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personal

Let it burn

Sometime we have let go of the old things we love to let in the new

A roof on fire in the big city.

 

Did you ever wonder why NYC’s, NYC? That is to say, how it became the biggest city in the world? Why not Boston, Philly, or DC?

In 1776, this massive fire occurred and pretty much wiped out the city as it was.

Afterward, the city made a decision in 1811 to set up the grid pattern we all know in NYC – doesn’t sound like much until you think that most everything past 14th street was forest.

Other places, like Boston, would have been like, “Well, there’s a tree where the road should go, and no one’s here anyway, so let’s just build a road around the tree.” But the plan said to cut down any tree and fill in any stream in the way of the streets – which most people thought of as insane and wasteful.

But cause they did that, the city grew in an orderly fashion and immigrants – like my folks – that couldn’t speak a lick of English could get around the city. So they came here.

Another one of my buddies called me today:

Me: What’s the dilly?
Him: Flipped the company. For $100M.
Me: Oh, NICE! Are you rich? More to the point, do you owe me money?
Him. “Yes,” and “no.”
Me: Wait – $100K or $100M?
Him: $100M.
Me: Do you need a manservant? I can be like Cato.
Him: That would be awesome. “I’m home!” WHAM!

He too had a hard life, as did Sheridan. Something about suffering makes y’want to succeed, to make things better.

Chris Rock once said that, “There’s something about being picked on that makes you work harder to make a reality where no body picks on you.”

It’s not true for everyone; some people that suffer stay broken. But the ones that get better – oftentimes – get a lot better. Bendy. The broken ones tend to get more broken.

If you’re the former, sing it with me – We don’t need no water, let the @#$@#$ burn…

 

Location: near Grand Central
Mood: ambitious
Music: she all fly But I can take the heat
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personal

It’s personal

It’s just business was supposed to mean exactly the opposite of what it means

A metro station in Washington DC

 

Me: Man, it’s like 2Pac said, That’s just the way it is.
Heartgirl: But Logan, in the original song, he says, But don’t you believe them.

Told Koreanjohnny to read The Godfather cause he’s young enough and old enough to appreciate it. Read the book before I saw the movie so I looked at it differently.

While I loved the movie, Coppola made two changes to the story that always bothered me. The first one is that line everyone tells you right before they screw you at work or business or something: “It’s not personal, it’s business.”

But the truth of the line never made it to the movie; it happens in a conversation between Mike and his brother, Tom, who says that Mike’s taking it all too personally:

Tom, don’t let anybody kid you. It’s all personal, every bit of business. Every piece of s__t every man has to eat every day of his life is personal. They call it business. OK. But it’s personal as hell. You know where I learned that from? The Don. My old man. The Godfather. If a bolt of lightning hit a friend of his the old man would take it personal. He took my going into the Marines personal. That’s what makes him great. The Great Don. He takes everything personal Like God. He knows every feather that falls from the tail of a sparrow or however the hell it goes? Right? And you know something? Accidents don’t happen to people who take accidents as a personal insult.

Just over a year ago, I told you that we live in a Cliff’s Notes society – where we think we know something, but we don’t know the whole thing.

People always make excuses for screwing others over. But I like that last line: Accidents don’t happen to people who take accidents as a personal insult.

If they tell you otherwise, don’t you believe them, don’t let’s anybody kid you.

Man, it’s always personal to someone. That’s the truth of it.

Me: You’re right. I forgot.

Location: a large blue bed
Mood: awake
Music: Belief Makes things true Things like you

Categories
personal

Grace and Mercy

Do you know the difference between Grace and Mercy?

Him: The fine is $2,000 a day for non-compliance.
Me: (coughing) You either gotta kill me and sell my body parts a nickel a shot, or we’ve gotta work something out.
Him: (laughing) We don’t have a department for that type of collection. (pause) I can give you two more days. Can you be in compliance by then?
Me: (nodding) Hell or high water.

Do y’know the difference between Grace and Mercy? They’re two sides of the same coin.

  • Grace is when you get the good things you don’t deserve.
  • Mercy is when you don’t get the bad things you do deserve.

Been posting less these days – cause I’ve never been into ranty posts. I did call my brother about two days ago, though. Guess something in my voice worried him. Or maybe mom told him about my shaking. Dunno.

Today I was running around all morning, having one unpleasant meeting after another, before I finally made it to my office.

And there sat my brother.

He dropped everything and took the 7AM flight outta Florida. I was in the hood, thought I’d see you, he joked. Then he looked down for a moment and asked, You ok?

Outside, my three employees were working, my partner was in her office, and I had clients waiting. I said it before, the words that’ll make a grown man cry are, I’m on my way. Just showing up’s even better.

But a boss weeping in his office doesn’t do anyone any good. So instead, I coughed, cleared my throat, frowned and nodded. He got it.

Later that night he and his friend Kathy had dinner with my folks, laughed, and sang about two American kids growing up in this heartland on the road home.

Today I got mercy from a total stranger and grace from my earliest memory.

Yes, I said honestly, I’m ok, now.

Location: 22:00 yest, Rego Park
Mood: hopeful
Music: life goes on Long after the thrill of livin is gone

Categories
personal

Eponine

We are all we know

The subway’s never empty. Unless you’re an insomniac. Then they’re empty a hellva lot.

———-

Thought about some of the people I’ve met recently and in the not-so-distant past. For some strange reason, I also thought of a girl I dated once. It’s the fall.

Part of the reason I think I liked her was because she said that every person that ever went out with her treated her like crap (I’m weird like that). When she told me that, I thought of Eponine from Les Mis.

The book’s a little different from the musical. In the book, there’s this one scene where she’s tossed a stale piece of bread. Starving, she pounces on it like a crazed animal. The hard bread hurts her teeth but she says that she knows the bread is good because it’s hard.

See, Eponine has no concept that there’s such a thing as bread that’s not rotten and not hard. It’s all she knows.

Tried to treat the ex nicely – never did find out if she she thought I did. Random, right?

As for me, well, my friends think I’m lucky because so many people enter and exit my Venn Diagram.

I’m not sure. You see, it’s all I know…

Location: 20:30, getting caught in some rain in Bayside
Mood: exhausted
Music: through the clouds Memories come rushing up to meet me now

Categories
business personal

One at a time

I could handle it all, if it only was one at a time

(c) History Channel

 

At The Battle of Thermopylae, the Spartans arranged it so that, despite being vastly outnumbered, they only had to deal with the soldier directly in front of them. One at a time. The thousands of soldiers behind them just didn’t exist. Only the one in front of them.

Affiliate
Her: I’m not sure…
Me: Look, I’m not asking you to trust me. You don’t know me. I’m asking you to give me a chance. One chance. Let me show you what we can do.
Her: (thinking) I’ll send you two deals. Don’t %^$& them up.
Me: We won’t.

Contractor
Him: Why would I do that? I don’t even know you.
Me: Because, I’m young and I’m bright. And if you do this for me, a young and bright (if not altogether too trusting) guy in the world owes you a favor. Ask around, that means something.
Him: I can wait one more week.

Creditor
Him: It’s too late.
Me: If you do it that way, you’ll get $0.65 on the dollar. My way, it’ll take longer, but you’ll get 100%.
Him: (pause) I’ll see what I can do.

Repeat about 20 times a week for six weeks.

Just one massive, career-ending, financially-destructive catastrophe at a time, please.

One at a time.

Location: 12:08, 13:02, 14:24, 16:33: 17:02 – banks
Mood: exhausted
Music: you must be real far gone; you’re relating to a psychopath

Categories
personal

Veterans Day 2007

Three Koreans were captured in Normandy fighting for the Nazis

Some of the first “Germans” captured in Normandy were three Koreans. They were captured by the Germans from the Russians, who captured them from the Japanese, who forced them to fight in the first place.

Crazy right? Fact is usually stranger than fiction. You know, unlike what you might have heard, the average age of men killed in Vietnam was 23 years old; in WWII, it was 26.

That sounds even crazier to me.

———-

Angry over a NATO issue, French President Charles de Gaulle is said to have demanded that all American troops leave French soil. President Lyndon B. Johnson responded, “Does that include the ones buried at Omaha Beach?”

It’s so easy to forget them, isn’t it?

Location: 17:00 yest, giving legal advice off West End Ave
Mood: drained
Music: I’m so tired but I can’t sleep

Categories
personal

Saving the world, or at least visiting

Stanislav Petrov saved humanity once

Dunno if you know about this guy Stanislav Petrov but he saved humanity by pretty much doing nothing. I like Heroes as much as the next guy but this, as real life, is something else.

To make a long story short, due to a bunch of insane coincidences, the Soviet Union ’round this time in ’83 thought the US launched all our nukes at them and he was ordered to counterstrike with all of their nuclear weapons.

He refused. Because he wasn’t insane.

He knew we wouldn’t have launched against them for the same reasons. Then, he lost his career for saving the world. How’s that for a thank you?

I too did almost nothing today but I didn’t save humanity because of it.

Did manage to get a haircut though.

———-

I’m going to Oktoberfest on my own for the last three days and I just spent the last three hours trying to book a hotel.

My German has gone to crap.

Location: mentally, over there
Mood: tired but excited
Music: do the good thing hey hey I saved the world today
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personal

Not enough time, Pt II

Men live on average 26,280 days

 

Yesterday, I was out with Nadi and we were drinking until 3AM. The waitress, Heidi, comped us two pitchers of beer. Today, I went back with two other friends and pounded another three pitchers.

Told the girl I was with that prior to 2006, I only ever kissed seven girls. She seemed to not believe me.

But it’s true.

———-

More fun with math – new numbers for US life expectancy:

  • US citizens live, on average, 77.9 years.
  • Women in the US live for 79.10 years.
  • Men get their ticket punched earlier at 72.2 years.

To put this into better perspective:

  • Women live for 28,871 days
  • Men live for 26,280 days.

Been kicking here for roughly 12,500 days.

In other words, I’m about halfway there to finding out if God’s there or not. If I find out, I’ll try and email you. Maybe less. Maybe more. I guess it’ll depend on how much sleep I get and how accident-prone I’m gonna be.

Regardless, it’s so damn short, isn’t it?

You and I, man, we can’t sit around waiting for our real lives to begin. The race is long, yes but not long enough.

Never long enough.

Location: 12AM, 72nd Street, asking her how her week was
Mood: contemplative
Music: And I was lost for words In your arms

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Great Expectations

Everyone I ever liked was some form of Estella

Dickens actually wrote two endings for the book – in the published version, you don’t know what happens to the two of them.

In the original, Dickens had Pip realize that he loved the girl that was cruel. And that girl was gone. The good girl left behind, wasn’t the one he loved.

I can relate. Think all the women I’ve ever had a thing for was some version of Estella. Interesting, eh?

I would love to meet a girl with that name. There was this Korean girl Stella whom I had a crush on. When we got our yearbooks, she wrote, You should have asked me out, I woulda said yes.

Argh! It’s why I don’t tell people things like that.

Other names I like:

  • Alexis – damn, that’s sexy
  • Amanda – just dated one
  • Marie – just met one from France, seeing her soon
  • Melissa/Melody/Molly – no explanation
  • Yve/Yvonne – massive elementary school crush
  • Many French/German/Russian names – Tajania, Katja
  • Many Japanese names – Naomi, Marimo

Once dated a girl who was Frau Zuzanne D’Longe – that was just hot.

Just walked in from a date.

Keep wondering if it’s better to have expectations or to have none.

Location: -30 mins telling her, I’m going in again
Mood: sotted
Music: I’d just like to know do you love him or just making time

Categories
personal

Seven more things you might not know about me

Doing another meme – it’s what we do…

I’m doing the following meme as a followup to something similar a while back. So here are seven more things you might not have known about me:

  1. I paid for part of college by working in NYC clubs. I’m hard of hearing in one ear because of it.
  2. Unless due to (a) work or (b) a prior engagement – and much like that girl in high school everyone talks about – I never say no to a party.
  3. I’m a TV addict and built a machine that can record 750 hours of TV – cause I’m a geek.
  4. Prior to 8/2006, I only ever kissed 10 girlies. Since then, I’ve kissed a few more.
  5. I really quit my job to be a competitive fighter six years ago but then I got injured in training (dammit). I tell people I quit to write so I don’t have to tell the story.
  6. I’ve saved 10% of everything I’ve ever made since I was 14. Because of that, I own my apartment and have for the past three years. I have no debt besides the mortgage (and my bookie).
  7. I miss being 8. We were poor but I was always happy. I remember my mom brought me to the doc because she worried that I was daft – I’d stand and stare at the blue sky for hours.

My mom doesn’t know that, 26 years later, I still do it – shhhhhhh don’t tell her.

She worries.

Location: 10PM yest, at Bourbon St asking her if she knows
Mood: chipper
Music: there’s no place that I could be without you honestly

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