Flotsam good.

Jetsam bad.

So apparently traffic accidents have decreased in NYC from last year, especially pedestrian-auto accidents.

Jeremy and I decided when we were driving that NYC is like matter and that all the people are like molecules and that they are moving so rapidly that they are ceasing to collide and that the state of the NYC matter is more of a liquid and that it's rapidly becoming a gas.

And we weren't even smoking pot.

I don't really know if jetsam is bad but if you had to pick one to be good and one to be bad. . .jetsam just sounds bad. It reminds me of killer logs.

I have this friend who is electronically retarded. She just can't seem to respond to email. What is WRONG WITH HER!!! I'm trying to nail down the details of her upcoming visit and she won't respond. I guess she'll have a nice time sitting at JFK the whole week.

Muhuhuhuhuahuahuahahahaha.

my friend from SF wrote: "It's storming here right now. They're expecting 50 ft waves. Yikes."

krixfort response team wrote back: "those are the kinds of storms where you can't walk on the beach because you might get killed by projectiles from the sea. . .like killer logs. we call it oceanic vomitous. "

glad I live here where there are no killer logs, killer earthquakes, killer fires, and killer mudslides. All we got is killer muggers, killer cops, killer terrorists. Go team!

Okay, I went to this round table discussion at NYU where these "multimedia industry professionals" spoke a bit to this geeky computer club. And the club members are all naive kids who are pursuing degrees in "multimedia." And the guys they picked to speak all got into the industry around 1996. So all these kids are trying to figure out how to get started in the industry when they get out of school and these industry types all unanimously denounced school and said they learned it all on their own.

OF COURSE THEY LEARNED IT ON THEIR OWN! THERE WERE NO FORMAL PROGRAMS WHEN THEY ENTERED THE INDUSTRY!!!!!

I thought it was funny how they discounted the formal education piece. I really wanted to speak out. I am a self-taught programmer who is now back filling theory and best practices. I can't even tell you how important it is to have that solid foundation because when you're out in the real world, and you're sitting at a meeting, and you can't contribute because you don't even have the vocabulary to be able to contribute. . .

I don't know. . . (sigh)

Plus they were all digital artists. Ugh. They really didn't touch upon any of the practicalities and realities (at least the realities that I've experienced) of what is like to work in the industry and how to get started. I thought they were lame.

Plus they had sloppy presentations.

in other news. . .

so I clicked on this link to an MSN article 'Fabulous at 40' so up comes the headline with a big ad that says 'sponsored by BEANO'. Is that what I have to look forward to in a couple of years? "Flatulant at 40"

That's fan-fucking-tastic.

okay Michelle says that going to classmates.com is like looking under a band-aid. I just looked under the biggest band-aid ever by going to Shelton High School and looking up the names. I just had a hotflash. If I were to go to a reunion I'd almost prefer to go to that one. . . weird as it may sound. I saw these names of all these boys I made out with and the curiosity is driving me batty. I think I may add that to my list of schools.

I was only there for two years, 8th and 9th grade but I've never forgotten a lot of those people. Those were probably THE WORST TWO YEARS of my entire life but the people I knew didn't contribute to that. . .it was all family stuff. I threw away my yearbook. I only kept the one from my senior year at Foster. I have no clue where that thing is. good god. I gotta go. I was going to rant about this round table discussion I went to at NYU but I'm going to have to save the rant for later. I have to look at this list of names again.

Kevin came to town this weekend and I have to say that I had the most MANHATTAN-Y evening anyone could ever have in Manhattan. AND it was Valentine's Day, to top it off. Not that we are Valentine's or anything but with the coupling fervor that was going on, it was nice to have a buddy to run around with.

Our port of entry into Manhattan was the WTC path station. Not sure if Kevin had any desire to see any of that but then I didn't ask either. At this point, I just want them to build the damn memorial so that people can have a place to reflect. Right now it looks like a depressing hole in the ground. Enough said about Ground Zero.

I marched Kevin through city hall park, past the federal courthouse where we paused to ask why there were no t-shirt stands dedicated to making money from the Martha Stewart trial. We moved up Centre street, cut through the jail, wandered through Chinatown to Mott St., crossed Canal, doubled back to Mulberry, walked north through Little Italy and stopped for drink number one at Tony's. I don't know for sure that the bar is called Tony's but if it isn't, it should be. Tony's is like walking onto the 50s/60s and you get a tiny taste of what it may have been like to be a proud Italian in NYC back when Deano and Frankie and Louis Prima were belting 'em out. Too bad their red wine sucks.

From there we walked up to Houston and Mott where Kevin knew of a teeny old man bar that pours the perfect Guiness. I think the name was Milano's. Milano's had the oldest little man I've seen, just hanging out sipping on bud draft. Milano's walls are covered with snapshots of REALLY drunk people who look as if they're friends of the bar.

We stepped it up a notch at the next place over on Cinton and Stanton. There's a place called Salt Bar where we were able to have two nice glasses of wine. At Kevin's wise behest, we ordered baked brie which was phenomenal.

Then it was up Avenue B to Manitoba where Kevin was able to quench his thirst for NYC punk memorabilia, courtesy of the owner, a former member of the Dictators.

From there we took a cab to 45th and 6th and were let out by the cab driver who refused to try and get us to 8th Avenue. It gave us the opportunity to stand in the middle of Times Square like a couple of drunk tourists and space out on all the electricity that flows through the place. We made it to the Collins BAr just in time to have a quick drink before dinner at Becco.

Dinner at Becco was fan-fuckin'-tastic. I'll elaborate more later because that is worthy of it's own blog entry.

After dinner we called my favorite cab driver and he chauffered us to my apartment where we both fell into food comas.

The next day, we were out of the house by noon, grabbed bagels at Wonder Bagel, the best bagel in Jersey City, drove through the Holland, parked by NYU, took the W up to 60th and 5th, ran to Tiffany's, bought KB here B-day present, went to Bloomingdale's, bought Kevin a hat, jumped on the 6, jumped off at Astor Place, had a couple of pints at McSoreley's and then Kevin and I parted company.

I think we fit all of that in in less than 24 hours. like I said, it was a lot of Manhattan.

Some weird turns of events in Hell's Kitchen lately. My favorite bar was RAIDED by the cops. Well, maybe not raided but four cops came in and gave them about eight tickets for crazy bullshit stuff so that Bloomberg can try and make money or so that these guys can turn in their quota of fines. Very silly. And then they didn't follow proper procedure anyway so the tix were dropped. Anyway, with that all said, it turned out to be a very prohibition-like moment. I thought maybe one of the boys in blue was a descendant of Elliot Ness. or Joseph McCarthy.

No more boozers and commies, dammit.

That very same night I met this crazy emotional train wreck of a woman. She came in with her girlfriend and they were paying homage to the bar because she had gotten arrested in front of it for smoking pot a couple of years earlier. She started talking me because her girlfriend was talking to some guy in a pinstriped shirt with a bad tie and she took that as an opportunity to tell me how much she hated men. By the way, she was from San Francisco so we had a common bonding point. As evening moved along, she seemed to be caught in this Jekyll and Hyde dilemma of man-hating and Making out with every rock star guy in the bar. In between she would make out with her girlfriend and then her girlfriend would go back and make out with the dart players and then the woman would start telling me how much she hated men and how I should come to Williamsburg and hang out and knit. At one point she came up to me almost in tears.
"You know that guy I was making out with back there?", she asked. "I just found out he's married!! Men are filth! I hate them."
"Didn't you say you were married?", I pointed out.
"Yeah, I still am but that's different. I'm too lazy to do the paperwork. " (sob) "I'm no good at anything except being married. And SHE", nodding to her girlfriend who was making out with a salesman, "she's great and sexy but she doesn't understand me. Only you understand me."
"I'm sure you're good at a lot of things other than being married", I said, trying to get my normal on.
"Hey, I like you. You're cool. Do you want to go to Williamsburg with us?", she said, putting her arm around my shoulders and laying her head on my chest.
"I'd love to go to Williamsburg but not at midnight on a Thursday night", I said. "that would be a recipe for disaster." And besides, i thought, who freaking knows what personality will come out on the train to williamsburg.

I've run into a lot of characters at my favorite bar and the place is usually entertaining. There are even some re-curring characters. The bartenders definitely, some regulars, etc. Unfortunately not all the characters I meet deserve as much trust as I give them and sometimes the most normal seeming ones turn out to be the most fucked up and dysfunctional. Which is why it wise to keep your bar friends and your real friends separate. Bar friends usually do not deserve emotional attachment. With certain people you can transcend the spatial and temporal dimensions of the bar and that's fine. My friend Kevin is a great example of that.

I'm just upset because of two incidents. Firstly, I found out that a guy who I have slept with on more than one occasion, has a girlfriend. Which he lied about. It's no big, it's just that I liked him and I thought perhaps some kind of connection had been made. The other thing which is a little more abstract was that I met two people, a sister and a brother, who I really thought I had an affinity with. The last time I ran into them , I hung out with the sister, and then the brother came in after his shift at the restaraunt he works in and he was extremely sarcastic and on the attack. I really didn't expect it. This is someone who I thought I had gotten to know fairly well and seemed like a level decent guy. I actually offered him the couch at our apartment for a couple of days when he needed a place to stay. I felt good enough about him to invite him to my home. And he just came in that evening and started zinging me with the sarcastic one liners at my expense. ANd the sister, who I now fear that I've disclosed way too much information to, was laughing right along with him. I can take A LOT of ribbing, but he really was digging and getting personal and getting mean until I finally turned around and just gave him a big FUCK YOU!. At that he looked a little shocked and he apoplogized but for me it was too late. I felt burned. Burned for trusting.

I'm not going to address the question of "Well what did you expect? You met these people in a bar?" Because you know what? you meet all kinds of different people in all kinds of different places from bars, to Online, to classes, to work, to the laundromat, or the grocery store. It doesn't matter, you can meet anybody anywhere. I'll admit that alcohol impairs judgement; we all know that.

I just don't know how I can read people quickly yet be such a bad judge of character? I don't get it.

here's an excerpt from a conversation I heard on the bus in Jersey City.

"and so she's says the magic words a'ight. Yeah, shit, she says, 'Don't I know you from High School?' and I says, 'Shit Yo. I was in High School for seven years. Lotta people know me from there.' And it was like, she fucked me up wi' that Yo. It was like all my emotions were dumped in the gutta. Like my emotions was a trashbag and she was like this sharp object that rip the bag open and everything spill out. I was all kinds of fucked up after that, Yo."

but then that conversation was suddenly drowned out by a young mother's account of a comedian's version of ghetto Sesame Street:

" and yo, yo. you know, he say, he say. He say Snuffaluffagus. Yo Snuffy. He all doped up and shit. He like ' Doh de doh doh' and shit. Like he high. And yo, yo, check it and he be goin' off about Oscar, sayin' 'Why the fuck you think I'm grouchy. I live in a fuckin' trash can and shit.' And Cookie Monster. He be sayin, 'What the fuck's in them cookies man, Crack? He all crazy with them crazy eyes. Yeah, and the Count. He a pimp."

There you have it. That's all the news from Jersey City, Yo.

Saw a picture of Janet Jackson flashing her boob with a pasty on it. Yeah, that was an accident. Right.
Here's the picture:



You know. . .that's just sad. She looks old. And old ladies don't need to be all, 'Girls Gone Wild.' That's all I have to say about that.

Food diary is not too bad. My emotions/mood for breakfast at 2pm on saturday was 'hungover' so that'll probably bring on the intervention.

Saw Lost in Translation. I don't think it's the best thing since, well I don't know what, but I liked it. And I was prepared not to like it. I was prepared to hate it actually because of crap I've heard about Sofia Coppola throughout the years. Crap that has nothing to do with her directorial abilities. She just seems like one of those silver spoon kids who gets to grow up and make movies, kind of like Jake Kasdan who directed that piece of crap 'Orange County.' But she turned out a decent mood piece and I liked it. I'll probably end up with a copy so that I can watch Bill Murray sing "More that this" over and over.

I can't say if I will stay on the east coast once I'm done with school. It all depends on what kind of job I can get when I'm done and how burnt out I am on the cost of living here. I'm getting this warped sense of the value of things after living both in SF and here for so long. I'm looking at studio apartments that are 400 square feet thinking 'okay, I could pay $1200 a month for that. That's reasonable.' And it isn't reasonable at all.

My co-worker Jeremy and I were talking about what draws people to Manhattan and we think that it has to be the extremes. Everything is at its most extreme here: wealth, poverty, talent, energy. It's a trip. I'm surprised I didn't come out here sooner. The weird thing is is that I'm probably the most balanced that I've ever been. I had to move someplace that seems chaotic in order to be calm. Even with the craziness that has ensued last month, I'm much saner than I was when I left Seattle and when I was living in SF.
How do you like that?