Tag: social commentary

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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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Fallen Summer

I got my pad, my people and my poison. Someday, maybe my person too.

You are not superior just because you see the world in an odious light.

My friend Jaerik made an interesting observation on my blog that I don’t think I’ve ever noticed myself.

He said that I rarely do angry blog entries. Never thought of that.

I think people do angry on the internet because it’s easy and makes for pseudo-intellect. Sure there’s lots to be pissed about; life is inherently unfair.

But man, that’s the quickest way to a bitter, solitary life.

This blog is mostly about my love life because, well, I got nuthin else to complain about.

Not really.

I got my pad. I got my people. I got my poison. I just picked up a new whip to replace my old ride. Another 300 payments and it’s all mine.

Figure someday I’ll get the girl too. Someday.

For now, I’ll take the fall weather we’re having in summer here in NYC.

Speaking of which, I met this girl at Bryant Park tonight…

Location: in front of a pile of books again
Mood: content
Music: God gave me everything

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personal

Sold I to the merchant ships

I consider our origins

Well I’ve gotten some…colorful emails based on my last post.

While both men and women read a lot more into it than intended, both seemed to disappointed in me for completely different reasons.

Primo Levi wrote in Survival in Auschwitz, that he carried a 100 pound soup pot because it gave him a few moments in the sun.

A guard gave him the gig for Italian lessons. So Levi taught him Dantes Inferno 26, which has the line, Considerate la vostra semenza: fatti non foste a viver come bruti, ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza.

Consider your origin; you were not born to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.

Look, we’re human. We’re flawed. But we try. It’s our redemption song.

Dante and Levi both believed that we have some nobility somewhere – even after seeing their respective hells, yeah?

Location: 2PM yest, watching a rooster in Harlem
Mood: amused
Music: someday we’ll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun

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personal

Nighthawks

Edward Hopper’s painting is still relevant even now

 

There were about 7.3 million people here in NYC in 1990. Now we’re at over 8.2 million – essentially double that of LA with about 14% more adult females than adult males.

That’s a lotta people.

Funny thing is, the names and faces change, but the people are always the same.

The painting above is of the Village in ’42, just after Pearl Harbor.

You got the counterman and the nighthawks – the people out on the hunt for something, someone. The counterman’s looking out. He’s probably got a family, so he wants to go. The nighthawks?

They got no one. They’re in no rush.

But look close. There’s no door; no windows that open. They’re on display. It’s all justa show.

And the guys? It’s the same guy. A copy of a copy.

I had some stories of the weekend but I told them to you already.

Nighthawks all got the same story; millions of people but few connections.

Yeah, we’re all here in the same place, the same joint.

But in 8.2 million different worlds.

Location: 4PM yest, Columbus Circle meeting someone
Mood: relieved
Music: Kennedy and Monroe come to see my rock show
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New York in the Indigo

When Harry Met Sally is just a film, it’s not the real world

I’ve been sitting here working all damn day. At least it’s the weekend. Hazel took this picture a couple of weekends back at the 7/7/07 rooftop party. Time’s just sprinting by.

People email me asking why Hazel, Somena, or any of my other female friends and I don’t just get together.

It’s because When Harry Met Sally isn’t the real world or the NY I know. In my NY, guys can have three types of female friends: former somethings, just friends, and potential somethings.

In my life at least, we all know the parts we play.

A guy like me won’t end up with a chick just cause she’s around. And vice versa.

Who wants that? That’s like when you eat the crap in the fridge because you’re too lazy to go out so you think, Eh, it looks ok.

I’ve had crazy love before. Once you’ve had that, everything else is a distant second. If you’ve ever been loved, you know. You won’t take less.

Dean Martin knew that you can never really go home to Steubenville after you’ve seen the lights of New York.

I’m alone, yeah.

But I’m not lonely.

OK, back to work…

Location: my black chair, all %#@! day
Mood: beat tired
Music: It ain’t no big thing But I know what I like
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My biggest fan

What is your definition of love?

 

Meant to post this a while ago but I thought it was too long. It’s my definition:

When I was 15, my best friend, Kevin, told me that my girl Diana cheated on me. We never spoke, I just shut her out. Stupid kid stuff.

Maybe a decade later, I drove by her home and, for some reason, I rang her doorbell. I expected her to slap me when she answered the door; instead, she let me in, gave me a smile and an apron. She had this huge bar of chocolate that she told me to chop for cookies.

So I went in and started chopping.

After a bit, I asked her, half-jokingly, what happened between us.

She stopped and answered:

You listened to Kevin but we both know that he was the first guy to ask me out after we broke up. So that makes you an idiot. I never cheated on you, you know that. I was your biggest fan. That makes me an idiot. You never stood up for me and I didn’t understand why, because I was kind to you. I was on your side but you weren’t on mine.


Why weren’t you?

I had no answer. Almost twenty years after the fact, I still have no answer. I don’t remember anything else but I remember what she said.

That conversation started me off in being who I am now. In fact, I learned the phrases biggest fan and on your side that day.

It’s why I’m always loyal.

You see, she doesn’t know, but I still wonder if No. 7 ever found that job under the California sun; I wanna call her office someday and hear that message that says she’s left the company she hates.

And I still wonder if Diana bought that ranch in Colorado that she dreamt of and has kids to help her make cookies. I wouldn’t know, though.

I never saw her again.

But I hope she got it all.

As for me, I’m waiting for someone to be on my side again.

Location: home
Mood: pensive
Music: But until then I’ll do just fine on my own

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personal

Pandora

What was the last thing in Pandora’s Box?


They opened a new Amish school house in Pennsylvania the other day.

Hopeful is good.

I think.

Have you ever actually read about Pandora’s box? Yes, she unleashed all of life’s misery but did you know that Hope was the final thing in the box? It was also the only thing Pandora managed to trap.

Eventually, Hope escaped.

There are two ways to look at this, either:

  • Hope is the one thing that counteracts all the crap life throws your way; OR
  • Hope is the worst of all evils because when you’re let down, well…I’m sure you’ve been let down before so, you know.

Always thought it was the former. In my late nights, I’m not sure. I think it may be the latter.

I would like it to be the former, but, then again, I would like a lot of things.

Location: @3:30, crossing the 59th St. Bridge
Mood: sad
Music: read my mind love What a tale my thoughts would tell

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personal

Cops and Robbers

Numbers sanctify

Cops are getting killed, left and right in my fine city. Crime is up.

I have a theory. Back when Giuliani was mayor, you got busted for littering or jaywalking. People had to respect the law. Now, with scores of people dying from bombs each day, and the public pretty much immune to it, it’s hard to take things like littering seriously.

The price of a life currently less than $20 here in the big city.

Wars, conflict, it’s all business. One murder makes a villain. Millions a hero. Numbers sanctify.
-Charlie Chaplin

Things never change.

Location: @1AM, East side, getting a call
Mood: tired
Music: my picture fades and darkness has turned to gray

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personal

Depression

Richard Jeni shot and killed himself

Richard Jeni shot and killed himself this week. The news upset me. I liked him. He was good at what he did. He made people laugh. He made me laugh.

Cause: depression.

Depression is horribly, ridiculously misunderstood. I hate how it’s something talked about in hushed tones, an embarrassment. No one sees cancer as an embarrassment but the end results of both, untreated, is the same. Someone ends up dead.

Nobody (in their right mind) refuses chemo because they worry how the family might look with a bald wife/son/father/daughter. When you catch a cold, no one thinks you’re brave if you refuse medication or help.

You’re just an idiot.

Read something once where they interviewed the people that jumped off bridges and survived. They pretty much universally said that, on the way down, they thought, “Oh man, I can change everything about my life…except this thing I’m doing now.”

I heard on the drive home last night that Brad Delp from Boston killed himself too.

What a waste. A colossal, avoidable, waste.

Postsecret
The Overnight

Location: @9 PM yesterday, getting kicked out
Mood: angry
Music: spiraling down to the hole in the ground where I hide

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personal

Cowboys

Aren’t most friendships finite?

I’ve been stuck here for a bit. Don’t ask. But it reminds me of something from a while ago.

One of my closest friends in college was a guy named Crawford who was a god at meeting women – he was (a) good-looking, (b) charming and (c) shameless. We had a blast for two years.

He told me a story once. He said that real cowboys were hired, maybe five to eight at a time, in one state to drive cattle to the other end of the country. This bunch of guys was thrown together for months at a time and, during this time, they were each others’ friends, doctors, entertainers, cooks and guardian angels. They needed to keep each other sane and safe to get the job done.

And once the job was done, they separated. No emails, faxes, phone calls, letters. Just onto the next job.

The question Crawford posed to me was: were they truly friends? Is there such thing as friendship when there’s a finite ending?

What about when two lovers separate – was there any love really there?

My answer to all is yes.

Because at some point everything ends. Life will take everything and everyone you love. There is nothing you can touch that you won’t lose at some point down the line.

Five months, fifty years, the time doesn’t make it any more or less real.

I take solace in that.

At some point, these people I loved, once loved me. It’s sad when relationships end but goodbyes are always sad.

Crawford and I both moved here to the big city. We met up once but then I never saw him again.

He was a good friend.

Location: @ 7:10 AM, taking the east side local
Mood: optimistic
Music: Its such a shame, Always ends the same