New York Interval
I
parked my car at the LAX remote lot, wheeled my busted bag around for what
would be its final trip, boarded the shuttle, arrived at the terminal, checked
in, went through security, boarded my flight with a layover in Dallas/Fort
Worth, and wrote in my journal (which I should just mention before I transcribe
from it—is filled with some of the most execrable prose I have ever committed
to paper—this journal in particular, which I believe was my fourth one to be
filled. And upon viewing this entry, the
handwriting is very stark and neat—one of the few times I appear to be a model
writer, so let us see if this is the exception in this journal.):
“9/28/07
DFW
Airport
6:00 AM
(I hr before boarding)
Halfway
through my trip and I just realized I left not only my iPod plug but also
Giana’s wedding gift in L.A. Not to
mention the stuff I was going to mail home.
I hate my life. I hate myself
because I do these stupid things, and they bother me way more than they
probably should. I want to sleep but the
sun will be coming up soon. We’ll see
how many people want to sleep on a New York flight arriving at Noon. I want to die. I am very uncomfortable and poor. I want to take my socks off, but I
can’t. It was so uncomfortable on the
last flight. I should totally just
die. Nobody will ever love me
again. I hate the person I am. If I could see myself objectively, I am sure
I would not ever want to talk to that person.
I’m such a retard, my priorities are all screwed up, I can’t think of
anything worthwhile left for me to live for. I want to kill my parents and myself or run
away. I already ran away so now I just
want to kill myself. There should be a way
to commit suicide in every airport.
Airports expose the futility of adventure—you go in, you go out—who
cares that you can travel to an exotic global location it’s all a big business
anyway that’s probably never really worth it.
I’m flying to New York but I’ll be back in 8 days anyway. Why even go at this point? Just give me a gun in the bathroom and there
can be a suicide stall where you can get cleaned up after decomposing for a few
hours, and missing your flight. I wish I
were dead, or with someone here now.
There
are hilarious older ladies from the South behind me. Their accent alone is the only thing
reminding me that everything is in fact, all right. Still, my back aches, my scrotum itches, my
ankles itch, my toes feel suffocated, my legs itch underneath my pants. The sun is rising. I don’t know if I’ll ever be in love
again. I wish I could know so I could
decide for real if I should kill myself.
I hate travel, I hate politeness when you really think something else,
and I hate skin that needs to be itched.
Now I have to board.”
I think
I took the M60 bus from LaGuardia to the 125th St. subway to the 14th
St. subway and then called my friend Mike and told him I would be at his
apartment in just a moment. He buzzed me
in and we embraced and I put my bags down and I told him I was exhausted and I
asked if I could take a nap on the floor of his upstairs loft. He said yes and he asked if he could put on
the new Blonde Redhead album 23 and I
said yes and he studied law while I napped and the music was perhaps the most
perfectly soothing thing I could have listened to at the moment.
Later,
Erin came in. She should be called “New
York Erin” so there is no confusion about which one I am referring to—but it
should be clear as we generally keep to our referential geographies by
intuition. Erin was an actress who had
recently completed her first film which would be premiering at the Brooklyn
Film Festival in a few months. Mike
would later tell me to come into New York for that premiere, but it was beyond
my means. I think Erin and Mike started
playing Halo 3, which would go on for various parts of the next week, and I
would attempt to play with them but would get my ass kicked. To this date, I have never met a girl better
at video games than Erin.
Later
that night I ended up going to Flatbush in Brooklyn to meet with Justyn and
Aaron who would be attending Giana’s wedding with me. Justyn had rented a car for the occasion and
he picked me up in it which was great. I
think I had met up with Gabe at some point that day and also bought another
eighth for the week. I think Aaron and I
might have smoked in their bathroom while listening to the Cat Power album The Greatest which I decided in the
moment was her best album yet.
The
next morning we rose at an early hour, put on our jackets and ties, got into
the car and headed towards Westchester county.
On the way we listened to the Wipers album Youth of America and Justyn and I talked about all the bands we had
been listening to since we had stopped visiting with each other on a near
daily-basis during college, practically some three years before at that
point. But we had stayed in touch. Justyn had always been very good about
staying in touch. Aaron, not so much,
though I considered him one of my very best friends and always felt privileged
to be in his presence due to his genius which he would only sometimes reveal
through his music—though there were also times that he exasperated me with his
seemingly repetitive and juvenile sense of humor—though that is something that
others could accuse me of as well—as I borrowed certain phrasings that he, and
other friends would use that would be annoying to those unaccustomed to hearing
them. One of the best was my friend
Evan’s. Whenever I would be talking to
him about something, anything, any topic, and would say a particular word like,
“music festival,” and he would interrupt and say, “You’re a music festival.”
Whenever anybody would start to annoy me with their stilted dialogue and
pretentious musings, I would copy Evan’s technique for cutting them
down-to-size. This got to be such a
habit of mine that my friend Amanda once made the claim that I had originated
the “You’re a….” joke, but credit must be given to Evan. And perhaps I am wrong on that—perhaps he got
it from his older brother Mike.
But we
drove to the wedding, and we stopped at a bagel place for a little snack before
the ceremony, and we went to the ceremony, and it was beautiful, and
modest. I felt very privileged to be
part of Giana’s wedding party.
Afterwards while everyone was
mingling before the migration to the reception hall, I became bored and went
into the rental car and started playing Black Flag—the album Slip it In, which was one of my
obsessions of the second half of the year 2007.
I smoked a cigarette or two, and Justyn thought I was being rude, and
really I just wanted Aaron to hear it, because he also dug Black Flag and
hadn’t heard very much of their later material—which I felt was unfairly
maligned, and actually contained their most compelling work.
We drove to the reception hall and we were
allowed to have drinks and I had a couple.
I was sitting at a table with Diane, Giana’s maid-of-honor, and a couple
other bridesmaids, one of which, the cutest, was actually living in Wicker Park
Chicago. How I wanted to romance her and
move back to Chicago and be with her.
But also there was Caroline, whom I had known as a frequent visitor to
Giana and Diane’s room in college, and who was always very friendly and
funny. Then there was Claire, who was a
singer, like Caroline, and who I was meeting for the first time, and who I was
probably flirting with quite obviously.
In retrospect, I should have asked to dance with her. I smoked a few cigarettes and met several of
Giana’s husband’s extended family and found them to be friendly and interesting
people. At some point I made a phone
call to Wendy and some drama occurred, but I will not recount it. Also, our friend Eric D was serving as DJ for
the wedding, and I kept begging him to play “Bizarre Love Triangle” by New
Order but he refused, probably because he didn’t have it.
On the car ride back to Manhattan,
I made Justyn play “Bizarre Love Triangle” and we all realized how awesome a
song it was, and it goes on for so long, and Justyn was like, “Is this the
extended club mix or something?” We also
listened to the !!! song “Me and Giuliani Down by the Schoolyard” (which I was
thinking about the other night, and decided is probably the greatest song of
the decade of the 00’s) and the Deerhunter album Cryptograms (and consequently last night—Nov 15—I saw that band perform live at the Metro) and
I don’t remember where we stopped the car, maybe we went to Mike’s apartment
and convinced him to let us use his bong, even though he didn’t smoke anymore,
though he had kept it in a cabinet in his kitchen, but I know we ended up going
to Adam’s party that night.
Adam, who worked in the music
industry, who was my roommate for two years of college, and who was having his
housewarming party for the apartment I had stopped at briefly roughly six weeks
prior. Claire had given me her number,
and she was staying at a hotel in midtown and I kept calling her and once she
actually picked up and talked to me for a second and then I called her a couple
more times and she ignored it. I figured
she was either really drunk or was intimidated by the prospect of an actual
experience that may have made her feel like the s-word. Though to be perfectly honest I do not think
that it would be fair at all to call her that.
The party was great, with both Mike
and Evan there, standing back to back, despite their being former best friends
and now no longer on speaking terms, the result of an especially bizarre
falling out. Sam was there and it was
great to talk to him. Evan told me he
was making “bank,” and the only thing he spent money on was his bus pass and
alcohol. He told me he had recently
bought a pack of Pall Mall cigarettes and Sam said, “Dude, what the fuck are
you doing?” in the funniest way.
There were also girls like Jessica
and her friend Kim, who I smoked up, along with these Israeli grad students
that were very cool. I went nuts to
Kim. I was very drunk. I told her she was Kim Gordon and I started
singing “Shaking Hell” to the whole group while we were in the bedroom which
must have been a truly cringe-inducing moment.
I am amazed at my ability to be totally unguarded at times, leaving
myself totally open to ridicule. That
was a great party though! I loved
it. At one point, the point everyone who
was at that party remembers, firefighters showed up in full regalia, due to a
call of distress from the neighbors, who saw the smoke coming from Adam’s grill
and thought it to be an apartment fire.
The firefighters were really cool with everyone and thought it was very
funny.
The rest of the week is a blur to
me. I remember the Cubs started playing
the Diamondbacks that week, and Mike and I watched Game 1 at the MacDougal
Street Ale House, being joined by our friend Richie about halfway through. We also watched the Yankees playoff
games. The Cubs got swept and it was
horribly depressing. I don’t k now what
else I did, but there were also a couple journal entries that may encapsulate
the experience more fully. First, from
“suicide”:
“Now, in New York, at an apartment
on 12th St. with a 6th floor balcony, overlooking the
street, imagining being flattened like a fucking pancake, I hesitate. There would be no more good things. But last night, while trying to find a cooler
place to sleep, I walked up Mike’s ladder to his loft, and I knocked over one
Sony speaker and now the surround sound is no longer perfect. Of course I have to offer to replace it. My money is going down the tubes. At Macy’s, applying for a Macy’s card while I
bought garment sleeve and two pairs of briefs. I was only approved for a $100
amount. I hope this is a mix-up and not
a true representation of my credit rating.
I told the credit lady I had to talk to on the phone that if that was
the case I should just go kill myself.
My internet refuses to connect and
I’m meeting Kristin in two hours and forty-five minutes. I think I might watch Wayne ’s World or Borat. There is a kind of hopelessness about my
situation. I do not want to waste Mike’s
time, I don’t know if he minds, if I’m annoying to stay here and he is just
being inordinately hospitable. I am
seeing the other Mike tomorrow, so maybe I might stay there. I might be supposed to be helping Justyn
tonight move some kind of speaker cabinet.
I don’t really want to—their place is less nice than Mike’s. I’m not sure if I should go and then come
back, or just stay there. I think I’m
going to play Genesis to dull my mind a bit.”
I did
help Justyn move that cabinet and it was kind of annoying but that thing was
extremely powerful, the loudest personal amp I had ever heard inside one single
person’s room. I also remember watching
the Guided by Voices DVD The Electrifying
Conclusion and smoking out of Justyn’s bowl—that was an especially good
time as well.
But
there was also this experience in Union Square, from my journal, which is the
perfect way to cap this trip, before I add one more segment of “suicide”
yet! Journal:
“Union
Square
October
3, 2007
Wednesday,
3:49 PM
I am on
a bench, sitting next to a woman who is transcribing a book into her
handwriting, which is very beautiful, almost calligraphic. She asked me questions about my t-shirt:
-Who is
that player?
-Alfonso
Soriano
-What
team does he play for
-Cubs. He’s an ex-Yankee. (Cubs play D’Backs tonight 10 PM, Game 1,
NLDS)
-Oh,
why did he leave? Traded?
-Yes,
basically for A-Rod. But he’s faster.
-Why?
-A-Rod
is better.
-Why?
-He’s
going to win the MVP this year?
-(Pause)
-What
are you doing? What book is that? Are you transcribing it?
-(Silence)
I went
to the MOMA today—what an overrated museum—it is the worst place I ever looked
at art but do not tell Wendy that. I am
sick of art and pretension. Writers are
infinitely more “real” than other artists—fuck painting, fuck sculpture—I do
admit a love for photography—Nature, the real world, is enough to make art
directly from! Fuck drawing!
(scribbled
design)
Put me
in the MOMA now!
Why am
I left to be alone? Is it because, those
few times I approached mutual affection, I could not feel it for the
other? If this is true, why have I had
such lousy choices? [There is a nice guy walking around person-to-person,
ignoring no one, asking if we listen to hip-hop music, and telling us that he
wrote-or-did a great new song that he wants people to listen to—when he came up
to me I said—on occasion—] Am I picky—I do not believe so. Many of the females I have presented with the
opportunity of dating have been dismissed by my friends as—whatever—ugly, fat,
annoying. Am I picky? Yes.
Will I be happy if I am less picky—No.
I need something perfect. I
accept imperfections if they render the whole more beautiful for a defect
conducive towards insecurity.
Unfortunately, in the women I have known, the insecurity is not useful—I
do not make them feel secure—I make them more self-conscious and ashamed, or
afraid of me.
HA!
THE WOMAN IS TRANSCRIBING ARISTOTLE I THINK IT IS THE POLITICIS I =
GENIUS
Fuck it looks like she is not
transcribing but translating into fucking Greek. I’m a fucking moron. She’s the fucking genius—even if she doesn’t
know shit about A-Rod or Soriano. Upon
closer inspection, it does not appear to be the Greek alphabet. I am right after all—gold star for me. Why the fuck am I doing this stalling for
time?”
It goes on further, to write a new
sample query letter for my first novel that I found unsatisfying.
Later, Mike, Wendy, Liz, Eric,
Byron, his friend Jason who I met for the first time, and myself all went to
Randall’s Island and saw Les Savy Fav, Blonde Redhead, LCD Soundsystem, and the
Arcade Fire play a fantastic quadruple bill.
At the end of the night, a girl on the bus ride back to the subway
station pushed me away and I looked at her and she said, “You’re encroaching on
my space.” We had just been 25,000 thick
in a sea of bodies. She was a bitch!
I guess I remember more about this week than I said
before. But it’s going on far, far too
long. Here is something from “suicide”
that I wrote in LaGuardia Airport:
“Back at LaGuardia, on my way back
to Beverly Hills, and another good reason for suicide: TSA.
They treat you like shit (probably
because their jobs are thankless, they are the unwilling sentinels carrying out
the plan for the new American century in air travel)—they are willing, but only
because a job is necessary. I saw a kid
close to my age get escorted towards the inspection area and two TSA agents
were being very mean to him, like cops, looking for drugs (I assume) and it
makes me feel very comfortable to know that I am not considered a threat, but
he is. This is probably not grounded in
any kind of reasoning, but rather simply every single person our age is a
suspect. We are young and
impressionable, vulnerable to anti-American brainwashing techniques and
propaganda. Maybe it really does just
suck to be this age, but my thoughts are, it really just sucks not to be a
child anymore, not to be thought innocent automatically, not to be cared for,
looked after, worried about. I digress
on the last phrase—I do not like being worried about.
Isn’t an article entitled suicide
necessarily depressing? There is no
“redeeming” quality to this sort of work—this is my greatest block in regards
to this latest project. I must write a
review of the show I saw last night. I
am going to include a story about the bitch on the bus who said, “You’re kind
of encroaching on my space,” what a whore!
We were amidst 25,000 other fans for about 8 hours and she’s going to
complain about me leaning 3 inches across an invisible line down the middle of
the bus, while our backs were against each other. I wanted to say, “I’m sorry, I’ll stop covertly
grabbing your ass.”
We are going to begin boarding in
ten minutes. My problem is I hate
flying. I flew with a screaming
2-year-old behind me from Dallas to New York last week—I
wanted to stick my hands behind my seat and strangle the kid in his car-seat,
while his parents watched. His dad was
almost as annoying as him. He talked
like a baby. “Look, now we’re going to
go up in the clouds!” I wanted to turn around and be like, “Will you please
shut the fuck up?”
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