a minute ago, I almost made a kimchi sandwich.

'Tis as human a little story as paper could well carry.

I always knew about catching your second wind whenever you're tired and you're out of energy, but I think I catch my fourth or fifth wind nearly everyday.
I noticed about after a week living here that standing on the 9th-Smith Street platform that every time I breathed in it felt like sharp, heavy air. And I panicked- this was the air that I breathe all the time. It was a split second of panic, and then I thought about the air here- how people have to get adjusted to it. I don't think I've ever lived anywhere you had to get adjusted to breathing the air. A coworker, Heather- mentioned the fact that although we do live here with the garbage and the dirty air, people in NYC live for a very long time.
I have a lot of photos to upload, but the camera and the Windows Vista don't get along so well.
I just got an e-mail titled "We found your baby in the dumpster."

Dictated. Not read. The management.

Days off are few and far between.
Sleeping has become a luxury since moving here, and the more chance you get to sleep the better. Amy was right, you have to plan your days out, almost to the tiniest moments of where to catch the train or how fast it takes to walk from this corner to that corner.
Last night after leaving Amy & Ryan's, I got back to my stop and there was guy in the turnstiles (the cage-like turnstile not the bar type) and he was stuck. He had his bicycle wedged in between the metal, and he couldn't go backwards or forwards. He told me he'd been there for around 15 minutes (the exit I take is a very dingy building. Everyone goes out the other side). He was really fucking drunk, and he promised that if me and this girl helped him he would give us his address and make us dinner. So I pushed against the metal and she pulled the bike and he just sorta stood there dazed. We got the bike out and went out the emergency exit.
As soon as we got out he hoped on the bike and sped away yelling "so long suckers!" and adding a drunk cackle.
Lateral shrugging.

Tonight is Modest Mouse, this afternoon is Talib Kweli down the street. For fucking free.

Valhalla is where Vikings go when they die.

...and Bushwick is where you go when you want good Puerto Rican food.

Day two on Troutman street. The neighborhood is jagged, streets cutting into each other with a plethora of hipsters, Hasids and Puerto Rican families. There are PR flags everywhere, and the infamous "NYRICAN" t-shirts are 10 for $3 down the street at Willy's.
The neighborhood is recently and often described as East Williamsburg, but that's because of places like, Goodbye Blue Monday, Brooklyn Natural Foods, Life Cafe 983 and The Archive Coffee and Independent Video Store. I've only popped into a couple of them.
In other news: I realized how close I work to the Empire State building and have never even bothered to look at it. It's big, and I thought it was bigger... Amy and I talked about how New York looks amazing and grandeur when you don't live here.
Rilo Kiley's Under The Blacklight is a good album.

So you think you're in the middle of the ocean?

They're re-painting the new digs so I'm still at Amy's. The walls which were gold and spattered with purple (Maxx colors) are now the standard white that come with any new place. Smells like paint. Noxious.

1. Do you believe in love? Why or why not? I do. But it's fleeting. I think that it ebbs and flows with everyone.
2. What is beauty? Something that makes you think. You can see the beauty in a rubik's cube, or a line from Gabriel Garcia Lorca.
3. Where did you grow up? Do you think that environment significantly influenced who you are today? How and why? Midland/Odessa area. Yes, in some ways I feel it influenced me. When I moved to the Dallas area, I was astounded by having trees and narrow streets and huge houses. I think where I grew up I learned to appreciate the small things.
4. Describe your most memorable dream (night dream, not aspiration). What, if anything, do you think it means? Watching a parade. I don't have any clue, it was really long and really colorful, and people were smiling and laughing. It was a very surprising dream.
5. What are the top five things you need to be happy/content? to be content? I've always been envious of the guy from the Twilight Zone that survived the apocalypse and was left with all the books...until his glasses broke. There's always been a part of me that would just be content to be surrounded by books. As for the other four, I could give a stock answer (friends, chocolate, sunlight) but I just feel that the happiest I could be is just spending an enormous amount of time reading.

7. Who is your favorite author? Douglas Coupland with a bullet. Michael Chabon, Johnathan Lethem, John Steinbeck, Bret Easton Ellis. The writers which I can connect with.
8. What material possessions would you have the hardest time giving up? My Hahoe mask. I've carried it from Denton, to Big Spring to NYC.
9. Do you think prostitution is immoral/wrong? Why or why not? No. I don't feel that it's wrong. People make their own choices regardless of society or religious constraints. I think those choices are their's alone, and I wouldn't feel right passing judgment.
10. Which do you feel is more important - art or science? Science. I feel that science is the proof in the pudding. Art inspires emotion, but I feel that science is what really drives civilization forward.
11. What constitutes a work of art? Anything and everything that provokes you on more than one level. Amoebas under a microscope could be seen as art.
12. Who is your favorite artist? Rene Magritte. Surrealism always wins me over.
13. What do you tell yourself to make yourself feel better when you're bummed? Everything always gets better.
14. Describe your most satisfying sexual experience (not limited to intercourse).
Being with someone that you know that you love.
15. Is living by a code of ethics important to you? If so, what are those ethics? I do. Don't ask me why. I have a certain system set up in my brain.
16. Do you think evil exists? If so, what constitutes evil? Evil is the root of everything. Just like science, the passion to commit crimes and murder and take candy from children is another thing that drives society forward. Native Son- Richard Wright is a prime example.
17. What is the best gift you've ever received? Why was it so perfect? I still say Hahoe mask. Because it's the sentiment behind it. It's like a real turning point in my life having it around.

19. What are you most afraid of? Thinking that I'll be 40 years old and still trying to get dates. I call it at that age.
20. Are you religious? If so, what religion do you subscribe to, and why? If not, what religion do you feel is most similar to your beliefs?Ha, subscribe to. I still feel that Judaism is probably the most satisfying (to me) to relate to the Western idea of God. Christianity has watered itself down to t-shirt sales and lines of people wanting to stand near Joel Olsteen. No thanks.
21. What are you most ashamed of? Shying away from opportunities.
22. If you could erase one event from your past, what would it be, and why? Nothing. I think it's all important.
23. What does it mean to be "pure"? Innocence.
24. What are your favorite websites? nytimes.com, gothamist.com, wikipedia.org, achewood.com
25. What story do you tell the most often? Tell me. How I moved to Denton on a whim. Putting your finger on a map and just moving is gratifying. I had no clue about North Texas, no idea where Denton or what Denton was even. I just hauled all my stuff into a minivan and the next day I'm in Denton.
27. What relatively obscure thing do you know EVERYTHING (or almost everything) about, and why does it interest you? Music history. I have a knack for knowing dates, people- anything to do with music. It just clicks with me.
28. How do you feel about pornography? What separates porn from "erotica"? Erotica is what you do when you try to make pornography into art. When you want to provoke another emotion besides lust.
29. What is the most disturbing thing you've ever seen on film? Amy brought this up the other day- Silent Hill. Her and Jane kept their eyes covered while I watched the horror. It was graphic. Needlessly graphic.
30. Is ignorance bliss? Absolutely.

I saw the Statue of Liberty from a very long distance. I know it usually equates freedom, but all I could think about was Ghostbusters.

I've finally gotten a close concept of the train layout.
I'm no expert or scientist like Ryan and Amy when it comes to catching them in the perfect place and hoisting themselves from one case of stairs to the next in order for a shorter ride, but I can get from Williamsburg to Madison Square Garden in about 30 min.
My new place isn't too far, only two or three more stops from Amy/Ryan's place on the L. It's in a rent controlled building on the first floor. Share with some Rutgers students -one, a painter who studies organic chemistry, another Chinese acrobat who at the time is in China with her family and performing, and last an experimental musician with a ton of electronic drum kits. They're all really nice, a bit granola around the edges, but still great people. We're actually having a bbq (the place has a backyard) when everything gets a bit mellow after school starts and people find their way.
Work is work. Border's is like this social experiment -take a bunch of people not from NYC and let them sell books to a lot of other people not from NYC. We do a lot of tourists and students, mostly from Europe. It's actually a time that I really like my job.
Rundown on what I've learned:
drink (beer)= $6
single mixed drink = $12
double mixed drink = never will know.
cab ride anywhere = $10-$30
Craigslist = Everyone uses it for everything.
hot dog- $2.00
part-time job = everyone has one, no matter what profession. Accountant/Dog Groomer. It happens.
iced coffee @ Gimme! Coffee= $1.95.
VitaminWater = Hell of all sorts of popular.
boogers = you don't know what's in your nose, ever.
shoes = buy trainers. No one cares if they match anything, buy fucking bright ass white Nikes and wear dark suits all the time.
homeless people = don't bother you really.
thugged out dudes = don't bother you really.

Got to stand next to Brian Posehn as a clueless bill handler handed him a show bill for a comedy show that was happening at the same time he was taping the Comedy Central show. Priceless.

Excuse me, your friend is throwing up. You need to do something about it.

Man.
Some guy took a shit in a bag on the train, or shat in the bag and then carried it onto the train, or just had a bag of shit with him just in case, but man, I've never seen a car empty so quick. He was looking around all sad eyed, thinking outside of the box.
"I'm not a slave to the toilet like you rich coffee drinking scum. No. I shit in this big yellow bag, because I'm not a conformist."

I have another appointment to see an apartment tomorrow morning, not too far from Amy (which is the ideal setup) but I'm ready just to say okay, let's just do this. It doesn't sound like a bad place at all, within price range, utilities, etc. I spend most of my time at work, I have no furniture. I only know a handful of people (except I ran into a guy checking out at work today who was in Baird's Dylan class) so it's not like I'm going to get things on a lot.

People wonder why I don't have an accent when they find out I'm from Texas.

Big City Nights

I stepped in what I think was sewer water. Probably not, because a guy let his schnauzer drink from it, but still there was something that floated by.

Already viewed two places to move into. One is real close to Amy and Ryan- and really really close to the J train. Like, near enough that it rattles things sitting near the window. It was a one bedroom that I'd have to share with TWO OTHER DUDES. No. Can't. Plus, we sort of all agree for the price that he wanted I'd be paying his rent too. Shady.

The second place was in Prospect Park, near Park Slope and the brownstones that looked as if Theo was walking out and into the street to eat a Popsicle. It's also the neighborhood they used for early SNL backdrops. Fourth floor, great space- but I'm just a candidate. There were other people there to see the room as well. I'll hear back tomorrow.

Work starts on Friday so I'm sort of in limbo. Just riding the trains and walking to
gimme! coffee in the mornings. It's only a few blocks up.