This 2 Shall Pass - Rehearsal 4.28.11

Yes, I'm wearing Pajama pants, a scarf and a took.
This is just a bit of footage from a laid back rehearsal
on 4.28.11. This 2 Shall Pass.



We will be posting video clips regularly from here on out.
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being visited by the ghosts of the living while wearing JFK Junior's shoes

A few days ago, on our way to the grocery store, Konstantine and I encountered an older Caribbean woman, as is a fairly regular occurance in our neighborhood. The woman was sort of babbling something and staring at the ground and Konstantine thought she was talking to him, so he responded to her. She responded by saying "not you, him" and pointed at my shoes. She went off on an entire rant about John F. Kennedy Junior and how he used to wear shoes just like mine. I just sort of smiled and nodded, responding "yes, they're great shoes. I love them". She said something like "he was really good to us" and then wandered off down the street. Just to be clear, the shoes being mentioned are two toned black and white saddle oxfords, so it's understandable that they might evoke more attention than a tennis shoe or plain black shoe.

In completely unrelated news, I have been visited in my sleep twice this week by the ghosts of living canadian musicians. First, it was Patrick Watson and then it was Joni Mitchell. Joni had this really cool guitar pedal in the shape of a high heal shoe and made me do a session of sing-a-long with her. I don't know what this all means, but hey at least it's interesting.

The impending parade

as I sit at my desk staring out into an empty alley
where once a ramshackle tent had been, put there by the inhabitants
of my former basement apartment, I ponder the meaning of life.
Well, It's a constant pondering. I know at times it's as simple as
smiling when you don't want to smile and finding beauty down on the
sidewalk next to a rusted garbage can. Outside my window where once a ramshackle
tent had stood, the sounds of horns and shouting echo through the empty spaces.
It is an hour until the real adventure begins, when people will flood the streets in
costumes screaming and shouting. The streets are barricaded. The population of my
neighborhood seems to have doubled. The sidewalks are packed. It is the night before the Caribbean pride parade
and we do live in a predominantly caribbean neighborhood, so let the games begin.

Starving Artists Live in the Ghetto

There is something kind of amazing about this photo of our cat, Sheba. It was taken from the large gap under the front door to our apartment. Being a very affectionate and sometimes needy cat, Sheba waits by the door when we are not home, listening for the jingling of keys or the sound of approaching foot traffic. As soon as the door is opened she attaches herself to your leg demanding attention. I guess her time as an alley cat without close human contact has made her a bit of an affection junky. Aren't we all though really? Sometimes she will literally climb my back and stand on my shoulder, rubbing her face against mine. I've never known a cat so gentle and loving. She sleeps in bed curled at my feet or around K's head.

I've been fighting off a bit of a cold and as though she could sense that I was not feeling well, she slept curled at my chest.
I think there is a fear with having a cat that it might lead to having two cats, three cats, thirty cats. Hello crazy cat lady. They find you dead after a week with an overturned cup of herbal tea surrounded by cats and filth, stacked newspapers dating back to 1953 reaching towards the ceiling like stalagmites.

I've been thinking a lot about our neighborhood lately. It's been changing. When I moved here over a year ago, it felt like an act of bravery. I had lived on people's sofas for over a year, traveling by bus, train, plane and car to shows on the weekends. The main thing that drew me in was the very low rent, very low. Artists, musicians, painters, sculptors, writers are often poor. We put a lot of our money and the money we make back into what drives us, the need to create. Many of us die poor. Some of us get acclaim or respect, but that really doesn't feed you. We find ourselves lost in this battle between the need to make money, to literally put bread on the table and the desire to create something we believe in, unaltered by the need to make money. Often though, the commercial side takes over and taints the art. The music that was once just an acoustic guitar or piano and a voice becomes electronic techno beats and diminished lyrical content, provocative for the sake of drawing attention and unaware of what once made it special. It is the trap of art as a career, one of which I am all too conscious.

I did a show out of state one really cold winter evening at this little bar in a really cute neighborhood, opening for a Canadian musician named Erika who I'd met at an open Mic. After the show, I was approached by someone who came to see me perform and told me how much my music meant to him. I was deeply touched. He then told me of how he was so excited that he burned copies of my cd for friends so that they would listen. I just smiled but inside I found myself torn. On one hand I wanted as many people to hear my music as possible, but on the other I wanted to be compensated for all the work I had put into the album. It got me thinking down this course of a grocery store. Most people would not go into a grocery store and shove cans of beans in their pockets, nor would they go to a music store for that matter and shove cds in their pockets.

It is an unfortunate and fortunate reality, this digital age that we live in. We find our music, our art traveling to places we never imagined, Japan, Russia, Argentina....how amazing is that? Often though, the music finds its way to those far reaches through illegal downloads and the burning of cd's among friends. So, essentially it is shoved into pockets or ears in this case without a trip to the register. Is illegal downloading the modern shoplifting or is it a free mode of promotion and publicity? I think it is a bit of both. Many musicians have resolved themselves to the fact that a lot of their money must be made through doing shows and yet venues that were once plentiful and open to an array of art have been drying up. I wonder if they are also victims of the digital age. People are attached to their devices and connected in a million ways and yet it seems to have led to less people leaving their homes. They can have their groceries, their clothing, their music, movies and just about anything delivered right to their door. Some people telecommute, working at home on their laptops....Is there a reason to leave their homes at all?

So back to our neighborhood.... When I moved to the neighborhood it was a predominantly caribbean neighborhood and in many aspects still is. There is a cycle that happens with urban gentrification. The poor artist move into a neighborhood along with the lesbians and homos. Yes, homos. They take an otherwise "undesirable" area and seeing the potential, move in. Landlords see the potential for asking more money for rent, so they fix things up a bit....next, the friends of the artists see the cheap rent and feel ok about moving into the area since their homo artist friends are living there and haven't been stabbed in the eye yet. The only problem is that once you get a bunch of white people in a neighborhood, they want their Starbucks and the GAP and an assortment of little stores and restuarants. Yes, White people are spoiled and a little needy. I'm white so I can say that. They want everything to be cute. Little boutiques open catering to the new crowd. Soon, however the neighborhood becomes "desirable" and the floodgates open. Luxury condos pop up everywhere along with Starbucks, the Gap, and and assortment of banks and sushi restaurants. Rents go through the roof and the poor artists are forced to move away from the neighborhood. BTW, they demolished the building behind our apartment and are turning it into a 20 story luxury condo building with the first two floors being used for commercial purposes. It is a glass and steel structure that will block out the sunlight. It will be architecturally out of place for the neighborhood and about 15 stories taller than almost all the surrounding buildings. The end is nigh.

This is the cycle as I've seen it happen before. It is starting in our neighborhood. I fear it. I like the caribbean flavor, the interesting spices at the vegetable market across the street. The one thing I don't like is the gap under our door, but there is some give and take one must accept when pioneering a neighborhood where the buildings border on or were previously slums.
I don't shop at starbucks. I prefer the local coffee shop with its slow lines and inconsistent service. I shop at salvation army and used clothing stores most of the time. I have never purchased anything from the gap. Ironically though, I being a white homo artist am both the cause and the victim of this gentrification. A part of me feels guilty. I love my neighbors. It truly is a neighborhood. I miss my cracked out neighbor James who used to blast his stereo into the street and sit on the stoop shirtless drinking beer out of a paper bag. I'd much rather have the flavor of my neighborhood than a crummy overroasted starbucks coffee...any day.

Taxi Fried Chicken, Fireworks, Ashes & Dust

Photo by Carrie Thomas

I am at my nature a juggler. I don't know that my form is enjoyable to watch. I don't have a fancy polka dot costume. None the less, I am constantly spinning plates on sticks while throwing fiery batons over my head.

The one thing I consistently drop in this constant juggling act, is adequate sleep. It is the first thing that is sacrificed for the greater good. Perhaps it is the reason for my sloppy form.

On Saturday I decided to fully embrace the world of slumber, sleeping into the early afternoon. Oddly the act of doing nothing makes me extremely hungry, so I decided to call up Mr. Carpentier for a bit of brunch. After brunch we went to the playground to swing on the swingsets of course, but the children were in full command. God forbid the children use the swings and deprive us of one of our few life pleasures. How selfish. We eventually did get to swing.

We were later joined by K and enjoyed a few beers. K had to rush to the city and Mr. C had to rush home to greet his visiting sister. My mind was fixated on fried chicken. They decided to share a cab and convinced me to go along for the ride with promises of friend chicken in my future. We were riding in the cab when we saw the heavenly lights of KFC in distance.

The next thing I know we are in a cab going through the KFC drivethrough. It was such a perfect ridiculous moment fit for my Hello Kitty Scented Diary. In case you have any curiousity, I ordered 6 legs extra Crispy. K was yelling at the crackly speaker. Of course they didn't understand him so they initially handed me wings and then finally gave me legs original recipe. I somehow managed to eat the legs despite the trauma.

K headed into the city and I hung out with Mr. C for a while watching a backlog of television shows he had DVR'd for us. Eventually, I left the warm bossom of Casa Carpentier and headed home.

I had ambitious plans of getting up super early to work on "Lullabye" which was to be recorded in the studio on Sunday. Instead I overslept, shoved free samples of pumpkin soup and crostini down my gullet as I wearily stumbled through an art fair that had set up camp on my block. I grabbed some coffee and trudged through the park. About halfway to the studio something started filling my head, a new song. By the time I got to the studio I had scrapped all plans of working on lullaby and began laying down the tracks for this mystery song that popped into my head. The working title is Ashes and Dust. It has a very spiritual quality to it and really sounds great and much more developed than such new songs generally do. I wasn't planning on giving birth while crossing the gowanus canal, but stranger things have happened.

After the studio, I headed to Mr Carpentier's for some more backlog of DVR'd television shows as I have been a delinquent social caller and he had been in Italy for a spell.

We were later joined by K and ordered Italian food. As soon as marc put down the phone there arose a clatter outside like none I've heard. I was sure that it was happening. The bombs were falling. Retribution had come. Our arrogant American asses were under attack. I started getting frantic until Marc said that it had to be fireworks. K was on my side saying the sound was too close and too loud to be fireworks. We did the smartest thing possible, which is to run outside and run toward the sound. It was indeed fireworks, being shot from a barge east of lower manhattan down by the seaport. The fireworks were amazing. I cannot properly describe them with words. It was the best fireworks show I've ever seen in my life, beautiful gold ripples and streams across the sky. There were blossoming flowers, starfish, willow trees. They were so close that it was like they were coming right at us and reflecting off the buildings of manhattan, the perfect backdrop. Why the hell were they shooting fireworks on October 14th? Is there some new holliday of which I'm unaware?

All I found on Wikipedia were the following, and none seem firework worthy.

* RC Saints - Pope Callistus I, Angadrisma
* Teachers' Day, or National Education Day in Poland
* French Republican Calendar - Navet (Turnip) Day, twenty-third day in the Month of Vendémiaire
* Chişinău's (Republic of Moldova's capital) - national holiday (known as "Hramul Oraşului" by locals).

More on the Festival of Coney, Film that is.

As mentioned previously, my first music video is an official selection of the 2007 Coney Island Film Festival. The schedule has just been posted.

It will be showing Sunday, Sept. 30th, closing out a series of shorts that start at 1pm. at
THE CONEY ISLAND MUSEUM
1208 Surf Ave.
(more info)

Biscuits,Paddleboats and 2am Riots

Photo of the Prospect Park Boathouse by Carrie Thomas

K and I decided to host a brunch on Sunday at the apartment. Actually, I guess I coerced K into being my accomplice, but he didn't seem to mind.

As a tribute to the art of procrastination, we found ourselves at the local pathmark at 2am, waiting in line. I needed this cheese grater very badly, but when we were checking out, the girl couldn't find a code for it, so she refused to sell it to us. It was extraordinarily traumatic and at that point I was seeing double. After arguing with her, we left pathmark loaded up like pack mules, mutually exhausted, and lacking the much needed cheese grater.
We dropped to sleep exhausted and woke up too late, scurrying and hurrying to make ourselves and the apartment presentable for our guests.

Our feast was prepared in record time.
As, I tend to do with such things, I went a little overboard.
There was fruit salad, miniature fritata with mushroom,spinach, tomato and Gruyere Cheese. There were home fries,biscuits,bacon and sausage.

We ran around like headless chickens getting everything ready, but we both love the domestic bliss that comes with cooking up some love in the kitchen.

We had a lovely brunch with Steve, Matt, Marc and the lovely Danielle Flores who is gracing our city with her presence at the moment. I'm sure LA is a sad place without her, but we aren't complaining.

After brunch had ended we build a mountain of dirty plates in the kitchen and admired their grandeur before flooding them in suds to soak.

We decided to head over to the park and visit the Audubon center. Whilst crossing a bridge we noticed a lovely Hispanic family riding a paddle boat. We decided that we just simply must also ride a paddle boat. Despite standing feet away from the boathouse, we had no clue as to where we might rent said paddle boat, so we ran along the shore yelling at the family, trying to find out where they got their boat.

Seeing as the family only spoke Spanish, this was a fruitless task. I learned in the process that having a last name like Flores does not mean you necessarily know Spanish. What a disappointment. We finally discovered that we could rent a paddle boat at the boathouse, an idea that was too obvious to be fact.

We got our boat after waiting for an hour and traversed the waters of Prospect park. It was great to see the swan family that K and I have been watching for months. The babies have gotten so big.

I had a very intense discussion with a Canadian goose, which decided to swim along side us quacking at me while I quacked back. At one point, it was decided that I was upsetting the goose and should refrain from talking to it. With hesitation, I bid my feathered friend adieu and focused on my paddling.

after returning the paddle boat, I discovered that my legs had turned to jello and that the only solution was to drink a margarita. I'm not sure that it was the only solution, but I'm going to keep telling myself that it was necessary after slaving in the sun, paddling ms. Flores around like a goddess. All she needed was a parasol to make it a perfect day.

We hung out with Danielle and Laura for the rest of the evening, walking home after hanging in Park Slope. Walking by the park we passed an army of hundreds of NYPD officers lined up as if they were preparing for war. It was the West Indian Parade the next day. I had been told that things get crazy, but I had no idea. We went to bed thinking nothing of it.

At 2am, the sound of a marching band and drums came pounding through our windows. We stepped outside to see hundreds and hundreds of Caribbeans running through the streets screaming and waving flags from their respective islands. It was as if every single building and opened its doors and flooded the street with people. There was something beautiful and unsettling about it. We ran back inside and hid, not exactly sure if this was supposed to be happening, not exactly sure if the police were going to start beating people. We finally fell asleep to the sound of drums. I woke at 4am to hear a similar sound to the 2am commotion, but decided to ignore it. I woke again at 10:30 and made myself a quick breakfast of toast and jam before rushing out the door to be at the studio by 12.

I was surprised to see that the streets were calm and quiet as though nothing had happened. I walked to the subway with tribal drums in my head. Upon arriving to the studio I began to record a beat by hitting my stomach layered with hand claps. Something primal from the early morning energy had found its way to my soul.

Open Wide::Coney Island Film Festival

It is my pleasure to announce that the music video for Open Wide has been chosen as an official selection of The Coney Island Film Festival.

Thank you to Rob Martin, everyone at Bizarre F.A.R.M., The Gender Offenders, Brian Maschka, Marc Carpentier, Kim Levering, Carrie Thomas, and Laura Oltman.


The festival is September 28th-30th.
More details to come..

We're not in Kansas anymore or are we?

So it's official,
A tornado hit Brooklyn.

I thought I had escaped my roots as a Kansas farmboy
and left the twisters and trailerparks behind.
Apparently I was mistaken.

You must watch this.
Yes, this is Brooklyn.

The Heavens and the Ceiling Part

On Friday, I moved into my new apartment, which was an exciting albeit strange experience.
The floor had just been redone and coated with Polyurithane. Perhaps it needed another day of airing out before
I slept there, because I woke up throughout the night weezing, sniffling and occasionally hacking. I woke in the morning with a dry charred throat and the voice of an aged sailor on his sixth glass of whiskey.

I felt as though every drop of moisture had been sucked from my body.
I got up and drank massive amounts of water and took a long hot shower.
Amazingly, I rehydrated almost immediately.
I had a bit of concern since Saturday was the marriage equality march and I would be performing as both myself and Kitt & Kaboodle.

I threw on some clothes, grabbed my guitar, stuffed my guitar tuner and an assortment of cables into my bag and ran for the train, stopping quickly between to grab some coffee. Without coffee I am generally a zombie. I got to Cadman Plaza and hung out and waited for soundcheck while socializing with the other performers and doing cartwheels on the astroturf. The heavens parted and the water began to pour down. We did not let fear of electricution or slipping off the stage onto the concrete deter us from the task at hand.

We got the word that the marchers were coming across the bridge. Soon we saw a crowd of umbrellas approaching.
Sadly, the crowd was not very big. As much as I want to say that people gathered in huge numbers to fight for their right to equality, that is not the case. I supposed if there had been an open bar or gogo boys involved that maybe it might intice people to get off their lazy apathetic asses and pretend that they care. Sadly this event was not even listed in the local rags full of picture after picture of half naked boys,dragqueens and drunken club kids.

If we care this little about our rights, then why should anything change? What does it take to unify and mobilize a group of people? When did we give up? When did we decide to just sit back and let the world happen without screaming in outrage? If we aren't willing to fight for change, then we will not get it. If we aren't doing something to make things better, then we are part of the problem. It is time for us to wake up. It is time for us to pull our headphone out of our ears, put down our cellphones, turn off our tv's and flood the streets with picket signs. We can't just sit back and let life happen to us. It is not a TV show. We can't switch the channel. We have to live it. UNPLUG and REACH OUT.

On Sunday, I slept in and started to get a little more settled into my new home. However on Sunday night I heard water dripping and was sure I didn't turn the shower all the way off. I walked into the kitchen to find that the dripping was coming from my wall. Water and formed bubbles in the paint and was oozing out of these pockets and down the wall. A large bubble formed on the ceiling and was also oozing liquid. I called my landlord and hopfully this will be fixed today.
Despite water falling from the sky and from the ceiling, I am thrilled to have been a part of the wedding march and thrilled to have a new home. Nothing in life is perfect. We all have to dig in from time to time, put on the work gloves and grab a paintbrush, fill in the cracks and wipe the sweat from our brows.

Robert Recommends

Robert German and Carrie Thomas in Coney Island. Photo by Carrie Thomas.

I would like to take this moment to discuss some things I am in love with right now.

first off, The Dresden Dolls!
Self-described as Brechtian Punk Cabaret, they fuse the sounds of British punk and German Cabaret with electrifying live shows that hump your ears like hardcore early Tori Amos. Yes, someone needs to towel off that piano bench at the end of the night.

My second love is BAM, Brooklyn's much hipper answer to Lincoln center. I highly recommend the movie screenings at the Rose Cinema. I was able to catch, David Lynch's Lost Highway, and let me just say that it was both perplexing and emotionally penetrating on the big screen.

Much more than an art-house cinema haven, this purveyor of cutting edge theatrical, musical, and dance performance makes Brooklyn's burgeoning art scene puff it's chest in defiance of Manhattanite elitist attitudes. No, You don't need to cross the bridge to consume some culture when it's just a leisurely stroll from the epicenter of South Brooklyn.

Full Moon

I was riding the F train from Manhattan to Brookyn last night when a crazy man got on the train. He was a harmless nutter butter,randomly yelling phrases or advice that made no sense. The one that stuck was "You can't smoke reefer on the train. You have to go on the platform for that."




I may have fallen a bit behind on advances in the penal code, but I think you probably can't smoke reefer on the platform either.

Regardless, this man was somewhat entertaining. He started yelling stuff about food, which of course caused me to feel immediate bond. He knows the way to my heart.

Just when I had gotten used to the rants of one crazy, a second crazy man stumbled into the train car clutching a photograph of Paris Hilton he had obviously ripped from the pages of a tabloid. He was yelling something something very important and totally garbled. I appreciated his passion, but still have no idea what he was saying.

It's so typical that I would end up being the meat in a crazy sandwich during the full moon, when I should be squatting in the woods naked writing poetry to the goddess, beating a drum with my pagan sisters. Oh my pagan sisters, take me into your loving bossoms.

Photograph by my lovely sister by choice Carrie Thomas

Digital Whiplash

Somewhere in Brooklyn I am sitting at a coffee shop on my laptop computer wirelessly connected, oh so connected to the information super highway. Next to me is a girl also on her laptop next to a guy on his laptop next a girl on her laptop and so on and so forth into infinity. It's quite possible that the girl by the door is in a chatroom sharing her bunt cake recipe with the guy in the back on his laptop next to the bathroom.

I have never been one to fear or loathe technology. I generally embrace it, but there is something horribly wrong with the world. We are collectively losing our ability to interact face to face. Never in our history as a civilization have we had so many ways to connect with people. We have cellphones, smartphones, webcams, laptops, email, and even smoke signals.

For some reason though, we're all disconnecting. we are plugging in and tuning out the world. We are all suffering from attention deficite disorder, obsessively checking email and flipping between open computer windows, television shows, podcasts, and text messages. We sit across from each other checking our cellphones, responding to texts sent, and maybe even actually talking about how much of a boring time we're having, planning our exit via the digital escape hatch.

Is it just me or is everyone suddenly so busy that they can't return a phonecall, email or smoke signal? Are we on overload? No one can focus. We don't even have the patience for commercials. We DVR and fastforward through them or we simply download the show from Itunes and watch it on our video ipod as we surf the transit system, happy that we don't have to make eye contact with another human being.

I am a hypocrite. I am blogging about this when we should be having a face to face conversation.

I need to step away for a minute and unplug.

Photo by Carrie Thomas

Unfulfilled Fantasies

I stumble through life hungry and slightly unfulfilled at times. It is human nature to fantasize with an intensity that bombards the senses, leaving one wet with desire. I am no different. I crave and I hunger and lust with my heart. I have visions of sugarplums dancing in my head or in this case bagels.

I want to give a shout out to Bergen Bagels in Brooklyn. Their bagels have been such a comfort to me at times, soft and sweet with just the right amount of fluffiness and the perfect amount of chewiness. I find myself daydreaming and salivating, just thinking about a garlic bagel with scallion cream cheese. Oh god, this is the real deal, scallions cut into pieces and mixed in with the rich creamy goodness.....And the garlic, oh it's perfectly toasted so that it melts in your mouth like candy.

I was on my way into the city, as we Brooklynites refer to Manhattan. I love this seperatist attitude. Technically Brooklyn is the city just as much as Manhattan, but we like to wear shirts that proudly display "I heart Brooklyn" and such.

I decided to stop by my little bagel love shack and pick up my garlic scallion breathe bomb. I watched, delighted as the woman helping me used a long knife to pull the bagel down from the shelf and flung it into her hand. My eyes followed the blade as it sliced through the outer chewy layer of bread revealing its tender center. I almost lost my shit when she started to smear the cream cheese all over the bagel, so generous, she gave with both hands.

I had ordered coffee as well and became distracted from the process when she went to get my coffee. She came back and slid the coffee into a brown paper bag with my bagel. I paid. I smiled. I left and got on the subway to head into "the city."

So we now live in a police state. You can't get on a train in New York without seeing 6 police officers pretending that they're going to search your bags. When they actually do search bags, it's someone who looks middle eastern. Oh no, that's not racial profiling. We are so a tolerant free country with no discrimination. By the way, last time I checked there was this little thing in the constitution. It's called the fourth amendment. Here's a refresher.

Amendment IV


The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

We might as well take that part of the constitution and use it as toilet paper at this point.

Well, anyway they also passed this horrible coffee law, which I feel has seriously traumatized me. It is illegal to have an open container of coffee on the subway. Now I have to hunker down and sneak sips like a crack whore.

I got on the train and decided that I would not open my bag of garlic goodness, because let's face it, once the garlic bomb is dropped, there will be no more love for me on the 3 train. I contemplated opening the coffee, but I really wasn't interested in being padded down and rubber glove butt raped by the po po just so I could get my 100% Columbian fix.

So, I instead drifted into a fantasy. I could picture how I would open the bag, placing the coffee beside me, slowly unwrapping the bagel...You get the picture.

So I finally got to my destination and sat down. I began to live out my fantasy, placing the coffee next to me, slowly unwrapping the bagel...And there it was. Inside the wax paper that should have been cradling my garlic love lump was nothing other than a plain bagel sliced down the middle with not so much as a drop of cream cheese. I was heartbroken, horrified, scared, and dizzy.

I immediately called 411 and got the number to the bagel shop. I called them and told them of my traumatic experience and convinced them to write my name on the register with a note saying that they owe me a garlic bagel with scallion cream cheese, which is only right. I am officially neurotic. I immediately contacted the lovely Carrie Thomas, a fellow foody and the only person who could truly understand the hurt,pain, and emptiness I was feeling inside. As always she was a rock in stormy waters.

I did indeed go back to Bergen Bagels and fulfill my fantasy, and they did make good on their promise of replacing my bagel. I have a stomach fool of stank and all is right with the world.

Photo by Carrie Thomas

Mupples

The word mupples was coined a few years back by my then roommate, Piia, The Finnish Wonder.

Mupples=Male+Couple.

This weekend was one of absolute laziness, I must admit. Remnants of the tropical storm had fluttered their way up to Brooklyn bringing sideways rain and turning umbrellas wrong side out. My umbrella was beat to begin with, and was laid to rest late Friday night very unceremoniously.

I spent Friday through Sunday mostly just curled up on the sofa watching mindless television. This is a strange departure for me as I really don't watch TV much at all except for the show, Lost, which was injected into my veins like dirty heroin last fall, afflicting me with an instant addiction. It's return to television in October will mean that I will get my weekly fix and stop the shaking in my hands.

On Sunday, I decided to venture out into the world, which had turned from apocalyptic to rather pleasant. However, a strange wind was blowing through Brooklyn. As I walked down the street, I kept passing couples. Let me correct that. I kept passing Mupples. Some of them were hand in hand. Some of them just sort of skipping along. All of them looked medicated with happy pills or some sort of potent love tonic.

I wanted to be happy for these frolicking couples, but they only served as living reminders of my singlehood, which seems to have settled in like a pair of old jeans that maintain the shape of my ass even after they've been thrown in the laundry hamper.

I passed the bus stop and noticed that the bus was coming, so I decided to get on it. I had no destination. I rarely ride the bus because I feel that it is a portal into a strange world which smells and tastes of something of which I just can't quite comprehend. It scares me. If there are vampires in Brooklyn, I think they ride the bus.

Three stops into my busride a gentleman got on. I knew him, yet we had never spoken. It's strange how you can see a person repeatedly yet you never say hello. I knew that he had to recognize me as well. We are familiar strangers, an odd urban phenomenon that would never fly in a small town.

I used to see him walking his dog. I would see him go into his apartment, which was one block away from mine. I always felt sad when I would see him, because he looked sad and his dog was very old and could barely walk. I knew that the dog would die soon. At some point, I guess the dog did die, because I didn't see him walking it anymore.

I feel that it had a profound effect on him because I noticed that it coincided with his appearance at the gym. He was working with a personal trainer, very intent on some sort of fitness goal, I thought. Next came subtle changes. The grey hair he had atop his head changed to dark brown. His clothing changed from loose fitting outdated garments to tighter and trendier threads to showcase his developing muscles.

I think the death of his dog made him feel old and alone. He decided to turn back the clock in little ways. Of course this is all speculation, coming from a passive stalker.

It had been months since I had seen this familiar stranger. He sat there on the bus with his dry cleaning neatly folded over his lap, the grey hair emerging at the roots, the muscular frame softer than the last time we had met but not said hello. I think that he has forgotten his mortality again. How many dogs must die for him to stick with his gym regiment and the regular maintenance required when one commits to coloring one's hair?

We got off the bus at the same stop and walked in opposite directions, not saying goodbye. I walked past more mupples, feeling that there is some factory pumping them out in twos. I stop myself. Have I become bitter?

It is then that I notice a young boy feeding McDonald's French Fries to a squirrel and realize that the world has gone terribly awry and I might as well just eat package after package of bacon and embrace the fact that I am not part of a mupple and that ultimately, that is a choice.

I am single. I accept it and embrace it. I sit at restaurants alone like a mysterious European professor, obviously wearing tweed. I talk to myself. I take bubble baths and listen to lesbian folk music. One day I will own many cats and have stacks of newspapers. Eventually, I will stop shaving and take up whittling. I will learn the banjo and lose some teeth. I will lose touch with the world and become what many call crotchety. I will make my own loose fitting clothing out of burlap sacks and rock on a porch with cracked planks, which I will never take the time to repair. I will reject technology and be the last person to send paper letters as everything becomes wireless. Above all things though, I will maintain my sanity.
We must all have romantic notions.

Photo by the lovely Carrie Thomas

The Loading Dock

Last night I sat on the loading dock of an abandoned factory in Gowanus and played guitar for a few hours. I seriously thought that I had found a street where no person would tread. Oh, how I was wrong. First I was approached by two guys in their early twenties who quite likely are punks. One told me what an awesome ax I had and I politely replied, "Thank You."

An hour later, I saw a group of people approaching as I played. I thought they were all dressed in red, but I shook my head and thought maybe I was imagining it. In fact a group of people all dressed in nothing but red clothing; vests, top hats, ties, etc. approached, quite real.

It was a circus of red. Suddenly they all stopped simultaneously like an army of robots and one of them spoke, quite possibly the leader. He said "Do you know how to get to the smith and 9th subway stop?"


I replied "oh, well, um walk down there, take a left, walk to 9th street, take a right, cross the bridge, and You're there."

They all politely smiled like a church camp group and said "thank you."

When it started raining, I decided to pack up my guitar and head to the Snakes on a Plane party I had been slightly dreading. I didn't know how fun a snakes on a plane party with random people who for some reason all worked at Star magazine could be. Those snakes on a plane fanatics know how to party.

Personally, I must say, do I really need more reasons to fear flying? Why do we have to throw in motherfucking snakes? I'm already scared out of my mind and you have to add snakes into the mix. It's not fair.

Lightning and Unicycles

Last night I had trouble falling asleep.

I was restless.


I decided to climb up onto the roof with my guitar and watch the lightning. Yes, I know, this doesn't sound like the brightest idea. I made an assessment of surrounding building heights and decided that the risk was acceptable.

There's something serene for me about Brooklyn rooftops after midnight. There is a peace that I can't explain. I am able to look out over the city and take in all of my thoughts with a clarity that I can't seem to find on the street level, with my feet planted on the ground and the daylight punishing my concentration.

I had my moleskine notebook with me in case some flash of lyrical inspiration struck before the lighting had a chance. Remember when we wrote things on paper? Before you became an addict of the digital world, I think you felt more fulfilled.
Text messages, email, phone calls, myspace, instant messenger...
Now that you have all these ways to get in touch with everyone, Do you feel more connected? If you stick your finger in a USB port, will you explode with the tingle of love?

Enough digital age philosophy...

So, My bicycle, oh god. I had it chained up in front of my friend Marc's apartment. I went by to say hi and he proudly boasted "I've been keeping an eye on your bicycle for you."

He pointed to a bike in front of us that I had never seen in my life. I said "well, Thanks a lot, but that's my bicycle." I turned around to point my finger at a bicycle with a missing back tire that looked like it had been the victim of a hate crime. I burst into laughter. It was too funny. I suppose I should have been devastated, but hey, what could I really do about it at that point? I must find the time this week to buy a new back tire. ugh.

Photo Credit--Carrie Thomas

The Curse of Dracula

Last night I had a very surreal Brooklyn evening.

I was invited by my friend, Jake to attend a screening in prospect park of 'Dracula' with live underscore performed by the Kronos Quartet composed by Phillip Glass.

The great things about these screenings is that people bring blankets and food and have little picnics while watching the show. We were sitting, eating sandwiches and berries with Slavic Soul Party serenading.
I somehow chose the part of the blanket that had been thrown on top of a pile of twigs, which have quite possibly forever damaged my tender parts.

My favorite thing about this version of dracula is that it was back before special effects, so you know that the bats were tied to a string on a twig and there's some guy whose job it is to bounce them up and down to make it look like they are flying...Absolute brilliance.

{cut to Dracula's Castle}

It started thundering and lightning in the movie. It also started thundering and lightning in the park. ooh, cool. I think a lot of people were stoned and like...Far out, man...Which I mean, hey, it was pretty cool. I on the other hand was looking up at the tree we were sitting under, wondering how long it would be before a bolt of lightning would split it right down the middle.

I decided to leave during the part of the movie where the characters are on a ship bound for England during a terrifying squall and was about 3/4 of the way out of the bandshell area when the torrential downpour in the park coincided with the movie and they stopped the film. Of course I wasn't all the way out, so I was suddenly in a crowd of hundreds of people trying to evacuate and avoid electrocution.

It was so weird to see so many people huddled together in the rain, running out of the park.
I ended up under an awning between 8th and 7th avenues on 9th street with a small group of people, waiting for the rain to let up. I feel like we were united for a few moments by the magic of real life and cinema colliding perfectly. We had all bonded in some weird way. We had similar stories, but wanted to make sure that our individual voices could be heard. I overheard a girl telling her friend that she had seen a bolt of lightning crash down a block away from the park.

The rain eventually let up. As I passed the bars, I noticed that most of them were so full that the people were spilling out into the streets. I guess when you find yourself bonding with so many people over lightning, rain, and the curse of Dracula, you want the connection to keep on living....to live forever.

Photo Credit- of course it's the lovely Carrie Thomas

I still have my eyebrows

A heartfelt thanks to everyone who came out to Brooklyn to celebrate my birthday.
There's nothing like a grilled hotdog under a mulberry tree. I'm sad to say though that one of my favorite t-shirts is now ruined from all the berries, but I'll always have the memories.

such as...

Telling John"don't be afraid of the grill"

(cut to us getting close and him flinging a match onto the coals)

When the fire shot five feet up into the air, it was like Vietnam. John and I simultaneously dove backward, away from the flame. I am thrilled to announce that I still have my eyebrows.

Photo used with the kind permission of Carrie Thomas

The Coney Island Tragedy

A cold wind blowing through Brooklyn today carried with it the smell of hotdogs.
If you listened hard enough you would also find that it carried the sounds of the craziest wooden rollercoaster ever.
The rollercoaster, in case you don't know, is called 'The Cyclone.'

At first site you wouldn't think it could scare your socks off, let alone your pants. Let me just say that it will take your shirt, your loose change, and quite possibly your soul.

I set out to ride this beast today with the lovely Carrie Thomas in tow. She brought her camera and we were also determined to take some glamour shots down on the pier. Unfortunately her camera battery suddenly went low and she couldn't continue shooting.

We went to two different stores in search of 3 volt batteries. I've never even seen a 3 volt battery, and I'm not quite convinced that they exist. The shopkeepers looked at us bewildered when we enquired about them. They too seemed not to have heard of these special batteries.

We decided to give up and head back to the boardwalk. I looked over at the cyclone to take in a voyeuristic glimpse at the people screaming and flailing. What I saw was quite shocking. Oh my god, quite shocking indeed. The coaster was stuck at the top of the first big climb and they were evacuating people and walking them down the tracks.

Carrie and I ran to get a closer look until we were standing under the great white beast gazing up as one by one the passengers of this doomed coaster ride were carefully taken down the tracks to safety. We are afterall ambulance chasers by nature. Carrie fussed with her camera trying to get a shot. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity to get a picture of the woman in the hot pink jump suit that was two sizes too small, uneasily wobbling her way down, gravity and the crowd below just begging for a mis-step.

So, the tragedy at Coney Island is this.

We went to take photos. It didn't happen.
We went to ride the cyclone. It didn't happen.
The biggest tragedy of all is that it was Carrie's first time on the Island of Coney and she didn't get to have a hotdog. Instead she had to settle for a sad piece of pepperoni that the wind whipped into her face, covering her in grease and cheese. The even sadder part is that when I said goodbye to her, I think there was still a bit of sauce on her forehead and I didn't say anything.

Apparently I'm going to burn in hell.

Well, I often display a photo from the lovely Carrie Thomas, but this blog will remain without photo in memory of those who lost their ride on the cyclone.