I Love Hate New York

Depending on the day I should either be wearing a shirt that either says
"I love NY" or "I hate NY"
I find that there is rarely an inbetween with this city. We have maintained a dysfunctional relationship for quite some time. NY beats me upside the head, backhands me, burns cigarettes into my clothing.

The next day there is the apology, the flowers, just the right words. I always come crawling back because NY has made me dependent on it. It's taken away my car and convinced me that the subway is the only way to go. It has made me actually fear leaving NY because I don't know how to function outside of the dysfunctional relationship.

I can get pretty much anything I need most times of the day...access to works by almost every famous artist. I pass models on the street. They live amongst us. I can hear every major language spoken in the street and eat pretty much every type of world cuisine.

Yet, I can also see the dark disconnected parts of humanity...the homeless the smell of urine as the subway train approaches...absolute wealth ignoring absolute poverty as it begs for a penny to buy an apple..or maybe some booze. who knows. After you live in NY for a while you become jaded and need convincing that a homeless person isn't just an NYU student pretending to be destitute for extra drinking money.

In other unrelated news and to prove that I have A.D.D. Today, my count of friends on Myspace hit the dreaded number 666. God help us all.

Hollywood Fire Hydrant for reelz, not for fakes

Imagine driving through Hollywood at 2:30 in the morning.
a few blocks ahead a giant gyser of water is shooting up into the air 40 feet high.
the source of this magnificent ?natural? disaster was a car which had crashed into the hydrant. The water had blown the hood off the car, which had blossomed into a beautiful fountain. It was magnificent. I wish I had a picture to show you, but I didn't have a camera. It will live in my memory forever.

My new favorite bar is a place called The Abbey on Robertson and Santa Monica in West Hollywood.

obviously my irrational fear of LA has fallen away, and I apparently had some sort of weird experience that makes no sense to even people who live there. At night, the air smelled like flowers, sweet and sickening, reminiscent of the magnolias from my early years in the south. I drove all over including the 405 freeway and it was enjoyable. nobody cut me off. People stopped to let me merge into traffic. It was pleasent. The weather was beautiful. The people were beautiful, well most of them. The food was delicious and fresh.

Have a found Utopia? Los Angeles is tricking me. It is hiding its underbelly. I must return and seak it out. I'm not fooled by this show of fragrant blossoms and friendly drivers.

and yet, I think I want to move there. oh god.

Fear of Los Angeles

I think I may have an irrational fear of Los Angeles.
I've never wanted to go there, and yet I never really had a reason to loathe or fear the city of angels.

My only real theory is that it is my grandmother's fault. My grandmother was an okie, the people from Oklahoma who fled the dustbowl and ended up in California trying to find a better life, but basically spat on and treated like scum.(see Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath)

Maybe it's a deep resentment of California's treatment of my grandmother, passed down in my genetic makeup. Regardless, I have never been to Los Angeles and I have never had a desire to go.

Regardless of how I feel, I will touch down in Los Angeles on Monday and will not see my beloved New York again until Thursday night. I am keeping an open mind, and who knows I just might fall in love with LA.

Tomorrow I'm back in the recording studio reworking an old recording. I have a feeling that you're all going to pee your pants with glee when you hear the ear candy that will be coming your way. Alright, I'll just come out with it. It's the Walking song.

I'm told people look at you strange if you walk in L.A. I'm going to be driving a mini-van, so I'll be super hot driving through West Hollywood.

Is Faster and Harder Better?

I find that sometimes I become attached to songs after they have been recorded in a certain way at a certain speed. This week, I went into the studio to record a more uptempo version of a song. It sounds hot in its new form, but it will take me a while to get used to this flashier version. Is Faster and Harder better?

It's like a nun wearing sequined high heals. At first, it shocks you, but eventually, you say a few hail marys and settle into the idea.

aWake

Last night I went to the wake of my friend's grandmother. She passed gently at bed time with "farewell to arms", drifted to sleep and did not wake up. This is the universally preferred "way to go".

Broke Ankle Mountain

So, yesterday I fell down the stairs. I quite possibly have broken my ankle, but I continue to walk on it because I am tough as nails. There is no swelling, no discoloration, no real signs of breakage, but it's definitely not right.

I think it was the lack of food and over abundance of theraflu that made me lose my balance and tumble down the steps that lead to my apartment. On the upside though, I have almost completely shaken the strepthroat and am ready to tackle the world.

I got two phone messages this weekend during my convelesence from people saying "you have to see brokeback mountain." "oh it's so good". Alas, I may be the only man of the "man on man action persuasion" who has not seen this tale of manlove out on the range. I've been too busy burning the many candles I burn at both ends. Alas, I may have to wait for this one to come to DVD.

I'm eating solid food, so it's a good day. God, that sounds geriatric.

Strepthroat

As a child I would get horrible tonsil infections about twice per year. I remember going to the doctor in our small Kansas town with my mother and basically begging to have my tonsils out. For some reason, the doctor did not think that I needed to have them out. I have to both loathe and thank the man for doing this.

I have tonsils that are about twice the size of a normal person. While taking a voice and movement class in New York a few years ago, I was forced to participate in an exercise where we all looked at our tongues with compact mirrors. The exercise then progressed to looking into other peoples mouths. This culminated in the teacher having everyone look at my tonsils like I was the modern day equivalent of the Elephant Man.

So, why do I have to thank the man who would not let me have my tonsils out so many years ago? Well, it is my enlarged tonsils that causes these strange sounds to come out of my mouth when I sing, many times sounding much like a muted trumpet.

Why do I loathe the man? Twice a year like clockwork I get strepthroat. My tonsils swell to the point of doctors having to give me steroids to reduce the swelling and keep me from suffocating.

I spent my day today in bed, drinking water and sleeping, occasionally having some theraflu. Last year, my strepthroat hit in the last week of January. This year it's the first week of February. Thank you and Damn you Dr. G for leaving these giant lumps in the back of my throat just begging for infection.