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| 08302002 | ||
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What a ludicrous day - I didn't get a chance to hit the storage space this morning so I had to cajole a few hours of errand-running time out of my boss, and then a complex scramble of trains up to Harlem, grab the storage key, out the door and across the river to Queens, over the Pulaski Bridge on the Gowanus Canal to Greenpoint, up the storage space stairs to grab my guitar and bass, G to the L to the Q back to the office, nearly two and a half hours after I left, sweating and panting and ready to get back to work.
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Storms are coming, I don't want to believe that summer's over but weathervanes are pointing that way. Hopefully we'll get a slip back into Indian near mid-September and I can have my last flirtation with the sun, scattering falling leaves in cut-off shorts, climbing the last few trees left untouched by my squirreling, saying a last goodbye to another summer and getting ready for another winter, buckling up my parka to keep what was once in, out and what I was trying to let out, in.
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The thing was, I always wanted to cut bait before things got bad, always looking for hints and clues of future disaster, picking apart time spent together for the merest pinprick of a future breakup so I could be the one to walk away, to end it. And yes, this endless paranoid scanning does tend to fulfill it's own prophecy, so obsessed with future failure that I can't see present-day success. Why am I on about this? Just talking to people who have been victims of it and some who weren't, trying to curb my oracle, cast a blind eye to the future, never look ahead again but rather now, now, now.
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I have two weeks before SPX, the only comic book convention that I give a wet fart about, and during that time I've got to show progress on Red Eye, Black Eye, make a couple million copies of minicomics to sell, work out a bit so I'm not the flabbiest pastygeek in attendance (although that isn't that much of a concern, really), find a place to stay while I'm there (Bethesda, Maryland for those wondering) and probably a million other things that I'm not thinking of. But you know, I'm not really all that stressed about things this year. I think I burned all my stress out over the last month or so, and now I'm left with a soothing wind blowing through where the burning gland of worry used to be.
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Another recovery Monday, another weekend so absurd that I have no idea how I'm going to explain it to my parents. After we finished up I went to Rachel's and took a much-needed shower, my moldering velvet jacket with the sleeves cut off and short pantaloons consigned to the dustbin outside. And then we slept for a million hours in the middle of the day - she had been filming the chaos along with a small army of cohorts in their own A/V geek gang uniforms. We watched some footage later and it brought back a wave of nostalgia for something I'd just barely lived through a day ago.
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The rain pounded down hard as we got lost in the Bronx, I tried to cut through the lawn of a housing project only to be balls-first reminded that they have knee-high chains fencing them off to prevent that from happening. We rode blind for nearly two hours, lost as hell, tearing from checkpoint to checkpoint and crossing paths with other gangs. Across the 3rd Avenue Bridge into Manhattan, down the island criss-crossing east to west to east, up and back down the Williamsburg Bridge, scary super-fast out of control down to Kent, to the bar, food and drinks and trackstands, to Coney Island as the sun's coming up, 550+ started the race but maybe 200 finished it, fireworks and the ocean rolling in on Brooklyn, shaking hands with my newfound gang and splitting off, home.
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I'm gonna split the weekend into a roughly Pre-Midnight Saturday and a Post-Midnight Sunday because the rest of the weekend was mostly spent sleeping and recuperating from what I'm about to write about. I got up Saturday morning to go get my bike which had been locked up in front of my old apartment in what i thought was relative safety - I'd gone back to ride it a handful of times and it'd always been in good shape. However, sometime in the last two weeks it'd been stripped of both tires, pedals and the handlebars, so I was now bikeless. To add insult to injury, all the other members of my gang dropped out for a bevy of reasons, some fair and some foul. I ended up borrowing Tomas's bike and WD-40ing it into riding shape over a few hours, throwing on my Flatbush Dandy gear and trucking up to the Bronx, hoping for the best. I got to Claremont Park around 7 and set out to find a new gang. Ended up joining up with the Ruckus Brigade, some serious bike kids riding some serious bikes, and my rusty unshifting rattletrap looked pretty sad by comparison, but it didn't stop us from taking off as the thunderstorm broke over the Bronx.
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I have what is often referred to as "sensitive skin," which is a nice way of saying that if I get too dirty or malnourished or stressed out my face explodes in a panoply of pustules that panic the populace and I have to spend a week and change coddling my mug to calm it down. So considering last weekend's orgy of dirt, stress and bad food and booze, it's no surprise that I've been sporting the hardcore Phantom of the Opera bubbling zombieface all week. The point of this is, it's almost all cleared up except for two enormous babyheads and nothing I can do seems to make them go away. Suggestions?
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I thought I was done with the panicking after last weekend's rock and roll explosion turned out so swimmingly but I guess I miscalculated, as this weekend is the Warriors ride and my gang is in complete disarray. We're still short of the minimum headcount of five people, and I had wanted to go in strong with the maximum nine. It's hard running a gang, all the conflict and stabbing and everybody with their own stereotyped personality. I thought it would be sort of like managing the old data entry department. Boy, was I wrong. Will we get it together enough to get back to Coney Island before the Rogues catch us? Watch this space for details.
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So the deal looks like I have bruised ribs, either from the fighting or from letting Ryan stand on my chest. It's not a big deal, but deep breaths greet me with a dull ache in my breastbone, as if something outside is pushing inward. When I cough or sneeze it's the worst, my body's involuntary functions pushing it beyond it's current limits, the cough half-expectorated and half-trapped, rattling around my ribcage. It probably doesn't help that the cats sleep on them every night, too.
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Returning to routine after utter madness can be kind of a shock to the system - yesterday work was still kind of a novelty, I kept getting caught staring at the shredded skin on the backs of my fingers, cradling my still-woozy head in my hands, tapping the yellowing bruise at the base of my tailbone. But today the marks and scars are fading away, and I'm left with a desk full of to-do lists, some stuff I want to do and a lot of stuff I don't. But I'm still alive, and that's one up on where I thought I'd be, so all's well for now.
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That couch has never felt so good, dear reader, as it did on Monday night, when I came home from work and lapsed quickly into sweet, sweet unconsciousness. Simple pleasures of civilization like getting Chinese food whenever you want it and being able to do laundry mean a lot more after a weekend in a chaos house with thirty other maniacs. I love New York, and not in an Andrew WK way, either - more like an old-school Sinatra way, the lights of the Chrysler building twinkling at me in Morse code, "Here's where you belong."
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It's the morning after to end all morning afters, as really nothing could touch the events of yesterday. Memories drift up through the haze seemingly at random - oh yeah, I drew my face on Jack's ass last night. Oh, yeah, the insane hillbilly neighbor came over and drank Kahlua straight out of the bottle before sitting in on vocals for "War Pigs." Oh, yeah, we went to Wal-Mart and Burble rode a girl's tricycle into a display. Oh, yeah, we blew up a canteloupe with a quarter stick of dynamite. Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. Graffiti in men's room, State College, PA: "I like dicks in the ass hard and fast, that's why they call me BONES!"
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Sometimes I forget what rock and roll is all about. It's not about neurotically worrying that you're going to remember all of the words and chords to all the songs or that you're perfectly in tune, your resonance harmonics meshing like Velcro in the cool Pennsylvania Dutch evening. It's not about skinny ties and skinnier hips feeding through corporate-sponsored Marshall stacks. It's about Ryan tearing all of his clothes off and rampaging through the crowd, beating himself in the chest with a shorting-out microphone. It's about Burble sitting in with us on drums despite having never played with us or heard any of the songs, and despite that settling into a comfortable groove by the end of the set. It's about Morgan picking up whatever instrument we put into his hands and capably blending in, and it's about me and Friggle playing "Sex Bomb" by Flipper for 25 minutes of sheer incendiary chaos while all the rest of this was happening. "We're Registered Sex Offenders, thank you and goodnight!"
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I had been making ludicrous, booze-fueled cash wagers for people to fistfight each other as the evening wore on, deep into Pennsylvania dutch country, a few dozen people sitting around and Friggle was itching for combat, Jeff toying with him until finally putting him down hard on the green, damp grass. The circle of people emptied out. Chris stepped forward, motioned towards me. I looked back at him, not really fully understanding but knowing that this was the only way things could work, that we were careening crazily towards utter disaster and no matter what we did to each other right now, we'd still have to spend the next two days in the middle of nowhere in each other's company. I took off my shirt, glasses, and stepped forward into the circle.
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Sneaking in an update before I go off to Jersey to practice for the last time with the boys before our debut - it looks like we snagged ourself a drummer, but our performance will also be the first time we play together, so that should be interesting. I spent $60 on fine Belgian beer this morning - unfortunately, since that's only 6 22 ounce bottles, it comes out to about 45 cents an ounce, which is pretty pricey. Ah well, it's all part of my jet-setting sophisto mystique, and I got paid today so I might as well enjoy it. Those six 22s are going to find their sweet way down my gullet one after another, and I'm already letting them know.
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Only two more days before I head off to a cabin in rural Pennsylvania for what could either be a massive serial killer gorefest, a drunken alienation explosion, or the worst Internet geek bonding ever recorded by scientific instruments. Yes, it's PoECon, one of the best worst ideas anybody has ever come up with. Some forty fans and contributors to one of the most degenerate websites the world has ever known, in an isolated area with a small army of fireworks, alcohol and musical instruments. Things may be a little quiet around here until Monday, but I guarantee that the new dispatches will be worth it.
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Oh, good God. The air conditioner in the office just started grinding, wheezing, belching and moaning and there's a decided lack of cold air coming out of the vents. I ran back there to shut it off and scrambled back to my phone to get the landlord over here. No answer. The temperature's steadily rising, the banks of computers each whirring steadily, pumping heat out of their motherboards. The employees, everybody breathing out hot carbon dioxide, warm blood circulating, raising the temperature of the air. We're trapped in a hotbox, waiting for the boss to get uncomfortable enough to send us home.
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"The sun came up/ I got up And you were saying my name backwards in your sleep again." - John Darnielle. Flies and cats made sleeping in hard this morning, but the pull of the bedding was stronger still, and even with the sun creaking and crackling through the windowshades, the beasts yowling and howling on the floor below for no good reason, the flies thick as thieves everywhere in the air except for around the flypaper, I wasn't moving for nothing nowhere nobody. Well, almost nothing nowhere nobody. |
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I don't think there'd ever been a day that I needed to walk dogs more than today, and I got there early early, before any other weekenders got there. I took Sheba out first, every week she grows a little more into her paws and it's hard to rationalize the growing dog she is now with the wildly careening, ankle-nipping puppy she was just a few short months ago. I took her up to the main drag so people could pet her, because they always do, and she frantically tried to get into every air-conditioned business on the way. When we got to 7th, she was panting, exhausted, and I paid one of the homeless guys who hang out on Bedford to go into a deli, get a bottle of water, and slowly pour it into my hands as she thirstily lapped it out, a trinity of bum, man and dog squatting in the hot August sun.
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Once again, I can safely say that I am the Goddamned stupidest man alive. Two weeks ago, I went on an amazing first date with an amazing girl. Cute, funny, smart, actually caring about the world and unjaded, likes the dogs, the whole enchilada. Super fun time, chemistry, sparks, the works. Possibly the best first date of my life, and the instant I left her company I started making plans for the second one. Asked her if she wanted to go see Cornelius last night, she said yes, I clapped like a happy seal. Spent the two weeks after the date talking to everybody in earshot about how much I couldn't wait to see her again. Fast forward to yesterday - destroyed from all angles after my party, I call her and set a time and a place to meet. After I get off the phone with her, I decide to take a short nap. The last thing I remember is looking at the clock, seeing it was 7:00 and thinking "I've got to start getting ready soon." And then it all went black. I woke up at 12:30, put on my glasses and started screaming. Ran to the phone, called her, no answer. And quite frankly, I'm not sure I deserve one. Please kill me now.
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I am possibly more hung over than I've ever been in my life, which is weird because I really didn't drink all that much last night, comparatively. I think I get drunker when I'm happy and excited - when there's already natural endorphins popping off in my brain, the booze snuggles up to them and they sing a duet of what was at least last night an out-of-control symphony. It's still mostly a blur, but I'm so fucked up that there's tingling in my extremities, I'm dizzy and can barely walk without holding on to something, and I feel like I'm about to puke and cry. Fuck work, I'm going home.
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"Oooh, you're edgy!" "I'm not edgy, I'm drunk." |
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Another evening of rock gone by, we're still minus a drummer, sadly, but everybody's Ritalin kicked in last night and we mangled through the set list three or four times, making first attempts to graft listenable singing onto the clamor. I'm pretty happily settling into my place as the second guitarist, content to fill up the midrange with undiscernable roar as Friggle plays the chords the right way in the foreground. Ryan called me the "funny noise machine" and that made me smile like a little baby. Nine days until we debut in front of other people. Any drummers out there learn fast?
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Life is funny, tiny - every day new lines and loops are drawn between people I know and don't, like the spinning of a cosmic Spirograph, connecting us all into frenzied new arrangements, hook-ups and collapses occuring just beyond my field of vision. There's the sense that human existence is both so large that you cannot comprehend it and so small that you could conceivably fold it up and put it into your pocket. That's why I like throwing parties - it brings those bizarre, unexpected connections into view for once, and in the course of a few hours in a bar, gooses greased by fermented yeast (and other endorphinate particles), we could be seeing all-new plangent tangents and heartstrings plucked.
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Monday morning, my to-do list is an epic in it's own right, tonight's the only night this week I have free to actually get some work done. Mondays have kind of become my "safe day" - nothing happens on Monday nights except drawing and sitting around playing guitar with the cats (they shred, dude!) and it's pretty nice. The rest of the week is going to be layer upon layer of frenzy, like a Napoleon of activity, band practice and drunk drawing and the birthday party to end all birthday parties, a big red X on the horizon this Thursday. I'm not going to be sleeping much for a while, but I don't think I'll be crying much either.
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Birthday! Birthday birthday birthday and because of my skull-cobbling hangover I sleep 'till noon, half of it squandered in blessed oblivion. But the second half was fine and dandy, woke up to an awful sweet birthday message on my machine from somewhere in Virginia, went down to Central Park to see the Avalanches with Erikka and get the best present ever (look at this picture if you don't see the resemblance). Now proudly sitting on the armrest of the couch giving me pleasant dreams. It was a pretty quality way to celebrate my passing into another year, I think. And then my cat curled himself into the crook of my elbow and I slept like I'd never done it before.
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Tomas's friend Rachel wanted to watch Evil Video so I gave him a copy to loan to her. She calls him on occasion to tell him how disgusted she was, etc. She's apparently also got some fella who's a little too into her romantically then she'd like, your typical Williamsburg hipster ex-nerd closet homo farty butts, what have you. Anyways, he's over at her house and the Evil Video cover catches his eye. He says, "Hey, that drawing"(the cartoony portrait of me on the cover)"looks a lot like the drawings of a guy I went to elementary school with named Thor." Her response - "uh, that is Thor." And when this story reached me, I laughed for fifteen straight minutes. And then I remembered that I once hit him in the back of the head with a chair.
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Nothing freaky about this Friday, my friends; next time I check in with you (on Monday, of course, as I try to not touch a computer over the weekend) I'll be 26 years of age. Another one has almost passed, and on the whole I'm feeling better about my situation than I was at this point in 2001. Although, if you had told me then that America would be attacked by terrorists and I'd be homeless for a year and all of the other fantastic nonsense that's come my way since, I'd have laughed in your face like you were Gallagher. But none of us (except Kreskin, maybe) can tell the future. What's this next one gonna jump on me? It could be anything, really, but my life keeps getting more exciting and funny and crazy with every passing year, new amazing people joining my circle of friends, new adventures, new love. I'm a fucking sappy idiot, I know. Happy birthday to me. The party's next Thursday.
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Every time me and Erikka go to see a movie at the corporate AMC googolplex on 42nd, aside from the swarms of fatbodied tourist loafs tottering around with their Cinnabons in hand and the cans of Sapporo sneakily secreted in my messenger bag, there's always another constant: vandalism. Something about the winding hallways, escalators and sheer volume of stand-up cardboard displays for such bombs and future bombs as Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course and that shitty new Eddie Murphy movie gets us kicking, punching and generally mangling the scenery every time we're there. This time out, after cringing through Goldmember, we noticed a super-big automated motorized cardboard stand-up promoting the new Dana Carvey Master Of Disguise movie and, without a word, we swung into action. While I was behind it unscrewing as many wingnuts from the mechanism as I could, Erikka removed the central lightbulb. Once we got out on the street, I threw it over a construction crane into the middle of traffic.
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JULY
all content (c) 2002 k. thor jensen