September 2008
1 post
Mike Ran Away
Mike ran away from home. When I was a kid and the world was interlaced and orange and all you had to worry about was school and watching TV. Mike ran away from home because his mother-who worked-wouldn’t let him play little league or soccer or something. He ran away and older kids made him smoke pot and a dirty man tried to grab him and at night he hid in the playground. But it got cold. So...
August 2008
1 post
When it's cold
Things will be better when it’s cold. When I can walk around in the snowy city with a thick jacket and a scar: then life will be grand, all problems will fade—how can anyone be upset when it’s so nice and cold out.
I know, I know, I said when it was cold that life would be perfect when it got hot, but, this time, I really mean it: I hate the summer.
Things will be great when...
July 2008
2 posts
There are increasingly two kinds of people in this hyper-connected world of networks and communities: There’s the conformist and non-conformist—due to the circumstances mentioned above, there’s now little in between. There are those, like myself and others, who are alway trying to be different, in fact, need to be different. That’s not to say that this correlates to...
What if there were a religion that accepted God as inperfect? Just about all current beliefs revolve around the existence of a infallible being, as do all current disbeliefs. But what about a God that got angry and destroyed a few villages? What about a God that got scared and became too frightened to protect the weak? What about a vain god, a god that got jealous, and a god that doubted his...
June 2008
1 post
God, is it easy to buy into apocalyptic furor. Today, Oil shot up, unemployment skyrocketed, and the Dow Jones fell tremendously. What does any of that have to do with me? I don’t know, but I still somehow fear the worst. Things seem not right in the world, not in a ‘slump’, but just generally bad. I wish now that I had the slightest expereince with ‘Hard Times’.
May 2008
3 posts
WatchThough nearly destroyed by a fucking bank, this is the last surviving remnants of The Jewish East-side. All the names were of local Yiddish theater stars.
Watch
I feel thoroughly embarrassed when friends attempt to introduce me to other writers, writing groups, or group writing projects. I must admit that I have absolutely NO interest in any of them; nor do I wish to talk about writing, or anything related to my own writing. I’m a writer of fiction, not a writer of writing. When I see supposed writers online talking endlessly about their own...
April 2008
5 posts
Take The L Train
The thugs jump around lighty in the light wind on the open platform like boxers, hitting like butterflys, not wanting to sting their friends. It’s been a long day. The young latin girls, their caps’ brims as stiff as the boys from before, whisper about the black men who whistled at them safely from a block away. God, the day was long. The furry man with a defeated frown tucks his hands...
A man is punished for a crime (something heinous) by being forced to fall in love with someone unattainable.
I’m getting terribly bored with all of this. No, not with you my dear Tumblr because you listen, you don’t interrupt with useless, repetetive, petty garbage. I’m spending all of my time on my own site, where I control everything. I’m tired of the ‘conversation’, I increasingly want to yell: “Just shut the fuck up for a minute and listen!”. Maybe we...
Returned today to ground-zero for the first time since weeks after the attack. Not much to say, not much to feel and, certainly, not much to see. But, as usual, New Yorkers were far more concerned with getting the tourists out of their way, then with the debris of tragedy lying next to them. If any one was still wonder: Yes, we really have moved on.
March 2008
8 posts
For reasons I may explain at a later date, I was remeniscing today about being ten-years old. When I was thirteen I thought endlessly about my twenties. I think that even the most strident, radical optimist has little or no love for the present. The optimist looks forward, the pessimist looks back, but there’s no word for he who loves the current because, well, I don’t think such a...
There are of course also the lesser conspiracies, the more “believable” ones. These plots involve our elected officials, our bosses, our parents, and so on. They paint us as the victim of a over-reaching system that, at every turn, has foiled our ability to anything and thus left us unable to do anything. That’s not to say that ‘they’ are right—The politican,...
My personal idea of metrics is this: If I know for certain that at least a couple dozen people have found out, from me, that the King James’ Bible’s namesake was an unapologetic, flagrant, and undeniable homosexual, then I feel I’ve done something worthwhile. If 1/8 of those people go to church next Sunday, stare a little harder at the text, and ask “What the hell did that...
I’m finally, truly, happy with what my site is becoming: Writing about the things I want and even being at-least mildly subversive, if only enough that I can sleep at night. I’m probably losing people and hits since I took complete abstinence from all ‘social media’/tech talk, but I could really care less. I’m buidling an intellectual paper trail, not gaming TechMeme....
Funny, all this talk of recession. While I can’t help but attribute some of it to that same thing which makes the news media report endlessly on possible terrorist attacks, possible natural disasters, and possible epidemic outbreaks, still, we do seem long overdue on a economic humbling. No American my age really knows what ‘poverty’ means or knows true ‘want’ for...
I’ve been bitching a lot lately about how much I hate all this marketing talk, all business “conversation”s we seem to be embracing. There’s no artists online, everyone just wants to be an ad-man and a strategist. Truth is, though, my anger is that I want my work taken seriously and everyone’s fucking ruining it for me.
So, as I’m walking I see a dirty, ragged old homeless man chasing after a smartly dressed business man with stiff hair. Turns out, the latter had dropped his wallet and the other was trying to give it back to him. I realized that the interaction between human beings is far too complex and strange for any one adjective, theory, or philosphy to accurately sum it up and not be wrong—at...
Qik
So I don’t understand Qik. I’ve tried. A lot of my friends are on it and I’ve watched them as they move around their homes with a phones, showing us a piece of their lives that was once unseen. Somehow I feel like I’m intruding or spying (even if it is voluntary). Or maybe it’s just that our unfiltered, unedited lives are just not that interesting. Either way, I...
February 2008
30 posts
I waited on one side of the street for the sign to say “Walk”. There was a girl on the other side, also waiting. It became clear after a moment that we were staring at each other. We probably weren’t that moved by the others beauty or anything like that, but being the roughly the same age and the opposite sex, our eyes kept falling on one another. When the light changed we went...
I feel that I arrived on this earth when Mankind is both farthest from his animal form and, perhaps not coincedentally, at his lowest point. What is more ‘civilized’ the clothed man killing thousands far far away with the single push of a button, or the naked man killing the man next to him with a piece of wood?
I always enjoy listening to 9/11 conspiracy theorists and, for that matter, conspiracists in general. But tonight, listening to such a person, I found myself sensing a desperation in his voice, a confused, sad desperation. I’m reminded of the caveman I wrote of in “Earthquake”, only instead of coming home to find his family alive, he comes home to find his family dead; a family...
It’s a rather recent trend that buildings are built with the assumption that they’ll be torn down before a century has past. The Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians built structures whose wrecking crew, they hoped, could only be led by God(s) and Angels after— whatever their society’s version of— the “Final Battle” took place. We however, with far too great a...
Grant's Tomb
There’s something inexplicably holy about the small shrine tucked away, fittingly, in Harlem—a secluded place of beauty where tourists and transients never dare to visit. More than just a monument for a man, it is the icon of a northeast that was once brave, beautiful, and like Grant himself, absolutely fearless. It is not just Grant’s tomb, but Lincoln’s tomb,...
You don’t use the internet to talk about how you’re really feeling, right? I mean, it’s understood that you don’t come online and ask ‘what’s the point of life?’ or ‘God, I’m lovesick’. The truth is that none of use really want to see that. For some reason we need to believe that other human beings are mentally indestructible, though I...
Once any community reaches a certain size it begins to destroy itself. The thing is, it first starts to splinter into groups: The top, the middle, the bottom, the old, the new, the interesting, the boring, the smart, the dumb, the trivial. These groups start to war, start to try topping each other and instead knock each other down. Pretty soon there’s no community, but only warring factions...
The only questions worth asking are the ones about Love, God, and the awful predicament we human beings consistently find ourselves in. Anything else, be it technology or marketing, is pure drivel. Stop talking about talking and start talking about that which has been worth talking about since mankind first got up on two legs; otherwise, all of this is worthless.
An American liberal ‘escapes’ to Europe after Bush’s win in 04. Travels across the continent and is shocked to find that no one cares about Baseball.
While the ‘video store’ thing was a particularly painful loss, truth is, I’m like this with everything. It’s so hard for me to let go of anything. I had the same cell-phone for nearly six years, when this last September I replaced it, I actually felt bad about throwing it out (it was decrepited), like it had brought me this far, but now I was abandoning it for being old....
Gogol—like all great writers—is a liar and a hypocrite. When he’s not completely making shit up, he’s judging and critiqing the communal behavior of the very group to which he belongs.
‘Magic’ is not a business model or strategy. I can find no logical argument against corporate consolidation, conglomerates, and gentrification make all to much sense. But for some unknown reason, I still mourn the loss of every independent book, video, and coffee shop.
Without so much as a “Bye Seth” or a “Where the hell is the three dollars you owe us?”, my beloved independent video store has closed. The next nearest video store is hardly near and not at all independent (it’s a Blockbuster with a shit selection). Of course, “Don’t you netflix?” is what you’re now asking. No, I don’t. Though their...
I’m thinking about going into business with ‘The Obstructionist’. Sort of a freelance writing thing. I have to look around a little more, but I’m thinking it’s a good idea. However, if I become someone who always talks about Web 2.0 and business, feel free to kill me.
The Old
After about five minutes of conversation with any elderly person, they begin to heap praise and fawn over me. I suspect it’s because I’m moderately well-spoken and actually look them in the eye while talking (two skills which are almost non-existant in my age group). You think I’m the hope of this generation? Well, you’re dead wrong! I’m not the hope. And I’m...
A serene and pleasant city existence is disrupted when a long forgotten suburban dream has, for once, become attainable (but not really).
1.
Central Park South was dominated by two groups of people. The first were the tourists, coming to have a look at the residential towers that watched over the park; cameras drapped over their necks, in one hand they held the bags emblazoned with the logos of New York’s most famous Landmarks and stores, in the other hand they held their children’s hands tightly because, though beautiful,...
Looking for a job.
The hardest part about finding employment is lowering both yourself and your standards. My attitude and philosphy in life is, for the most part, built around not ‘needing’ people. I’m able to do, say, dress, and think (and follow through) anyway I want to. But now that shield is gone. I’m left having to dress up and kiss ass for interviews, even willingly admit a certain...
We’re all just cogs. We run from are cog-ness, assign so-called greatmen the title of “Great Man” because if they’re not cogs, then surely we must not be cogs. But we’re cogs.
You think Hitler started WWII? No. The economic cog moved slightly, allowing the anger cog to move, which sent the nationalist cog into a spin, and that tripped other cogs into the wrong...
I have a feeling my staunch, almost radical, political independence is not based on some priciple of fairness, but rather my own fear of ever being wrong. The firmer you stand on something the more likely you are to fall right on your ass.
The Truth
Is there truth in life? There’s no truth in fiction. There’s many truths. There’s this character’s truth, there’s that characters truth, there’s the setting’s truth, there’s the time period’s truth, and over all of it there’s the author’s truth, his beliefs, but a capable artist will allow that even that isn’t the truth. A...
WatchA German inscription. This area of the East Village was once known as ‘Little Germany’. Now all that remains are hidden artifacts such as this.
I’m really, really liking this tumblr thing. Sorry, after this, no drivel posts, I swear.
Funny how damn—and unapologetically—stereotypical the people living in the towers around Central Park are.
The problem with continually putting out fiction is, as is often the case, it tends to reflect your neurosis far more than any normal non-fiction blog post. You can easily tell what has my attention, almost to a repetitive amount, by what I put out on an average week.
Jakup Borovsky meets a prostitute from Romania. “Cruelty”.
A young man living in a small but expensive room on the Lower East Side. Gets a visit connected to its original inhabitants.
The Bergenfield Four
This happened two years after I was born and not far from were I grew up. Generation X. 4 JERSEY TEEN-AGERS KILL THEMSELVES IN DEATH PACT - New York Times