A Most Morbid Of Shags

To the tune of "Finally," by CeCe Penniston.

Finally it's happened to me, right in front of my face, and my lips can't describe it...





Actually, they most certainly can:

It all began innocently enough, as most things generally do, and ended up quite debaucherous with an almost instant karmic backlash, again, as most things do.

Cliff had procured 4 tickets for the two of us, his current beaux and friend Christie to see the final performance of the Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players off-Broadway.

If you've never seen TFSP I highly recommend the venture, it's definitely an experience.

TFSP consists of three family members: the mother, who procures random slides of what they call Anonymous Dead People (ADPs) from garage sales; the father, writes music and lyrics set to a theme constructed from a set of the slides such as their first big 'hit' Big Mountain Vacation to Japan; and the daughter, plays drums.

Aside from playing the whimsical ballads that have made them indy-darlings, the band spends even more time tuning their instruments and performing a more clumsy stand-up routine full of self-deprecating humor. Obviously an overall great time.

After the performance our group was largely exhausted: well, everyone except myself. So logically enough, I grabbed a beer at the Metropolitan bar a block from my sublet.

Can I just say: one, today is the exact one month anniversary of my arrival to NY (and still no glorious job awaits me); two, I had earlier made claims of a planned one month of abstinence when I arrived, perhaps as some form of penance for my deeds before arriving; three, I lasted nearly that long; oh and four, once I arrived at the Metropolitan, it took half a Stella Artois to score. (I've been back practically every night since...)

The more interesting angle of the evening, though, was the manner in which I so expediently purloined some late-night talent (and no, no payment exchanged hands, but if you saw some of the seductive adonises frequenting my gym you'd be pulling out plastic like you was the only one to show up at a NY fireman's auction...)
















When I sat down and ordered my Stella Artois I immediately caught the eye of a man nearby, who came and sat next to me. His great line: 'what are you doing here tonight?'

To which I rattled off droll explanations about SF, sublets, proximity, thirst, horn-dog.

When I reversed the question on him, however, it was slightly more interesting...

'So why are you here by yourself tonight?'

'I just needed to get out of the house and get drunk.'

'Sounds like a healthy habit. One that I quite often share. Is there a reason you need to get drunk so badly?'

I should have known not to pry, but the conversation was otherwise thoroughly lacking, so I went with it. In fact, I felt the power of a stranger. He could easily tell me anything because we didn't know each other, which later went quite the other way as well.

'My father is dying,' he answered.

'Oh, god,' I said, genuinely shocked and attempting to empathize.

A few uncomfortable moments later...

'And my boyfriend died as well,' he tactfully added.

'Dear God!'

'But that was fifteen years ago.'

I let slip, which I tend to let happen a little too often:

'Well could you stop acting like such a baby?'

'What did you say?,' he said, apparently upset.

'Nothing, really nothing.'

'No, what did you say? Tell me.'

This was when I flipped the whole 'stranger, therefore can say anything' phenomenon.

'Could you stop playing such a victim and just cheer up you little baby?'

Again, my oh so sensitive self.

We argued for a brief moment. I apologized, bat my eyelashes (foreshadowing), placed a tender and understanding hand on his knee, quickly but subtly massaged it into his inner thigh, and offered to try and take his mind off things for a while...which he thoroughly agreed to.

I finished the second half of my beer, and we were off.

Upon arriving I realized the accuracy of my 'victim' comment instantly.

There wasn't a single tasteful photo, or even two photos set for reverie: there were twelve. Pictures of he and his former partner were placed emphatically and prominently throughout the apartment.

In the several significant places where a photo of the heart-swelling young couple was missing he had placed a figurine of Scooby-Doo, something else he seemed quite obsessed with (the man was 33), and when I noticed a stack of CDs piled on a shelf near his stereo (and knowing what a great signifier such things are for personality insight), I madly rushed to them as he peed, discovering two separate recordings of Phantom of the Opera, and a Judds Greatest Hits. Can I call it or what?

After a rather 'entertaining' evening, I received my punishment: gonorrhea.





Just kidding.

I did, however, wake up to find in his bathroom mirror: an eye infection.

I realize I got some big-ass eyes, but one would think with my Aeon Flux eyelashes that I'd be able to keep any kind of bacteria out of them easily.

Well, think again.

NY is undeniably a dirty place, and every time I wash my hands (at least 4x a day) the soap is muddy and brown, so I guess it's somewhat understandable, but with this new development I rushed from his house head down and scurried to the subway...

Drag (A Fairytale)

I suffered through the first 30 minutes of temp-training, still realizing the misery I committed myself to and felt pulsating waves of existential despair crash over me, each larger than the next, until once I was finally left alone, I found myself covering pages of a notebook with run-on sentences about my feelings punctuated by nothing but question marks.

At my first break I raced to the nearest bookstore, which happened to be at the core of Times Square, at least temporarily seeming to give me some sense of purpose among the maddening throngs of tourists with perhaps too much purpose, or perhaps no recognition or acknowledgement of their existence whatsoever considering the planetismal size of most of them.



In the basement of the Virgin Megastore among the perpetual displays of Fight Club, Chronicles by Bob Dylan, and a photography book of nude tattooed white chicks titled Suicide Girls, I found at least Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy, which seemed appropriate even though the reason it was appropriate seemed like it was quietly passing and perhaps prematurely. I'm scared of what NY might be like once the primacy has worn off.

The first story in the trilogy dealt with a boy locked in a dark room for the first nine years of his life as an experiment by his father, a Columbia professor. I thought similarly of tales of abandoned children who are taken under the care of wolves, but more entertaining what if the poor misplaced child was found and raised by a band of three caring drag queens?

I imagine he would have an incomparably fortuitous life until one day near the age of ten his guardians become enraged in a fight over who got to play Miss Diana Ross and the frightened boy flees their wooded glen.

At first he is taken in by a nearby village and when word arrives to King James that a boy raised in the wild has been found, they send no one less than Sir Thomas Aquinas himself to investigate.

Sir Thomas Aquinas proceeds to interrogate the boy about his thoughts on God and general theologian perceptions to which the boy replies firmly to each question in a harsh rasp, "first, a martini!"

After satiating the boy's thirst for olives soaked in vodka they let him loose thinking he was posessed by the spirit. He was quite a whirlwind to keep up with but was eventually found hunched over a small stump furiously working over his hands and face.

As they approached he turned around and shouted, "Praise the Lord!" The boy had taken caterpillar legs to extend his eyelashes and used the dust from butterflies to make horrendous eye shadow in the manner of a near perfect Tammy Faye (the boy was way ahead of his time). "Praise the Lord!," he repeated to a thoroughly relieved Sir Thomas Aquinas.

Over time they found the boy altogether amusing, mysterious, and fascinating except for the trick with the anal beads, which while they found repulsive it must be said they understandably took it as a colloquial form of communication, though they never could figure out anatomically how he managed to pull them through his nose.

So endeared was the boy that he was given residence at King James' royal estate, and was allowed to perform each evening in the King's dining hall as long as certain acts were left until later in the evening.

With their laughter and joyous bacchanal the boy constantly felt happy. Their persistent assertments that he had been found made his young heart feel as though previously he had been lost and this was the fulfillment of what he was meant to be.

Yet one morning he woke shaking from his dreams, and his cheeks were wet from tears he must have wept in his sleep. That night at dinner he found himself unexcited about dancing around a chair in a beaded dress and no longer cared if Papa could hear him.

On his face he could not hide his dejection and sullenly he removed his dress, tossed it aside like a kerchief and stated blankly, "to hell with it," before leaving.

A hushed gasp crept around the dining table.

"The spirit has left him," one portly woman declared.

"And the devil himself has taken its place," said another portlier woman.

With this Sir Thomas Aquinas was struck from his seat where he methodically had been constructing a Jesus Christ out of his mashed potatoes placed fiercely across his T-bone steak.

"He is lost," said a third even portlier woman.

"Then there is nothing we can do," said Sir Thomas Aquinas, "but destroy him before he does to us!"

With haste the table disbanded and a stake was raised in the nearest field. Word spread quickly and townsfolk began gathering twigs and branches with such excitement and anticipation that some mistook their intent and also brought with them marshmallows and graham crackers.

The poor boy was caught easily and tied firmly to the stake. The townsfolk piled the wood high around him and crowded near with anxious eyes. King James himself came before the crowd with a widely lit torch.

"With the arrival of this boy," he said, "we thought we had found something wonderful."

King James turned toward the boy with a large wave of his torch and looked heavy into his eyes with a penetrating hatred. without losing such gaze, he leaned in to light the fire.

From several directions a small wind picked up an earthen powder and dispersed it into the air. Before the flame could reach the kindling King James fell to his knees in a coughing fit and a thick cloud of dust fully encompassed the crowd.

All that could be seen amid the dense storm was the frightened boy, and at thirds to him, the three corpulent women.

"We always carry a lot of powdered foundation," said one of the women, winking at the boy.

"At our age it's essential," said the second.

"And powdered always travels better," said the third.

With the quickness of devotion the women replaced the boy with a likeness made of nothing but irises.
















Such was the beauty that the townspeople had found in the boy that they could not distinguish him from the flowers and rubbing their eyes proceeded to cheer as King James set his likeness ablaze.

As the irises burned, the crowd found that the sweet smell of the conflagrant flowers reminded them inextricably of the ocean and of children and at once they were struck by a wave of sentimental nostalgia, and in a few of them, alas but only a few, a small hammer of guilt panged desperately at their hearts.

Favorite Song 7.26.05

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: The Skin of My Yellow Country

This Is Me Toning It Down

I've come to realize that all my efforts at domesticity seem to result in nothing but calamity.

I decided innocently enough to make a nice pasta salad for dinner last night, considering the heat settled out at 90-plus degrees. This also served as reason why I spent most the evening wandering around in my underwear.

The pasta salad consisted simply of farfelle, grape tomatoes and broccoli, with excessive amounts of olive oil and spices. Clever me, decided it would be the easiest solution to mix the ingredients together by putting them all back in the pot with the lid, and then shaking.

I should know myself better by now.

As expected, the lid slipped from under my thumbs and half the pot of pasta salad went flying. To give you some degree of calamity I had to pull a few pieces from my hair, one from the toaster, and there's still a thin layer of olive oil that won't come up off the floor.

This was also the moment my roommate decided to come home. Realize for one that I hadn't seen either roommate in three days because they never come home early, and then realize as well that this of course was the roommate that had kindly admonished me the previous morning for messing the kitchen.

And then of course picture me covered in pasta salad in my underwear.

I'm also realizing now that instead of writing about dirty adventures with men, my most interesting anecdote involved pasta salad. Hopefully something better will happen tonight...

Dietary Supplements

No this is not about Schwarzy and his sad tale of being forced out of Mega-Flex and Veined-Forearm magazines.

This is a tale of office food.

My life currently runs somewhat parallel to that '97 indy-film with Parker Posey, Lisa Kudrow and Toni Collette: Clockwatchers; except I actually enjoy being here.

I went to collect some juice from the kitchen a moment ago, because I was told they had a good supply, which excited me because I found a great cranberry/blueberry antioxidant blend at the store recently and considering the posh office thought it a possibility.

When I arrived at the kitchen, however, and asked eagerly for this age-defying nectar, I was informed of their concept of juice: Hawaiian Punch.

Two Poems by Czeslaw Milosz (for the Piotrs)

Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004) was a Polish poet and essayist. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1980, while living in Berkeley where his poem Gift was written.

He spent the last days of his life in Krakow, Poland.







Gift

A day so happy.
Fog lifted early, I walked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.
There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.
I knew no one worth my envying him.
Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.
To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.
When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.


If There Is No God

If there is no God,
Not everything is permitted to man.
He is still his brother's keeper,
And he is not permitted to sadden his brother,
By saying there is no God.

Out the Way, Guero!

Yesterday I was awarded the prize for most domestic living boy in New York.

After completing my 8 hour workshift in Midtown I patiently rode my subway to Williamsburg and stopped at the hip health food market (you can buy organic on-the-vine cherry tomatoes individually...) like everything in Williamsburg, full of torn jeans, designer t-shirts, tattoos, and facial hair. I made my way home, whistling appropriately 'We Belong Together' all the while, where I promptly put my groceries away (the Haagen Daaz Chocolate Chocolate Chip even more promptly, after eating half of it).

I then put together a large spinach salad as I marinated some teriyaki chicken broiled. In going to such effort in preparing food it's rather ridiculous to cook only enough for a single meal but in my attempts to cajole someone into having dinner with me I received nothing by incredulity.

It was one thing to be eating in, but to be actually cooking the food myself: this concept was foreign to everyone, and considering the number of people I've stayed with so far, thoroughly ubiquitous. The only time I ate at home while staying with someone, we ordered Indian.

When the chicken was perfectly broiled (and it did turn out perfect, an anomaly for me) I put Dave's Greatest Nina Simone Hits Volume 1 on play and finished The New York Times while I ate. After dinner I immediately cleaned all my dishes (yet another anomaly John will concur) then the kitchen istelf (yes, John), and gathered my laundry.

The laundromat was a wonderful experiment in modern Brooklyn, dichotomous between caucasian urban hipsters living there so they can pursue their 'art', and minorities. The laundromat was large, and each group selected a distinct side of washers and dryers with little overlap.















I (perhaps mistakenly) lingered along the yet realized border between the two sides, when a Latina woman came by with her rolling laundry cart. There was plenty of room for both my legs and her basket, yet she chose to run over my feet with her cart and say 'scusme' and then under her breath, 'guero'.

Now, 'guero', is not only the name of the new Beck album, but a derogatory Spanish word for 'white boy'. I gave her a slightly knowing smile and then under my breath responded, 'you won't be here much longer', drawing a battle line.

I'm not sure if she heard me, but I think she did.

It's not that I wish to promote the gentrification of Brooklyn, but she fucked with me first, and I simply hope she has been able to buy something somewhere in Brooklyn because if she's just renting and not progressing in career or education she will, very easily and rather soon, be displaced somewhere closer to West Maryland.

[Great: I just checked the meaning of Guero online, journalism reflex, and turns out it is generally used in a friendly context. Oops. Oh well. Nevermind.]

The Sixth Borough

Writing yesterday about Jonathan Safran Foer reminded me of a story he published last year that I found incredibly moving.

The story was originally published in The New York Times on Sept. 17, 2004, and it is my understanding this work is now public domain and can legally be reproduced.

It may be a bit long for a blog, but I highly recommend the read.

Without further delay:

The Sixth Borough
By Jonathan Safran Foer

Once upon a time, New York City had a Sixth Borough. You won't read about it in any of the history books, because there's nothing -- save for the circumstantial evidence in Central Park -- to prove that it was there at all. Which makes its existence very easy to dismiss. Especially in a time like this one, when the world is so unpredictable, and it takes all of one's resources just to get by in the present tense. But even though most people will say they have no time or reason to believe in the Sixth Borough, and don't believe in the Sixth Borough, they will still use the word ''believe.''

The Sixth Borough was an island, separated from Manhattan by a thin body of water, whose narrowest crossing happened to equal the world's long jump record, such that exactly one person on earth could go from Manhattan to the Sixth Borough without getting wet. A huge party was made of the yearly leap. Bagels were strung from island to island on special spaghetti, samosas were bowled at baguettes, Greek salads were thrown like confetti. The children of New York captured fireflies in glass jars, which they floated between the boroughs. The bugs would slowly asphyxiate, flickering rapidly for their last few minutes of life. If it was timed right, the river shimmered as the jumper crossed it.

When the time finally came, the long jumper would run the entire width of Manhattan. New Yorkers rooted him on from opposite sides of the street, from the windows of their apartments and offices, from the branches of the trees. And when he leapt, New Yorkers cheered from the banks of both Manhattan and the Sixth Borough, cheering on the jumper, and cheering on each other. For those few moments that the jumper was in the air, every New Yorker felt capable of flight.















Or perhaps ''suspension'' is a better word. Because what was so inspiring about the leap was not how the jumper got from one borough to the other, but how he stayed between them for so long.
One year -- many, many years ago -- the end of the jumper's big toe touched the surface of the water and caused a little ripple. People gasped, as the ripple traveled out from the Sixth Borough back toward Manhattan, knocking the jars of fireflies against one another like wind chimes.

''You must have gotten a bad start!'' a Manhattan councilman hollered from across the water.

The jumper nodded no, more confused than ashamed.

''You had the wind in your face,'' a Sixth Borough councilman suggested, offering a towel for the jumper's foot.

The jumper shook his head.

''Perhaps he ate too much for lunch,'' said one onlooker to another.

''Or maybe he's past his prime,'' said another, who'd brought his kids to watch the leap.

''I bet his heart wasn't in it,'' said another. ''You just can't expect to jump that far without some serious feeling.''

''No,'' the jumper said to all of the speculation. ''None of that's right. I jumped just fine.''

The revelation traveled across the onlookers like the ripple caused by the toe, and when the mayor of New York City spoke it aloud, everyone sighed in agreement: ''The Sixth Borough is moving.''

Each year after, a few inches at a time, the Sixth Borough receded from New York. One year, the long jumper's entire foot got wet, and after a number of years, his shin, and after many, many years -- so many years that no one could even remember what it was like to celebrate without anxiety -- the jumper had to reach out his arms and grab at the Sixth Borough fully extended, and then, sadly, he couldn't touch it at all. The eight bridges between Manhattan and the Sixth Borough strained and finally crumbled, one at a time, into the water. The tunnels were pulled too thin to hold anything at all.

The phone and electrical lines snapped, requiring Sixth Boroughers to revert to old-fashioned technologies, most of which resembled children's toys: they used magnifying glasses to reheat their carry-out; they folded important documents into paper airplanes and threw them from one office building window into another; those fireflies in glass jars, which had once been used merely for decorative purposes during the festivals of the leap, were now found in every room of every apartment, taking the place of artificial light.















The very same engineers who dealt with the Leaning Tower of Pisa were brought over to assess the situation.

''It wants to go,'' they said.

''Well, what can you say about that?'' the mayor of New York asked.

To which they replied, ''There's nothing to say about that.''

Of course they tried to save it. Although ''save'' might not be the right word, as it did seem to want to go. Maybe ''detain'' is the right word. Chains were moored to the banks of the islands, but the links soon snapped. Concrete pilings were poured around the perimeter of the Sixth Borough, but they, too, failed. Harnesses failed, magnets failed, even prayer failed.

Young friends, whose string-and-tin-can phone extended from island to island, had to pay out more and more string, as if letting kites go higher and higher.

''It's getting almost impossible to hear you,'' said the young girl from her bedroom in Manhattan, as she squinted through a pair of her father's binoculars, trying to find her friend's window.

''I'll holler if I have to,'' said her friend from his bedroom in the Sixth Borough, aiming last birthday's telescope at her apartment.

The string between them grew incredibly long, so long it had to be extended with many other strings tied together: the wind of his yo-yo, the pull from her talking doll, the twine that had fastened his father's diary, the waxy string that had kept her grandmother's pearls around her neck and off the floor, the thread that had separated his great-uncle's childhood quilt from a pile of rags. Contained within everything they shared with one another were the yo-yo, the doll, the diary, the necklace, and the quilt. They had more and more to tell each other, and less and less string.

The boy asked the girl to say ''I love you'' into her can, giving her no further explanation.

And she didn't ask for any, or say, ''That's silly'' or ''We're too young for love'' or even suggest that she was saying ''I love you'' because he asked her to. Her words traveled the yo-yo, the doll, the diary, the necklace, the quilt, the clothesline, the birthday present, the harp, the tea bag, the table lamp, the tennis racket, the hem of the skirt he one day should have pulled from her body.

The boy covered his can with a lid, removed it from the string, and put her love from him on a shelf in his closet. Of course, he could never open the can, because then he would lose its contents. It was enough just to know that it was there.

Some, like that boy's family, wouldn't leave the Sixth Borough. Some said: ''Why should we? It's the rest of the world that's moving. Our borough is fixed. Let them leave Manhattan.'' How can you prove someone like that wrong? And who would want to?

For most Sixth Boroughers, though, there was no question of refusing to accept the obvious, just as there was no underlying stubbornness, or principle, or bravery. They just didn't want to go. They liked their lives and didn't want to change. So they floated away, one inch at a time.

All of which brings us to Central Park.

Central Park didn't used to be where it now is. It used to rest squarely in the center of the Sixth Borough; it was the joy of the borough, its heart. But once it was clear that the Sixth Borough was receding for good, that it couldn't be saved or detained, it was decided, by New York City referendum, to salvage the park. (The vote was unanimous. Even the most obdurate Sixth Boroughers acknowledged what must be done.) Enormous hooks were driven deep into ground, and the park was pulled, by the people of New York, like a rug across a floor, from the Sixth Borough into Manhattan.

Children were allowed to lie down on the park as it was being moved. This was considered a concession, although no one knew why a concession was necessary, or why it was to children that this concession must be made. The biggest fireworks show in history lighted the skies of New York City that night, and the Philharmonic played its heart out.

The children of New York lay on their backs, body to body, filling every inch of the park as if it had been designed for them and that moment. The fireworks sprinkled down, dissolving in the air just before they reached the ground, and the children were pulled, one inch and one second at a time, into Manhattan and adulthood. By the time the park found its current resting place, every single one of the children had fallen asleep, and the park was a mosaic of their dreams. Some hollered out, some smiled unconsciously, some were perfectly still.

Was there really a Sixth Borough?

There's no irrefutable evidence.

There's nothing that could convince someone who doesn't want to be convinced.

But there is an abundance of clues that would give the wanting believer something to hold on to: in the peculiar fossil record of Central Park, in the incongruous pH level of the reservoir, in the placement of certain tanks at the zoo (which correspond to the holes left by the gigantic hooks that pulled the park from borough to borough).

There is a tree -- just 24 paces due east from the entrance to the merry-go-round -- into whose trunk are carved two names. They don't appear in any phone book or census. They are absent from all hospital and tax and voting records. There is no evidence whatsoever of their existence, other than the proclamation on the tree.

Here's a fact: no less than 5 percent of the names carved into the trees of Central Park are of unknown origin.

As all of the Sixth Borough's documents floated away with the Sixth Borough, we will never be able to prove that those names belonged to residents of the Sixth Borough, and were carved when Central Park still resided there, instead of in Manhattan. So some believe that they are made-up names and, to take the doubt a step further, that the gestures of love were made-up gestures. Others believe other things.

But it's hard for anyone, even the most cynical of cynics, to spend more than a few minutes in Central Park without feeling that he or she is experiencing some tense in addition to just the present. Maybe it's our own nostalgia for what's past, or our own hopes for what's to come. Or maybe it's the residue of the dreams from that night the park was moved, when all of the children of New York City exercised their subconsciouses at once. Maybe we miss what they had lost, and yearn for what they wanted.

There's a gigantic hole in the middle of the Sixth Borough where Central Park used to be. As the island moves across the planet, it acts like a frame, displaying what lies beneath it.














The Sixth Borough is now in Antarctica. The sidewalks are covered in ice, the stained glass of the public library is straining under the weight of the snow. There are frozen fountains in frozen neighborhood parks, where frozen children are frozen at the peaks of their swings--the frozen ropes holding them in flight. The tzitzit of frozen little Jewish boys are frozen, as are the strands of their frozen mothers' frozen wigs. Livery horses are frozen mid-trot, flea-market vendors are frozen mid-haggle, middle-aged women are frozen in the middle of their lives. The gavels of frozen judges are frozen between guilty and innocent. On the ground are the crystals of the frozen first breaths of babies, and those of the last gasps of the dying. On a frozen shelf, in a closet frozen shut, is a can with a voice inside it.

Jew Do You Think You Are

My evening last night was rather uneventful (mind you I still ended up going out for several hours, but nothing terribly important occurred - beside my friend hooking up with a guy who identified himself as an 'international model'. Gotta love New York.

Instead I'd like to mention my first experience with a New York political protest, and who would expectantly be involved: the Jews.

Two days ago along the major thoroughfare of Broadway and about 44th Street, several hundred Jews held up traffic and frosted everything that would hold still with strips of orange cloth to signify what they see as the struggle of Israeli settlers being unfairly forced out of their homes in Gaza in approximately one month.

I was innocently enough looking for a Washington Mutual (because who wants to pay $1.75 for an ATM) when my luck led me into the foray.

While many know me for my political and activist inclinations I must admit the first instinct that emerged was 'hell yeah, hot Jews!’ (Pray my grandmother never sees this - but then again I did send her Everything is Illuminated for Chanukah last year - or maybe it was Passover - no, I sent her an egg and some salt water for that) and if you've ever seen Jonathan Safran Foer (which now you have) you'll understand completely.

Of course, me, lacking all tact, accidentally made this statement out loud, a little too loudly in fact, and received an appalled and admonishing response from a Hasidic man nearby.

I wanted so badly to just pull his curls and make a hee-hee noise, but I refrained, and beside, he might have razor blades in there like those old-school Latina women who fight in the streets of Mejico Ciudad...you never know what they're hiding under those yarmulkes - actually you do, it's almost always a bald spot.

I can't resist, however, this brief political commentary (consider that a warning...):

The efforts by this radicalized segment of Judaism and Israelis to keep the Gaza pullout from occurring is blatantly misdirected and antagonistic. In order to proceed in developing peace, concessions need to be made. If these fringe Israelis considers themselves so morally superior to the crude and depraved actions of Palestinian suicide bombers (which justifiably is contemptible) then they should be willing to take a higher road in attempting a peace process.

There is no high morality in base retribution.

By offering such a concession as a pullout in Gaza and all the political turmoil it has caused the Sharon and his coalition in the Knesset, it places onus on the Palestinians to take the next step toward peace.


Of course, many Palestinian radicals want to construe this withdrawal from Gaza as their success in forcing Israel out, but I don’t believe Palestinians are that ignorant.

While Palestinians hold a good deal of contempt and suspicion for the actions of Israel, at the same time surveys and polls taken after the death of Arafat showed most Palestinians felt the current antagonistic methods of militant groups were counter-productive, and saw and hoped for an opportunity to overcome the conflict through greater cooperation.

Instead of lining up in Gaza to force the Israeli government from allowing the Gaza pullout, these Israelis should support pressure on the international community and Israel in particular (which at $3 billion annually is the greatest recipient of U.S. foreign aid) in training and supporting the security forces of the Palestinian Authority.

Another development supporting my point here is that fighting from the militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad factions in Palestine has turned increasingly away from Israel and focused increasingly against the PA.

This is the battle we should be focusing on. We must, as an international community, ensure that the PA succeeds in overpowering these groups and potentially offers some outlet for the less bellicose in these organizations to come into the folds of traditional government.

The strength of the Palestinian security forces are the greatest weapon against these militant groups with PA leader Abbas becoming more curt and aggressive in his denouncing of the actions of these groups.














Some funding has successfully moved into development. Israel recently requested an additional $2.2 billion from the U.S., but for the purpose of relocating military resources currently located in Gaza. The Group of Eight, however, in their recent meeting in Scotland also proposed a global fund to provide Palestine with $3 billion annually for three years to promote the state’s development.

That money needs to come quickly to provide the security that is crucial to promoting peace. Abbas has repeatedly displayed the will to confront and control these militant groups, but at this point he does not have the resources, and antagonistic actions by radical Israelis weaken his well-intentioned efforts.

Hatred on both sides directed at the wrong efforts will only propagate increased retribution that time has shown offers no resolution or respite.

Ok, that wasn't brief at all. Oh, well.

We've Studied the Map & We're Going This Way

Last night was meant to be my night at home to finally catch up on water and sleep, or at least attempt to sleep, in the heat, with my three fans placed on high several feet from my body covering it in thirds.

In New York though, I've learned quickly, that's never a given.

At 10pm I received a phone call from a friend proclaiming the night as one not be missed: and honestly, it wasn't.

We quickly met at a place called Beige, where by midnight the extensive seating, dance, bar, and patio areas were filled with largely attractive and young gay men by the near hundreds. On a Tuesday night. I'm never leaving this town.

I'll add, however, just how fitting the bar's name really was: conversations were the farthest thing from colorful. They were largely promiscuous and self-absorbed, shallow and flirtatious; but there's a place for everything and you make of New York what you will. Another thing I've learned quickly is that the city offers everything and you cultivate from it what you will (I'll refrain from karma diatribe).

This brings me to Nicholas, the friend I came to meet. Nick moved to New York from San Francisco two years ago, and therefore came from a nearly identical background and served as a perfect exemplification of how I might expect to feel two years from now.

I spent two hours with Nick last night for the first time in those two years. Words I would use to describe him: pensive, bitter, shallow, weathered, irritable, discontent, disillusioned, and ready to leave town as quickly as possible.

It was great to see Nick, in fact I'd go as far as to say destined. It was pretty obvious though that he had spent the past two years in New York frequenting places like Beige in hopes of finding something more enriching and resplendent in his life.

I think I'll go back next week - if only for the irony.

Blood Alcohol Levels

The best adventures are the most unexpected ones.

Since arriving, I've done my best to try and cultivate friends, considering I have none. I so far successfully gleaned a good deal of acquaintances - but no real friends.

As an effort against this, I met up yesterday after work with a girl named Hannah, 24 today, with mischevious eyes, a devious smile, and a thirst I admired. (Hannah is the ex-girlfriend of a Luxembourgish gent I studied with, or more precisely drank with, in Europe.)

We met at 5:30 at a small jazz cafe where she conveniently knew the bartender and I conveniently became a sight of his attraction. A decorous introduction beer turned into about seven, punctuated conspicuously by a car bomb and Brazilian casaveras (sp?).

By 11:30 our stools started trying to get away from us, and our glorious bill: $10, the actual cost of the Mediterranean platter we ate, which consisted of nothing more than over-processed pita bread and a plate of runny hummus. Thank god it was free - and I think I managed a date out of the situation too (which always amazes me when I'm that faded) even though he'll have to wait two weeks.

I wasn't initially sure if he was of similar sexual proclivity so as I drank more I managed to slip a subtle joke about My Fair Lady (I know, dork humor, but I can't resist), and when he smiled at me knowingly, I knew he was mine. Appropriately enough, when I woke hungover as hell this morning I couldn't get 'I could have danced all night' out of my head and nearly died when I went so far as to attempt a little spin in the shower (which reminds me, I need a new shower curtain)...

As much as I enjoyed meeting him, I enjoyed meeting Hannah even more, the way alcoholics get excited when they meet a new enabler. And we certainly did...sit at the end of that bar for five hours drinking, and laughing til our faces hurt (and you know my cheeks, it doesn't take much). Sad though that she's leaving for Indonesia in a week. It's also sad that I flirted so overtly with her close friend, it will make it that much more diffiult for me to hit on her other friends - mind you though, I simply said more difficult.

For her going away Hannah is having a pirate party (which I hope in some way is a gay reference, though I doubt it) that will take place on her roof, a small five story building in the center of Midtown. We went there last night until the vertigo from the fifty feet down and the paranoia from the hundreds of feet up made me dizzy and I nearly puked and fell off.

The scene is stunning (when safely sober and away from the edge). Buildings that small are rare in Midtown and among the elevated skyscrapers that encircle the rooftop, the monolith of the Empire State Building unifies their towering presence and makes you seem a small child among Gods.

As much as the furious pulse of the city is pronounced and ubiquitous, the throbbing is increasingly consuming in this perspective, as though you really are a single blood-cell forced through a throbbing vein by the beats of millions of frenzied hearts interwoven into one collective subconscious moving in passion and beauty and forward creation.

But then again, maybe I was just really drunk.

Magic Dirt

It has been two weeks since I arrived in this city. It would be too much to try and detail the debauchery of the past 14 days, but those of you who witnessed the madness of my last month in San Francisco will have some understanding that it wasn't too easy to simply stop everything, although this 14 days does also mark the halfway point for my set goal of one month of celibacy.

Thank god - I was just six inches from closing a deal over the weekend...

I'll take this opportunity to send a shout out as well to all those who helped set me up with places my first ten days here, it was a great adventure, tormenting and hysterical, through Harlem, Chelsea, Williamsburg, and the East Village. I saw a lot. I slept little. I was touched in ways I had never been touched before.

I might as well start relaying some tales: Jews Converge; Delta Burke on Broadway; Date with a Car Bomb; Midtown Mayhem, etc.