The abridged version.

For posterity's sake, here's a tasteless picture.

2008-04-12T00:08:00.001-07:00

All my ex's have a nexus.

2008-04-11T23:49:00.001-07:00

I can't say I miss Atlanta much, although most every thought becomes wistful while standing on a balcony on a cool night, smoking in the still of the witching hours.
There wasn't much for me here.

Sure, I had the job. The gig of my dreams, it seemed. Every day, armful after armful of free CDs, merch and other entertainment paraphenalia came flooding through our door - most of which was at the expense of my own free labor. Internships. Heh.
Still, how does one fuck up this chance? All I had to do was listen to music and write about it. AND I got paid.

It's sad, the seasick soul that looks for cures in the exact wrong places. The places we visit. The things we do. The misery we seek out.

And the people we find - even more of a mystery to me.
Water seeks its own level. I believe this.
Even if we weren't in the same place exactly - me, a strung-out shell of a human being and her, an anxiety-laden transplant - we still found each other. We still fit.
And it was a good fit.

I don't miss it here, even though I probably should.

The sadist.

2008-04-11T19:47:00.001-07:00

Can you dig it?
Do you get down?
We can party. We can get wet.
Let me do this for you.

Let me do this for you, really.

Because baby, it's just one of those days.
You know, the kind where the sky turns inside out and swallows itself?
When fate falls to the wayside? When things start falling out of your head?

Open up.
Wide.

Good grief.

2008-04-11T19:31:00.000-07:00

"And so we come to the end, our hero trapped under seven stories of concrete and bodies, the timer on the explosives inside the elementary school moments away from zero, the President's daughter on the verge of death without the vaccine for the bioengineered virus that the terrorists gave her - the vaccine that our hero holds in his very pocket. What is to become of things? Who will save them?"

...

"Who will save us all?"

And the band played on and on and on.

And as the man said, "So it goes."

But, do tell, who are we? To run? To flee? When rapture sweeps up earthly dregs?
And those that do live take it in like a sieve with a hole between its gangly legs.

Leave your lust at the door, don't mind rusting the whore's IRA as she takes a pay cut.
Wipe your chin on your sleeve, now you've seen and believe nothing like this can come from a slut.

"Take me in! Take me now!" screams a wretched old cow to the frothing red heavens above.
But brutality spared leaves her empty and scared - though she's done for when push comes to shove.

And the babies, they scatter in desperate matters like these that do zip up the earth,
Thirsty babes, how they yearn as they sizzle and burn - Papa's wrath is as long as his girth.

Now believers believe, non-believers reprieve from reality warping the brain.
Prepping rig and white arm, ostrich-fixing to harm, Papa invented sex for cocaine.

"You, in air soaring high!" yelped an impudent guy,
"What sins have us sentenced to this?"

And the clouds would have scoffed, sat upright and aloft,
had the wretch something worthy to say.

So the orchestra lulls to the cracking of skulls
by his angels, less angelic now.
"Oh the spirit of things!" says one who has wings as his sword lops the limbs from the cow.

And a comfort is had, in the minds of the mad, that can sweeten the sourest sin,
for when they have all died, and hell's gates open wide, there's no question that they will fit in.

Day Seven

2008-04-11T19:26:00.000-07:00

New York City MoMA.

Tucked away on W 52nd between 5th and 6th. Throngs of people crowd past during the noon rush to eat in the allotted lunch half-hour(the REAL New York lunch is a greased polish sausage from the corner stand eaten in the elevator back up to the office - there is no break for a worker here).
I float in a sea of suits. Human waves push me against the black marble exterior of the museum, an inconspicuous promontory stuck deep in the cement waters of midtown.
Jasper Johns' 'False Start I + II' are both visually stunning. The first print is a fantastic hodgepodge of brush strokes in every direction, with color names printed on the piece. None of the colors used to print the names actually match the word. The second print is identical, only done completely in black, white and grey.
Duchamp's readymades hang from wires attached to the ceiling. Some stare in wonder at 'Bicycle' and 'Shovel,' while many others pass by without paying mind. Most today seemed to scoff at them; probably the same that would scoff at a Rothko or Kline piece.
DeKooning's 'Woman' sent a chill down my spine. Big black orbs on her face stare down at me, watching me move, watching me breathing. It is too much - I walk away.
Picasso's 'Les Madamoiselles d'avignon' , 'The Card Player' , 'Woman with Mandolin'(my personal favorite out of all of his work) , all leave me dumbstruck, punch-drunk, out of sorts. I am surrounded by beauty.
Oh, to be this lucky all the time!

Night Six.

2008-04-11T19:19:00.000-07:00

When will YOU, the sperm and egg investment of your parents, start yielding
dividends?

What is your method of payment? A silk knit, paisley noose and stuffed shirt?
More retarded little suckling fleshbags for granddad?
A name? A face? A legend?

You are not made unconditionally. You are not a precious child of god.
You are NOT your own person.

You are on contract with your makers. The year your brow beads gold flaked sweat,
the week your anus turns into an ATM, the day your hands turn to cogs, to hooks. The hour that your bones erode under the pressure. The minute your tendons snap under the strain.

The second that you actually have something to show for yourself is the very
first second of your life.

------------------

Brian is headed to a gay bar in the West Village - Splash. Apparently the 'Fab Five' frequent the joint, and one of them is a total slut who will 'fuck anything with a dick.'
Scary.

A singing crackhead just got hit by a taxicab while jaywalking.

It is twilight, and the streets are less crowded. Everyone is untucking their shirts and ties, taking siestas on futons before getting ready to go out at eleven.
My street corner smells like sewage and Grey's Papaya.

------------------------------

I ended up going to the gay bar.
It was 'auction off a rugby team full of queers' night, which probably happens every other Wednesday. I made polite conversation over a cigarette outside the club with Todd, a waify queen who had recently hit the meth pipe and wanted to lay some cable inside of me. After leading him on far enough to give him half a chubby and the wherewithal to ask for my number, I shot him down. He kissed me twice and sulked inside with tail betwixt legs. I love flirting with people, so much I almost can't help but always do it. The moment I know I have the power in the interaction is when I get MY chubby. Smashing my would-be suitor's/gutter-whore's fantasy to bits is the pinnacle for me, my orgasm.

----------------------------

The Empire State Building is lit up in front of me outside the deli window. A neon green puncture wound against deep black construction paper, a flickering 'open' sign for straight laced ravers, yuppie moths to a green lantern.
I leave to go meet Brian for dinner in Times Square.

Day Five -

2008-04-11T18:17:00.000-07:00

I feel about as green as my surrounding landscape right now. I've been dropped off in the middle of the east coast, completely alone. Dropped like a baby from a clumsy midwife's arms. She tried to give the child to its parents, but instead delivered it to the unforgiving world. I am a big, fat baby with a GPS navigation system and an American Express gold card.

I am sitting on a bench at the PATH station in Metuchen, waiting for the 3:14 to Penn station. A black woman sits down next to me, reading the jacket of a worn book. She is wearing too much perfume, and is visibly uncomfortable sitting between two smokers - me and an old mechanic also waiting on his ride home. We read the advertisements posted on the wall over the tracks, trying hard to pass the time.

Personal service -served daily since 1839.

Used cars are better at VIP Honda.

Mamma Mia!

The train pulls up and the black woman scurries away from our impromptu smoking section, eager to rest her weary bones in a train car far away from me, from the mechanic, my new silent partner. We both slowly follow her on board.

A man in a blue blazer and red tie walks down the aisle of our car, punching our fares. He has the classic ticket-taker hat on: blue, brimmed, circular. He looks like a little General, closely inspecting us to see if his ranks are in file. A yellow stub is stuck on tope of each passenger seat in front of me, white and ochre bills lined up in a neat row down the length of the car. He approaches and I trade in my grey stub for a yellow. His unbecoming hat tells me he is an assistant conductor, not yet holding the rank he looks to command. His puncher clicks in rapid succession as he continues to scrutinize his troops.
Clicka-clicka-click.
Clicka-clicka-click.
He passes another conductor, a less prestigious looking one who is probably a Colonel at most. They nod and click at each other in unison as they shuffle past. A warm, four click hello from the subordinate is met with a single standoffish click of the General's sidearm. I feel the tension reverberate against the metal walls of the car.
"Next stop, New York City - Penn Station," says the voice of the Pakistani train operator over a crackly intercom.
I grab the aluminium pole connected to my seat and stand, waiting for the doors to open.

--------------------

Day Six.

The city is exactly as I remember it - tall, cold, completely inviting.
It accepts our poor, our hungry, our huddled asses as a mother would
welcome a lost junkie son back into her house for the umpteenth time.

How appropriate an analogy for me.

There are so many people everywhere, tripping over me. I am another empty beer can in the street. Women in Donna Karan pantsuits screaming at their cellphones, straight guys that look gay admiring each other's briefcases, girls in black skulled-up hoodies, guys in white Enyce jump suits, half-naked tricks and fully clothed Johns, spandex-clad bike messengers, spandex-clad gym rats, walking fanny packs, models that look like strung-out hookers, hookers that look like movie stars, movie stars that look like you and me. I stop at a Starbucks for a coffee, as there are only three more on my walk back to Brian's apartment, and I do not
want to forget my espresso.

Taiwanese toys and knock-off Prada bags pelt me from sidewalk vendors who expect me to return fire with wads of cash. I feign indifference.

We ate a three hundred dollar meal last night at a restaurant where our waiter wore a tuxedo and I wore a ripped t-shirt and jeans. I fit right in; looking poor is haut couture; the new irony. Of course I didn't pay. I actually AM poor.

I woke up on an air mattress in the kitchen at three in the afternoon, greeted by a three and a half pound Yorkie pissing on my chest. I had to do ten dollars worth of laundry, which amounted to two shirts and a pair of underwear.

New York real estate is not summed up with 'location' thrice, but rather two other words: Cock Size. Apparently, Brian has an enormous cock. One trip downstairs and outside of Brian's penis has 27th staring down at the Empire State Building, a coffee shop or ten, organic food store (i'm such a fucking Californian now) dry cleaners, McDonald's, six subway stops - everything. Even if you have a heart attack from all the fantastic pizza you're eating, there's a cardiology center two blocks away.

I am surrounded by pussy everywhere I walk. I feel like Augustus Gloop walking into Willy Wonka's garden of hedonism.
Black amazonian women stretching seven feet tall and looking down on me, petite Asian frames in plaid schoolgirl skirts, hipsters with long bangs and tight black little-boy jeans, redheaded librarian types silently aching to be beaten with chains in some
SoHo dungeon, lesbians(they torture me the most - oh GOD), straight girls that look like lesbians, lesbians that looks like straight girls, plastic-chested soccer moms, obvious trannies, less obvious trannies, and of course, gobs and gobs of homemade vanilla white girls, fresh off the bus from whatever one syllable midwestern babyfactory they came from, luggage under one arm and dreams of 'making it' (whatever stupid dream 'it' is for them this week) under the other.

I love New York.

Day Three -

2008-04-11T17:54:00.000-07:00

(early)

It's five seventeen in the morning in Piscataway, New Jersey.
The air outside of the Embassy Suites is crisp, but still greets
me warmly even in a t-shirt and pajama bottoms. The menthol
cigarette is also cool. It reminds me that I am alive.

Thus marks the beginning of my road diary.

I am to deliver a car from the east coast to the middle of the
bible belt; Fort Worth, Texas. My family asked me to go on
this errand for them. I consider it more of a pilgramage. My
path is paved in asphalt and debauchery. My partners are a
pack of matches and this Macbook. My Mecca is nowhere,
everywhere.

I am going, going gone.

I almost hit a rabbit in the road this morning. I'm convinced that
aside from a life of eating, sleeping and fucking every other rabbit
that hops nearby, darting out in front of cars at the last possible
second before being crushed is the only form of entertainment
they have. An extreme sport, perhaps.
Thumper knows how close he comes to death every day, and
he gets off on it. Then he scurries home to his little burrow
and gets off all over Mrs. Thumper's face.

Maybe that's why they're so damn alert all the time.
They look for the next high, the next orgasm that nearly
coincides with a quick, gruesome death. A death that leaves
their insides painted out over the highway for all the
other road trippers to see. A self-portrait of wishful agony
in an otherwise meaningless existance.

"Look at me, you highwaymen, you kings and queens of
the road. Look at my guts on the ground. Look at the
splatter patterns and see me for real. See what i'm made
of and let the flies feast. See that we are made of the
same goo, the same red aqua vitae, the same mess.
See you in me."

Brother rabbit is still in my rearview mirror.

---------------------

This morning, after sitting outside on the front stoop of the Embassy Suites,
I walked inside and met my pops for breakfast. The chef at the omlette bar
was an amicable fellow named Antonio, and my dad knew him from the plenty of other times that he had stayed as a guest here. Antonio said that I was a 'handsome boy,' and that my dad should be proud. After that, a woman stole our USA Today from our table and read it in front of us, pretending that nothing had happened. In my mind, I screamed "CUNT" in her face. We said nothing.

We had dinner with three of my father's associates at an Italian restaurant as a sort of goodbye dinner. I'm moving him out of the apartment he has in New Jersey, since he now has a different job in Texas. He used to commute every other week from Fort Worth to the Garden State. He has stated that he will not miss this.
Dinner was about as pleasant for me as I would have expected; making idle conversation with three complete strangers who have no regard for me whatsoever outside of being polite to my father. Most of my time was spent drinking black currant iced tea and staring at our waitress' ass.

We went for a drive to the area that I spent ages 5 through 8 growing up. Flashes of youth would pop into frame here and there, reminding me of what life looked like through the car window as a young boy. Most striking to me was that everything had shrunk; the streets were much shorter than when I used to walk them before. The houses sank feet into the ground. Even the trees looked smaller. My whole world, what once seemed so expansive and complete, looked like the molded resin inside a snowglobe, sans winter coat.
Is this what growing old is like? Shrinking environments seeming less and less familiar? Every touchstone eroding from memory faster than I imagined possible? Memories of looming playground equipment and towering slides turning into ant farms? If it is, then I don't ever want to come back again.

We had tiramisu made out of a sink sponge dipped in shaving cream.
It was perfect.