Tag: discussion

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personal

Lasagna in Damascus

Location: same since July 1997
Mood: wanting Indian food
Music: forget the past. Do you want to dance

Indian food

Me: I guess I’ve lived within the same five blocks for the past..jeez, 13 years? That’s hard to believe. What about you?
Him: Hmm… (counting) I’d say I’ve lived about seven more places than you since July 1997. (thinking) More importantly my cat’s lived in seven more places that you since July 1997.

Don’t handle change well; I like my home.

With the exception of cheap Indian food, most everything a fella’d wanna eat’s usually within a ten minute walka my pad.

This week, had Italian, Mediterranean, Asian, American, and Mexican; and it’s only Thursday. My mom was always pretty agnostic when it came to cooking – she made a mean chili and some killer lasagna in addition to Chinese food.

No wonder I was a fat kid.

The Economist just had this article noting that sushi’s insanely popular in Damascus – probably the last place you’d expect. The gist of the article’s that exposure to food’s the first step in exposure to different people, culture, etc. In short, food could potentially equal freedom.

That sounds about right to me.

YASYCTAI: Find a new place/thing to eat. (90 mins/1 pt)

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personal

Stay Gold

Friends are the family you choose

Menu and candle at a bar with Jaymay singing

Cool thing about my city’s that you’re only $2.25 away from adventure. The lady was working so I called up a buddy.

Me: Jaymay’s playing downtown 8PM. You in?
Him: I dunno…
Me: You’re single. Never turn down an invitation.
Him: I’ll meet you there.

Jaymay in concert 2010.04.28

Great concert, seats and venue. She was super nice.

Me: So, I’m gonna do the stupid tourist thing and ask for your autograph.
Her: Do you have something to write on? (takes paper and writes)
Me: Are you writing something mean? (turning to girl next to her) Is she writing something mean, like in high school?
Her: (laughing and shaking my hand) Thanks for coming, Logan.

Jaymay autograph

Have more stories for you; saw a great flick, baked a ham, and cut another friend loose.

Suppose I’ll tell mosta them to y’next week.

The cutting of the friend, I’ll tell you now. In a nutshell, your friends’re the family y’choose. When you’re a kid, y’choose them cause your mom tells you to or they got the locker nexta yours. Whatever.

But as an adult, there’s really only one reason to call someone your friend – Someone’s your friend if you can answer this in the affirmative: Will this person, to his/her own detriment, look out for me?

If you can, do the same for them. If you can’t, cut em loose.

Been alive now for 13,500 days. Only got 12,780 days left here.

No time to waste it on anyone whom I can’t answer that question in the affirmative. You don’t got that kinda time either, kid.

Location: two hours ago, Rockwood Music Hall
Mood: entertained
Music: winning you with words because I have no other way
YASYCTAI: Go on a (short) adventure. It’s $2.25 here; what’s it where you are? (180 mins/2 pts)
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personal

Thought of kindly

Location: in fronta three screens all damn day
Mood: drained
Music: not sleeping, cold wind blowing in the middle of the night

Green arrow traffic signal in NYC

Spent the last four days cranking on a project. Just submitted it to the client a sec ago. So here I am with you, like old times.

Spoke to another old friend used to see every day. Lost touch, as things go. She had some static that I heard about so dropped her a line.

Her: Y’know, you gave me advice about things that I tell people to this day.
Me: Like what?
Her: (thinking) Well, a long time ago, I used to have to walk through this sketch alley to get home so I carried a knife with me. You told me to carry a small metal pen instead and showed me how to use it. I’ve been telling people that for years.
Me: (laughing) No kidding!
Her: (laughing) Yep. Plus I tell all my girlfriends so there’s a group of women here in San Fran that carry metal pens, all because of you.

Recalled another girl that dropped me a note a while ago thanking me for something I wrote once. Suppose it’s like that Donne poem, y’know – islands and all of that.

Funny how the things we say and do live on beyond our memory of them. It’s good t’be thought of kindly.

YASYCTAI: Call up an old friend for no real reason. (45 mins/1 pt)

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personal

That which clings

Location: back in my black chair
Mood: grateful
Music: struggled in vain to solve this riddle with my brain

Central Park in early spring

Thanks for the birthday wishes. Won’t be calling on you again until a year from now.

My brother came with his girlie from Cali for my bday. No decent pizza round his parts so we hit up our local Queens pizza jointa as well as John’s and Patsy’s.

As for my bday, didn’t really do much – some dim sum and then in bed by 11PM. Heartgirl’s not about the dim sum.

Quite a different life than just a couplea years ago, yeah?

Speakinga which, my buddy’s still getting over his girlie. He always has a million excuses why he won’t clean his map.

Kept thinking he had a chance, if he just let it go for a year or so. But at some point, y’muck around with a scar too long and it doesn’t heal. The very definition of clingy is that which clings. And no one wants that which clings.

Suppose parta why worry about him’s cause I easily could have been him with my ex. I mean, I lived with the girl; saw her ever day for four years. Then one day – *poof* – she’s gone. Saw her again twice in four years.

She never came back and I never waited for her to.

See, y’can’t plead, argue, beg, or logic your way into someone’s life.

All y’can do is clean your map, throw the deuce, and say Peace out.

All y’can do is burn your boats and try to make it home.

If she comes back, great – try again with your semi-clean map.

If she doesn’t, great – y’might meet a beautiful, green-eyed, blond who buys you nice shiny.

Logan's Ipad

YASYCTAI: Get your teeth cleaned. I wanna make out with someone if only cause my teeth feel amazing. (60 mins/2 pts)

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personal

Logan’s 37/Adulthood’s funny

Location: in front of my iPad.
Mood: old but content
Music: find myself remembering now and then

Logan Lo with some rum

Heartgirl got me an iPad. She’s lovely – both the iPad and Heartgirl.

———-

Him: So why is oriental offensive to people?
Me: (shrugging) Three reasons, I suppose:
1. It means east, which implies easta someth’n, and if we’re east, then easta who?
2. It picks up connotations just like any word does. Like there’s nuthin wrong with the word piss, it’s just the monosyllabic Anglo-Saxon waya saying the polysyllabic Latin urination. But connotations, y’know? (pause) And
3. it’s a rug dude, something you walk on. Would you wanna be called something that people wipe their feet on?
Him: (laughing) No, I suppose not.

Met up with onea the fellas that I brought to court recently – not this idiot but his landlord – and cost me some Manhattan real estate. Nice guy, actually.

Adulthood’s funny.

People you war with today, y’might find sitting across a peach-coloured couch in the future, discussing the finer points of etymology. The key’s to not just fight hard but honorably. And when the fighting’s over, just move on.

He gets props cause he fought a good fight. If things were different, we mighta been friends.

Speak’na adulthood, 37 on Saturday. Way closer to 40 than 20. Luckily, there’s rum in my not-too-distant future to soften the blow.

For thosea you reading me for a while, you know the drill – wanna know if anyone’s still reading besides the four or five stalwart commenters I got.

So, wish me a happy birthday, all of you bastards that read me but never say anything.

Logan Lo at 37

YASYCTAI: Hit that comment button. (1 min/0.5 pts)

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personal

Well-Traveled Gentlemen

Location: rainy NYC
Mood: sweaty
Music: the wind will be wailing but I will be sailing faster

Brooklyn Bridge at night

Merriam-Webster says that a gentleman is a man whose conduct conforms to a high standard of propriety or correct behavior.

Recently on ABC, report Brad Garrett on GMA, said about the scumbag that raped and killed seven-year old Somer Thomson “Law enforcement does not have time to keep track of people like this gentleman.”

Could someone please buy Mr. Garrett a copy of MW or the OED and dog-ear “gentleman” and “scumbag” for him.

Evidently, he can’t tell the difference.

———-

Went out to see the girl’s family for dinner this past weekend. There’s little better than a home-cooked meal.

It’s a bit remarkable how different life is just an hour’s drive from the city. There’re deer there my friends, deer.

Onea of the most positive things about all of this blogging’re the glimpses into lives so different than my own.

Mark Twain said that travel’s fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness….Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.

Another quote I like’s by Letterman, who said that Wherever we’ve traveled in this great land of ours, we’ve found that people everywhere are about 90% water.

Sometimes, think I’ve lived a rather sheltered life. Fella I know’s off to fight a war ina dusty and dangerous place and another’s come back. They’ve my appreciation and respect.

The weather’s changing again so I’m thinkinga bridges again.

Her: Would you live there?

Me: (shrugging) Honestly, I be happy where ever you were. Well, you and the rum. (pause) Mostly you though.

YASYCTAI: Avoid shaking hands with anyone today. See how long y’can last. (24 hours/1 pt)

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personal

Neufchâtel

It doesn’t matter what you call it

You know all of these annoying hyperlinks in all of my posts? It’s to keep myself honest.

Won’t tell you that the smartest man in the US’s was a Long Island bouncer or that what you think of as cinnamon is probably something called cassia unless I can prove it to you.

Recently told a young guy that the Republican Party was founded for the main purpose of stopping slavery and that Abe Lincoln the first Republican. He didn’t believe me.

Grew up in quiet appreciation of Reagan saving the world and Giuliani saving my hide.

But George W. Bush’s speechwriter David Frum noted that the Republican party went horribly wrong when they took the track of convincing people that the Democratic Party was looking to kill babies and grandmothers. They got the very dregs of the party.

Do you know why people become a genre of a person? The liberal flower power girl, the bow-tie wearing conservative? Cause it makes hard decisions easy. Simply parrot what the person to the right (or left) of you is saying and say it with enough umbrage that no one will question you.

Answering with reasoned thought seems to not be in vogue any more. Politics has chosen to let people who respond as children – with anger, hatred, and ranting – set the scene for discourse. And if I say anything, I’m not a true Republican.

It appears Nixon wasn’t a true Republican either, as it was his plan Obama passed. Nor is Yale educated Frum. Nor is conservative Harvard educated speechwriter, Ben Stein.

If Sarah Palin represents the best of what we can offer, take my business elsewhere, thank you.

One more stupid fact: what we call cream cheese is actually the screw up of an old French cheese called Neufchâtel. But what we call light cream cheese is actually Neufchâtel.

My point’s essentially the same point as the last entry: that I don’t care what you call it. Things are what they are.

Location: 5AM, awake in bed
Mood: annoyed
Music: love me or hate me, it’s still an obsession

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personal

My will’s done

Unreasonable people are dangerous

Dreary, rainy, NYC

Rarely do a political post, but here we are.

In Underworld, the final words of onea the main character’s, “My will is done, regardless.”

When Bush was president, he made some jaw-droppingly poor choices, yes. But he also quietly tripled AIDS help to Africa. $9 billion to a continent where the average adult survives on $1,968 annually. He deserves recognition of that. But the people that hate him don’t wanna hear it.

Now it’s flipped with Obama.

Consider the health care bill; the actual form of the bill’s closest to the one that Nixon – the prototypical Republican – tried and failed to pass in 1974.

It’s a universal health care paid by a sliding scale to help small business-owners and entrepreneurs, the backbone of the Republican party. Here’s Nixons plan in his own words.

The current plan’s shockingly similar.

And yet, cause it was introduced by the Democratic party, it’s denounced by the same party that introduced it in 1974.

Prejudice in its simplest form, has nuthin to do with race, creed, or religion.

It has to do with making an uninformed decision.

Not married to any one ideology, my decisions are made on the best available information at the time. It’s a reasoned way to live.

Stay away from those that are convinced they’re right. Cause reason has no place in their world. And unreasonable people are dangerous. Insert my fave Nietzsche quote here.

As for health care, don’t care that it’s a Republican bill passed by the Democratic party or vice versa. My will’s done, regardless.

Location: yest, 8PM getting drenched on 7th Ave
Mood: disappointed
Music: had a dream That I could fly

Categories
personal

Advice

Location: home getting ready to leave
Mood: still sore
Music: used to think I had to change the way I am

NYC’s expensive but my friends and I’ve been here so long that we know where to go when the scratch’s barely there – or non-existent.

Take Curry Row for example; just wrote about it for an LJ Group I read.

There, for about $9, including tax and tip, you don’t gotta unwrap or open your food, cloth napkins, and silverware madea some kinda metal.

Every place’s got a joint like this, yeah? Where’s your goto place for cheap decent eats?

Anywho, met up with a buddy of mine still smarting over the loss of his girlie. Always preface any advice I give with, “Could be wrong, but doncha think…”

Cause, really, what do I know?

On that point, irritated cause someone gave advice to a buddy of mine that wasn’t just wrong; it woulda seriously made him sick cause it woulda resulted in him eating undercooked chicken.

Advice’s usually worth crap. Cause people usually give it, feel good about themselves, and go on their merry way. The listener of said advice hasta deal with the consequences.

If you’re not sure, don’t say anything or at least say, “Could be wrong, but dontcha think…”

Say whatcha want about my profession – a lawyer’s just not permitted to give BS advice. He’s got a duty to say either, “I don’t know,” or risk his license.

It’s that lawyer in me that has to document every claim I make – like in this blog with all of my ridiculous links. Annoying, yes, but feel I gotta.

Whenever y’take any advice, always ask if the person’s just giving it cause they wanna or if they actually know what they’re talking about.

Even Especially me.

———-

Administrative note: Not gonna be publishing for a week. Tell y’about it March 16th – cya then?

Read this review I wrote in the meanwhile.

YASYCTAI: Tell me where y’go for good, decent food. (5 mins/0.5 pts)

Categories
personal

The Acquisition of Knowledge

Location: in the heart of snow
Mood: still @#$@#$ sick
Music: I be the same when it all goes up I be the same when it all goes down

Was wondering why this song – which rocks – didn’t get much airplay. Then I saw the video. Least it’s a good song.

———-

Always kinda surprised by the people that marry their high school sweethearts.

If I married my high school/college girlfriend, woulda had one totally miserable person here in NYC.

I wouldn’tve been too happy either.

People go through massive changes from 15-21, again at 25-30, and once again at 30. The issue arises when one person changes one way and the other, another.

Elizabeth Gilbert said it best, Marriage is not a game for the young. Janeane Garofalo said someth’n like, imagine being married to the person who’s sole qualification was that they had the locker next to yours.

Been having a series of parallel conversations with three different people. Alla them’re very prouda the fact that they’re the same person as they were in the past.

But suppose y’believe the earth is flat. And despite all evidence to the contrary, your answer’s that you’ve always believed the world’s flat and that’s just how it’s gonna be.

(Insert your favourite George W. Bush joke here)

Said once that being grateful is the key to not being broken. Lemme add the coda that it’s also a willingness to say, OK, tell me why you think I’m wrong.

Put another way, why should the beliefs of a 16-year-old – when my buddy decided on something – rule the mind of a 35 year-old, his age now?

Are you better or worse if y’can say, I value the acquisition of knowledge above all else?

On yet another related point, become a man without a political party. The choice seems to be between a group enamored of their own ignorance and another inhibited by their own incompetence.

Gonna write in my mom as a candidate next year; if nuthin else, she’ll stay until the job gets done and save taxpayer money by bringing her own coffee.

YASYCTAI: Consider the data. (10 mins/1 pt)