Today seemed to be the day of saying: enough is enough. Let's dispense with the kid leather... Get down to some nogahyde.

At some point during the weekend that I packed up my apartment in San Francisco, I was sitting on the porchhaving a smoke when a neigbhour approached me from across the street. It was pretty late, like around 11:30.
The guy was somene I saw around and exchanged pleasantries with, usually in Portuguese - to the best of my ability: Brazilian he was and I seemed to remember his name was Favio. He was friends with another Brazilian I knew who worked at Serrano's Pizzeria. Local color.
He came walking up with a big smile, and politely asked if he was disturbing me. He had a favor to ask - and it was to be a one time favor - and he hated to ask. He hated to bother me, he emphasized, with something so stupid.
I nodded my head slowly, trying to make something of his elaborate preamble. Just the mere fact that Favio had approached me so intently at 11:30 had me scrutinizing him somewhat. Disturbing a relatively unfamilar neigbhour at such a late hour, with an elaborate, convoluted story - seemed upon reflection to be outside the realm of acceptable behaviour. Night is the land of shadows, and it's pretty uncool to roll up on someone you don't know- and not at least be out with whatever it is they need - which better be pretty fucking important anyway.
What it came down to was Favio needed me to lend him $20 bucks, because his Brazilian ATM card wasn't working, and he had a girl on her way from SFO in a cab, and she didn't have any yankee-dollars, and there was no way to blah blah - and could I lend him the money? It seemed like a pretty hinky story. I hate being a sap, and I try not to take the position, but he'd always seemed like a nice guy. He dressed pretty well - kind of a long hair, tattoo on his bicep surfer type. Whatever. Maybe I'm stupid, but I took a chance. It's seemed like the neigbhourly thing to do. What's the gambIe I thought: $20 on the goodness of the human race; I'll take those odds. I'd considered asking for his watch as collateral, but that seemed rather mean and ungentlemanly.. I'd feel like some moth-eaten old pawnbroker, taking the guy's watch off like that. Making someone give up their watch seems very dehumanizing - It's kind of like; "You won't be needing this anymore." There's a thing about a watch in The Pianist. It's always the last act of desperation when you sell or trade away a watch

Of course favio never showed up with the money. All the next day kept an eye open for him, but he was gone like Buddy Holly. And I felt like a jackass. Had I learned nothing from three years of living in the Mission district?
Two weeks went by and I finsihed moving down to L.A.: The sting of Favio's little scam passed - I'd even forgotten about it, when who should I run into today? I don't think he was expecting to see me. And again, there were more greetings and saluations. Where had I been, he asked pleadingly. As he explained how he'd come by, again and again... And I just stared at him. When I finally answered, it wasn't in playfully broken Portuguese.
"What the fuck is up with my money dog?" I asked, without a trace of humor. "You got it? Give it to me now."
He padded both his front pockets with his hands, to indicate that he wasn't carrying twenty bucks. I insisted that he absolutely had to put the money in my hand that day. Slipping between Englisn and Portuguses, he protested that he had wanted to pay me, and that I was treating him like "um vago".
"As far as I'm concerned you are a vago." I said. "I want $20 in my hand to-day."
I turned slowly to walk away, then looked back.
"To-day." I said for the third and last time.

I'd related the story to my pop as we sat out on his front porch. I told him all about the Tag Heuer watch the guy'd had, and I laughed scornfully about the vago brand. I also laughed and bragged about how I'd kept repeating "to-day", emphasizing the two separate words, like Robert deniro says in Goodfellas. We were laughing, and kicking it like that when Favio walked up and handed me a twenty dollar bill folded in four.
"Thank you." I said pleasantly. I took the note and held it in front of my face.
Favio walked off sullenly, his hands in his pockets.
"Looks like it's your day to make deals." My pop said.
I admired the likeness of Mr. Jackson on the double sawbuck.
"Yeah, it looks like." I said smiling.






























At least he wasn't going around with a 12ga. and a roll of duct tape. I gave him three cigarettes: How's that for compassion? I was very worldbeat then.

Watching Baby play at the dogrun I got to thinking... That in the future we will likely see a greater tendency towards an international socialist system - despite the present conservative trend. What with all the nation remodelling the "coalition" is undertaking (Iraq is what's known as a tear-down), there will probably be a merging of the duties of the U.N. and the big international lending and development agencies. The basis of interventionism lies in a kind of internationalism, despite the lack of consensus on the part of the U.N.

I think history bears out that such an enterprise as a international socialist system requires a strong central power, and the world does not want for one of those lately. And socialism seems to be the likely destiny for a civilization driven by its quest for perfection: It's better living through science.

I'm not saying this a good thing, fellow bloggers - it's just a prediction.

We left the dogrun, and baby and I were walking up Duane St. to where I'd parked the truck. It had just stopped raining half an hour before, and I carried a new, black, gentleman's umbrella. The streets were still wet. As we were on the steepest part of the grade, two big dogs suddenly came running out of a yard and straight at me and Baby. The dog that got to us first was REALLY big - like over 100 lbs and his mate was two-thirds that size.
I was completely stunned by the speed at which they were upon us. I hadn't time but for four synapses: Dogs, big, fast HERE! I think I looked around nervously for someone who may be the owner of these hounds, but in that instant they were upon my dog. The big guy was snarling like mad, rearing up and landing on Baby's shoulder's. His smaller accomplce seemed to hook around low, as if to get at Baby's face. baby's ass was totally on the line, and he spun around again and again, whimpering - and then bolted into the street.
Actually it was like the three dogs moved as one, in their snarling combat, ending up right in the middle of the street - and it happened SO FAST!

And then a fucking car is comig down this steep hill, and the road is wet, and the driver slams her brakes - and the little blue car screeched to a stop but five feet short of the three dogs. The encounter had not begun 1.5 seconds before.
When I saw the car bearing down on my dog, my hands went up in to the air, like a goal referee declaring a filedgoal was good. I yelled the word out: FUCK! I'd lost that second because I bothered looking around for the owner of the two curs, but it had gone beyond the point where they could have helped.
I charged the bigger dog, whose back was to me, and brought the umbrella down on his back in a slash, like a Hussar sabering an infantryman. It got his attention, and he turned out not to be that tough a dog - not when the steel is on his back - he turned and bailed, and his mate followed, but not before I caught him as well, on the neck with my umbrella, in a backhand swing...
I was yelling too. I don't know what I was saying. But those dogs were gone dogs. Baby had managed to slip away during (the distraction I created for him) during the melee. He ran into a neigbhour's yard across trhe street, but returned when he saw the mean kids were gone.

It took him a little while to shake that one off. He had the most disquieting smell on him after... I don't know what it was. It smelled a bit like pee, but without the pissy, ammonia characteristic: Instead it was more like base-pee - like slightly fermented grains... But I would also describe it as a kennel smell; or the fecund, hot smell of livestock. I think Baby figured he was a goner, and some gland or other related to being a meal unloaded itself in him. He's alright though.

I'm formulating a theoretical viewpoint of sorts, that the true gulf that separates East from West is the notion of perfection. (Now I'm not an anthro[pologist, except in the general, human longing for knowledge way).
Me and a friend were looking a a Persian rug, and he pointed out the deliberate flaws in the geometrical designs... As it is prohibido to attempt perfection - You leave that for Allah. Sounds good to me man. Let's celebrate imperfection!

But now the cult of the West has it's basis in the quest for perfection - through our technology. Our tower of Babel... Instead of living simple - everyone in this socity is pushing the envelope... And it's infectious - no culture can resist it.
Pundits will often decry the appearance of a coca cola sign in latin America ( it's pretty sad) but in truth it's not products that neutralize culture and traditional relationships - it's the people's conversion to a way of thinking: The cult of the individual. Los Angeles is the heart of it... It's as west as you can go!

Raf and I watched The Big Lebowski a few nights back. I had seen it before, when it came out; but this time I really got into it. It's one of the best hommages to the whole L.A. trip in the filmic history of this town.
Raf mentioned that he'd sen a list compliled in some magazine of the 20 best films about L.A. Chinatown came out at number 1 and L.A. Confidential was up in the top 5. But I don't think either of them goes as deep into the mythology of this city - as does The Big Lebowski.

Yesterday we drove by the old Hollywood Star lanes on Santa Monica, which is now a vacant lot awaiting building by the L.A.U.S.D. It was a goddamn tragedy that they tore down the bowling alley to build a new school. That entire strip of Santa Monica is a collection of run-down body shops and dollar stores, with numerous vacant lots. I never knew anyone in this town who didn't love Hollywood Star Lanes. That's where I met Bjork one night, when I first came out here to work on a film. Everyone went to Hollywood Star Lanes: Actors, Mexican families, Armenian gangsters, gay-bowling teams... Every ethnic, linguistic, and fiscal class of Angeleno went to enjoy those all-night lanes.
Jell-O and I went there some nights when she was staying here, and things were too weird around the guys at the house. L.A. simply fucks everything up that it touches. It has to be the worst municipal bureaucracy in the United States: You see that evidenced daily in this town.

The thing about the demolition of Hollywood Star Lanes from which everyone can take comfort, is that there was really nothing anybody could do. Petitions were raised, and the cause of saving the bowling alley was taken up by many powerful and creative people - and even then it all amounted to nigh. Vince Vaughn apparently tried to buy it.... But the LA school district wasn't having it.

So when you watch the Big Lebowski, you'll know that Hollywood Star Lanes was a real place, just like in the movie. All the bowling alley employees portrayed in the film, were the actual guys who worked there. Raf pointed out to me that several of the bowlers they show throwing strikes were crew members, such as the stunt coordinator, and the best boy grip... I wish I could have brought everyone I knew there at least once, before it went away.

I WAS POSSESSED
Around 9:15 tonight, I talked on the phone with a chap who was interested in selling me something, which I happened to be interested in buying. The thing itself is not really germaine to the story I'm telling.
The guy's e-mail was devil@blahblah.com, and he answered the phone by annoncing his name - Del. Hence Devil. I talked to this very animated, if not altogether bugged out guy, and we made a plan to meet up at a bar on Folsom and 17th. During our conversation, he insisted that I drop in the bar for a drink, explaining that a great band new band was playing; who could be, in his words, the next Flying Burrito Brothers. I told him I'd see how things looked when I got there. We were appointed to meet at 9:50 outside, and I promised I would be punctual.
As I sat there at my desk trying to get off the phone with the guy, he asked how he would distinguish - in the middle of the crowded bar. I glanced over at the heavy red jacket I'd just worn on the motorcycle ride home.
"I'll be wearing a shimmering, sharkskin-like red jacket." I told him. "You won't miss it."
When I got off the phone, I considered washing a basket of dishes to pass the time before our meeting, but I was suddenly overcome with a great burst of physical energy. I stripped off my shirt and started doing push-ups on the rug in my diningroom. Then I began shadowboxing in front of the small vanity mirror in my bathroom. I was really getting into it, and my form looked tight. It was like - whack- whack - whackwhackwhack... Combinations of body hooks, and Thai uppercut elbows... Everything in the arsenal: Fop Fop Fop. Throwing long, staright jabs, with fingers extended outwards, to accentuate the form, and point it like a dart. It was really great.
I took a deep breath, and let my shoulders relax, the repose still feeling like fluid movement. I reached into my pocket to check up on the time before my appointment, and gasped when I realized I was supposed to meet Del - Devil - whatever THAT minute.
"Oh shit!" I said aloud. "Fucking late."
I grabbed the red jacket to put on over the white undershirt I was wearing, when I was suddenly seized with the impulse to run to the meeting at the bar. Instead of putting on the red jacket, I tied it around my waist.
"Baby, let's blow - we gotta go now." I said to my dog, as I hurriedly passed him, stretched out in the hallway.
The two of us jogged down the stairs, and when we landed on the sidewalk, there wasn't a car, or another soul to be seen. We took off running, crossing 21st st at a diagonal, and heading north on San Carlos. We were going pretty fast; it was between a jog and a run. The scenery of seedy white and off-white houses seemed to flow by like a kaleidoscope, as my lungs began borrowing oxygen from my brain, to supply the anaerobic thrust. Bay windows, cornices and fire-escapes cut against the dark clarity of the night like teeth on a saw-blade as it coasts to a stop. The blocks went by like they'd been reduced two-thirds in size.
At 18th, we cut east across Mission St., and into that other world, where tended yards are replaced by cars parked on the sidewalks. The few people we passed, seated on stoops, appeared cut short in the midst of forming an impression of us as we sped by; the air making a slight thwish sound against my wind pants.
When I reached the corner of 17th and Folsom, across the street from the bar where our meeting was to take place, I slowed and began to bounce back and forth on the balls of my feet like a boxer; left to right. With my fists up around my chin, I stepped in towards a lamppost and started throwing roundhouse kicks at it - but managing to slow the kick to nothing just before the point of impact - and my lower shin would bounce straight back to the point from which the kick was thrown - reset and BOOM off again - like a semi-automatic. I was rushing on every phermone, hormone, trombone and gall stone. I headed across the street to look for this Del inside the bar.
Inside the place was full: Every seat and stool occupied, and everyone riveted to a country trio on stage playing a sumptuous ballad. A blond-haired girl singing was fronting the band and she was a doll. From all the way across the bar our eyes made contact for a little more than a moment. I leaned against the door, as there was nowhere else to stand, and watched them play. I was amazed by how good they were.
I remembered the red jacket gag, and I untied it from my waist. I was sweating like a horse from the running and Drunken master workout session, and it felt like the air around me was 125 degrees. I realized I must have looked a fright, all pink-skinned and sweaty, but with the jacket on I felt ridiculous. Nevertheless I turned the collar up like the Fonz, and made a big deal out of smiling and nodding my head affirmatively at everyone in the place - as if to say - Yes, I'm THE guy...
The girl crooned on her sweet hillbilly number, but I had to keep pushing the door open to see if the dog was still there waiting for me. This drew a couple of the other patron's attention, but they seemed to avert their eyes from my friendly glance. Indeed, I looked a fright.
When the band finished their tune, the girl on stage asked the audience if she and her ensemble should do another one. There was applause and a few hoots: A guy off towards my right yelled back across the bar heartily: "Fuck yeah!". He was enthusiastic, and I could see he wanted to give the band some love, but his words didn't quite come from the diaphragm, and the words sounded a little false, like he'd checked his swing
There was a moment of quiet bar mumurt, in the wake of the guy's utterance, and I suddenly stepped forward ever so slightly - and filled it.
"IS THE DEVIL IN THIS HOUSE?" I yelled, very near the top of my lungs.
There was absolute quiet in the bar. As the saying goes, you could hear a pin drop.
I have an inherently deep voice, and the louder I go, the deeper it goes - and the gravel comes in - and the sand - I even heard a few nuts and bolts in there too. People have told me that when they heard me raise my volume, even without any intended anger, that it's scary sounding.
Almost everyone in the bar turned around to take in lobster-boy, sweating profusely in a red snowboarding jacket, who'd uttered the vaguely maniacal yell: I enquired about the devil, like I'd come in there to kick his ass.
"YEAH, I'M OVER HERE." Yelled back a guy I couldn't see. He was around behind some people gathered at the bar itself.
I felt a slight gratification that I'd gotten an answer. I could sense that most people in the bar had written me off as an obnoxious, possibly insane heckler. The thing had become a curious little event, and I enjoyed the center-stage moment. As my teacher Chris Bayes once confided to me: Clowns are not always there to make us laugh.

But then it turns out the guy who answered to the name Devil - is the wrong guy. He had no idea What I was or Who I was talking about. I got the wrong Devil. What is the probability of that?
"You're the wrong Devil." I said, turning to walk away. "I'm sorry for the inconvenience."
When I reached the door, I stopped before pushing it open, and turned to the angel singing on stage. I knew she'd look at anyone leaving in the middle of her song. Our eyes made contact, and I bowed slightly, like a Thai, my hands pressed together before my face. I slipped out the door in the smallest way I could.

My dog seems to be acting very strange these days. He seems sad all the time. I know that all dogs can at times be - hang dog-like; but it seems different with Baby. The dog just has damn issues and I have to tell myself over and over that it has nothing to do with me.

Last night I was sitting in my livingroom listening to a record. My hands were occupied with something, and the dog suddenly got up from his spot on the floor, and began to groan and press his snout into my thigh. He's a big enough dog that it kept me from continuing writing or whatevet I was doing.
"What's with you dog?" I asked, puzzled. And then a slight feeling of anxiety began to creep into me. Baby stared up at me with terrified eyes, and he groaned aloud. His tail tried to wag, but it was more of a clipped stutter against the floor.
Suddenly I was alarmed. I wondered if there wasn't going to be an earthquake - or something worse. Perhaps all of civilization'd worst fears realized.This was not a rational kind of fear, but the general, primordial variety. I listened to the house itself in silence, all the while staring at the dog; searching his eyes for an answer. Finally I exhaled.
"What the hell are you trying to do to me baby?" I asked him, sitting down irritatedly to write again.

I only remembered this today, when I stumbled upon this link:

http://www.craigslist.org/sfo/sfc/com/9863144.html

Listening to the news on Sunday, March 23

It sounds like things are getting completely fucked up in Iraq. It's surreal how anything so remote can be so immeadiate, and I don't even watch TV.

At least the news helicopters have gone away.

One day during the filming of Leela, Horse and I got tired of pushing the grip taco cart all over U.S.C. campus, along with all of our grip hardware, sandbags and stands. We attached the 5' tall taco cart's pulling handle to the hitch of a big, beefy flatbed golf-cart that U.S.C. had lent to production for moving our package around the location.
With our trailer tied up, we rigged-out the sides of the big golf cart with cardellini clamps, so that we could hang all of our step-ladders, 12X frames and speedrail on the sides. Our itty-bitty grip truck was seriously squared away.
One day, as we set out on one of the mini-company moves we did around the campus, Horse jumped into the driver's seat of the little electric tractor-trailer and released the parking brake. He then hesitated for a moment, and reset the brake and jumped back out.
I watched curiously as Horse walked back to the taco-cart and pulled off a half-apple box. He placed the half-apple on the driver's seat of the cargo cart and sat down on top of it so that the steering wheel was almost in his lap. He released the brake, allowing the whole rig to creep forward.
"Now it drives like a truck." He said with a snarl. He leaned forward and began to crank the wheel around hard, like a trucker pulling a fully loaded Peterbilt out of a Flying J service stop.
I tried to hide my smile, as I realized that Horse had seized onto the cab-forward style of our cargo cart. The steering axle was under his butt, so it steered like a city bus. When turning hard, the front end would swing around wide, just like the big guys.
"Hang on a minute Horse." I said. "I need to get a picture of this."
I walked off towards set in search of a Polaroid camera to borrow.
In the one picture I took, Horse is peering out sideways, as if to check the progress of his trailer around a tight corner. His left hand is cranking the wheel around, and his right is raised up to the canopy roof of the golf-cart, as if he's tugging on the rope and tooting' the air horn. Keep on truckin'.
That was the one time I ever saw Horse drive anything.
On the morning when we got the call that Horse had died, we all raced to his apartment on N. Stanley and Beverly in Hollywood. All his set tools, his diamond plate toolbox, his converse all-stars and cut-off Dickies were all laid out to go to work. The picture of Horse in the big-rig golf cart was stuck to the fridge. It had faded a bit, but still caught something of the humor in that moment.

We ran aong Ocean Beach today. It was brillaintly sunny, but an unceasing wind blew straight in from the ocean, loud as a freeway. We ran from Sloat Beach to the cliff house; a distance i jusge to be around three miles. I ran along the glistening wet sand in the immeadiate path of the tide. She preferred to run above the water line, along a path of crushed sea shells and other oceanic detritus.
I felt like i could have sprinted a lot of it, but I hung back and waited for j. The dog went crazy and tried to run down every gull and sand piper. He seemed tireless as he harassed the birds, running up and down the beach, constantly in and out of the water.
When we got ot the cliff house, we walked off the three mile jog, and I felt like every footfall we made along the sand was somehow earned. I told J what little I knew about the cliffhouse, and then we began the long walk back. It seemed much father when we were walking it, and the light was getting flat. The sea was a silver color, swishing around and breaking in its irregular, choppy way. It was uncomfortably cold by the time we got to my truck, and I had trouble opening the vehicle's locks with my numbed fingers.

He leaned against the door of the bar until it gave way, and then spilled inside all the while glancing back over his shoulder.
"Well look what the damn cat drug in." Said a large, almost man-like female bartender. She was despairingly ugly, with clownlike dyed red hair. The other patrons at the bar also looked at him hostiley.
"Hi, you're open right?" He asked, sheepishly. A moment went by before she answered.
"Well what does it look like?" She asked ferociously, looking around at the other customers. "Are you gonna have a drink or not?"
"Uh, yes. I'm going to have, umh…" His mind went blank, as he tried to imagine what he would order. The last thing he wanted was a drink at that moment, especially a drink he couldn't pay for.
"Can I have a club soda?" He blurts out finally. Everyone in the place is watching the confrontation. The barmaid gives him a hard look and says nothing for a moment, and then suddenly turns away.
"Alright, that's it. Three strikes your out. Get out of my bar Mister." She says gruffly. Don stands open-mouthed and silent
"Come on, clear on out." she adds, louder.
Don stands there, frozen for a moment, not believing that he's being so poorly treated,
"Could I just use your telephone?" He asks, earnestly leaning forward, trying to appeal to the barmaid's sense of "human connection". She slams her hand down on the counter.
"Get the fuck out of my bar!" She suddenly yells, but Don has already turned and is halfway outside like a dog helped out the door with a kick in the ass.
u

Yesterday, January 19th was all about football.

I amazed myself by getting out of bed at 11:30, putting togteher a suitable outfit for winter football, and headed up to McCaren park with D.H. The game was fun, and of course i was glad I went, but i'm sure suffering today. Even the firendliest football games are physical, and this was no exception. I was the smallest guy on the field by at least 15 lbs. I can make up for some of it by hustling, but invariably you find yourself getting bumped by "the other fellows."

During one play in which I was on the defensive line, one of their receivers I was covering straight-armed me right off the snap, all the while making a spinning movement to get around me. This would have enabled him to get deep into the downfield, while leaving me two or three paces back. I know he didn't mean to, but the kid's arm came around wide as he spun, and he caught me on the cheek with an open palm as his body tourqued around. I was slightly stunned, and I think I muttered "fuck" to myself.
Then I sprinted after him down to the end zone. When I caught up, I don't remember if he was then carrying a pass he'd received. It wasn't the reason I was after him at that point anyway: He could have been running for the bench. I came running up along side him, checked him lightly and then tripped him. He was at a good run when I tackled him thus, and he went down hard and slid a few feet. When he got up he was smiling, but he said, "why did you trip me man?"
"You slapped me hard across the face when you came off the line dude." I said.
"Oh, I'm sorry." He said genuinely.
"Being a little guy in sports -" I said shaking my head slowly. "It's the only way to stay alive on the field."

At least it's the only way I know. It's always been a kind of gospel of masculinity: In a game if someone hits you dirty, then you have to straighten him out right away. In hockey it's accepted practice; in boxing even more so. Sporting conduct grows right out of the junior high locker room; and that's law of the jungle.

So why don't I feel totally clean about it? I've got all my justifications lined-up perfectly. It would seem to be an open-and-shut case within my inner-courtroom. Now I'm thinking of taking this case all the way to my own supreme court.

I have a problem with getting hit in the face: I never liked it. Who does like it? I don't think anyone particularly likes getting hit hard in the face: But I really lose myself. It was always the worst thing in boxing - just getting popped! It makes you want to cry, yell, rage, turn around and run...

But chasing a guy down and deliberately tripping him in a friendly pick-up football game.

That's a tough one.

MISSING CONTRAST

I can't believe it: I've just run out of subjects suitable for the blog. Since I returned to Montreal, I have ceased to See. How terrible, to have those marvelous travel eyes smote, stricken; torn from my skull to be eaten by small birds.
My trip to France did not end when the A-320's tires skidded onto the frozen runway ay Mirabel airport. I was still a traveller when Janie picked me up and we drove together to st. Sauveur to look in on the camps. Funny how the lines blur around these sorts of things. A teacher of mine used to say that the 20th century began with WWI, and ended with the fall of the Berlin wall. I have this sense that the 21st century began on September 11th, but a part of me feels that is terribly morbid and fatalistic. When I consider this opinion, I wonder if I'm being Americo-centric, but then I remember that the French and the Caanadians (the Canaanites - that's my bible study slipping in unconsciously) seemed to want to talk about 9/11 more than Americans did. Hmm.

I have to catch up on my bible reading. It's a perfect activity for days like this. Reading is a perfect activity for the Montreal winter: It's -18 today. I would go ice-skating, but it's probably too cold for that.

Straight Berlin

Into the light of morning,
the great cars take olive oil to Marseille.
They seem to cruise sideways,
through the narrow alleys.

The sun in the sky,
is round as a pizza crust
burning still like a molotov cocktail,
even in the clearness of evening.

The moon finally tires,
and punches out early,
descending over an indigo sea.
Lazy, overpaid sonofabitch.

Mariesol has arrived,
and I am suddenly a prisoner.
Ah Berlin, both psych ward and cabaret.
In your clear canal`s waters
the men have given up kicking their feet,
through closed windows; looking downwards;
careless and hopeful.

I`m blinded to the tulips of the mountain,
fallen from windows, and in their final massive
closure, they are soiled and black.
They chant incatations for the 30th of November,
and Autumn`s final departure.

I am proud to be poor, and so full of distaste,
with my wool liederhosen,
and wrinkled, ill-fitting cuffs.
Marvelous how these ebony zippers
despoil my shoulderblades;

I am proud to be old,
and have but a sliver of life ahead of me.
Each stationary bit of nothingness I watch,
will but improve my complexion.
And clear up some of the wrinkles,
on the over-used map that is my ass.

Each stationary bit of nothingness,
covers the tracks to its end.
But it can still be found,
on the tip of my cock.
which I twirl playfully,
at everything I`ve seen before.

That deadness in my eye you see,
is due to the stale bread I ate,
this morning, at THE SWISS STOVE.
And my tired old mug
is but an overwrought lithograph.

Will I ever get out of Dusseldorf?
What time does the zoobahn open?

I was walking up 6th ave a couple of months ago, and I noticed a faded, peeling advertisement on the side of an old loft building. This was one o those large ads they would paint right on the bricks of a buildings sidewalls (very old New York). The ad was for some seriously outdated service, along the lines of LOUIE`S FURCOAT STORAGE, but the interesting thing was the phone number displayed at the bottom:

ALOGONQUIN 347

When did they get rid of that old phone routing system? And is there any way it could be revived? All over North America they prefixed phone numbers with names of things: Who thought those up? It seems like such a cool system.

I`m going to try and hunt down as many of the old prefixes as I can. The trick is to ask old-timers what their neigborhood routing was. Their eyes will tend to sparkle through the cataracts when they talk about the old days when a phone number...

In Bay Ridge was EVERGREEN
In North Beach was CHESTNUT (I think that`s what Anna told me)
(Springfield was KLONDIKE)

So go out in the streets of your own town or city! Talk to the lonely old guy who feeds pigeons in the park (ask him not to feed the pigeons) but also ask him what the old prefixes were where he lived and worked. There are tens of thousands of them and they`re all cool. With some coaxing I think Bob McMillan could be persuaded to mount a database on Filbert... Maybe there`s a contest here.

Last night was really interesting. It was only yesterday that I felt like I was filling in the time before my return to North America. As I saw it there was only two and a half days to go, and nothing interesting could possibly happen in two days. On top of that I felt heavy when I left Provençe, and I couldn`t understand why. When I left Paris for the south, I`d finally managed to reconnect with my old friend Thomas Brutschi here in Paris, whom I`d worked and been friendly with in New York. Thomas and I left it that we`d connect and have dinner once we were both back in Paris. This would be my last social call in France.
Thomas lives in a Paris suburb called Montreuil, which seems to be the Williamsburgh of said city. Actually, Montreuil is much cooler. You get the sense in Paris that they didn`t buy the hype throughout the 90s quite as much as us. Paris never went dot.com and it never fell into the whole political correctness thing. They probably didn`t need it. But I digress...

Thomas and I had a quiet dinner together in his really charming house, and then we sat and he told me of his family life. Never have I met someone who is so in love with being a father: It`s like a drug for him. I couldn`t help but feel that something went right in his life. Thomas made the right moves at the right times. Sitting by his fireplace, nodding my head slowly, I was struck with the sense that I had lived my whole life as a misfit - and contrary to what I`ve always tried to project, that is not something to be envied.

But there`s no crying in baseball.

In our rambling talks, we sort of touched on politics for a moment. Thomas expressed a feeling of unease at what he saw as dangerous changes occurring in the world. He mentioned the large presence of police and soldiers in Paris, and the new powers that the state was giving itself over the populace. I looked him right in the eyes as he told me of his concerns, and I shared his unease - for himself and for his family. Thomas lives in a place where everyone grows marijuana in their backyards, and when he gets a parking ticket that he feels is unfair, he`s right away down at the police station yelling at them about it. And he can get it reversed.

This may be the impression of a wide-eyed traveller, but I think human beings live much better lives in France than they do in the United States - or anywhere else for that matter.

It`s time to make moves,

I can`t stand still.

I`m taking the fast train south today,

and I`ll kiss these big city blues goodbye.

(or for those of you who don`t speak jive)
I`m getting bored of the tourist thing, and I don`t want to spend new year`s eve in Paris. So I`m taking the TGV to Marseille and then a cow train to Aix-en-Provençe.

Filbert-blog has become like the abandoned dacha in Doctor Zhivago, when Yuri returns from his press gang service in the white army. The sentimental poet searches for his wife and child, and the memories of peaceful summer days. But in the house are only icicles and sad traces of those happy times.

And carrying a chisel is being monitored by the French secret service.

Is blogging dead?

It is so quiet on filbert.net... Thank heavens for new blood (by this I mean the "it girl"). Otherwise Filbert would be a dusty abandoned street with a boarded-up movie theater and a few tumbleweed bouncing by. The one traffic signal flashing Christmas cheer from red to green; the amber light shot out by some kids with a .22.

I went to see SWEET 16 last night at the MK2 Quai de Seine. Everywhere you turn in Paris there is romance and history. We got off the metro at Jaures-Stalingrad, and immeadiatley fell into a wonderful fairground, with carousels and an ice-rink. Les concessionaires offered crèpes and gaufres belges with Nutella. Or you could try your luck in a midway shooting gallery game: 3 Euros buys you five shots: The target is three balloons enclosed by wire, bopping around wildly on a jet of compressed air
"You look like you know what you`re doing." My friend Anna said, as I loaded the pellet gun and tried to adjust the sight. Her heavily accented Swedish voice seemed both amused and perturbed by this.
"Just tell me which prize you want baby." I replied.

And like Bo Mason, 1898 champion shot of Montana, I took out three balloons in three shots. If only I had a pair of figure skates with me.

Ah me!
It`s up and down in kind of a bittersweet way here.
How am I supposed to walk these streets, in the light parisian, winter drizzle?
Every bar beckons like an old friend, to have a glass of wine and a smoke.
And me, I speak just enough cheesy French that folks seem to find me cute.
But what good is any of it, if I`ll be less than a ghost here in a couple of weeks?

Bravely I took a bus home tonight: It was the number 69 from Invalides to La Bastille,
via rue St. Dominique - Quai du Louvre - Faubourg St Antoine. I had to change to the number
76, and I asked the driver where in the massive Bastille roundabout I should debark to get "mon bus correspondant". He was very nice, and replied that it would be the "premier arret".
I went back to my seat on the near empty vehicle, and settled in to enjoy the movie
of Paris night going by my window. When my stop was up, I stepped down from the coach and walked towards the bus shelter; I noticed the driver was peering into his rearview mirror as if searching for something, then saw me, smiled, gave a thumbs-up and drove off.

He was making sure I`d gotten off at the right stop. I was touched.

This morning I awoke at 4:40am, suddenly and for no reason. Usually that is something that would cause me a certain irritation, but on this day I was excited by the randomness of it. It was as if there had to be some cosmic reason that my body would suddenly be done sleeping.

Talk about a good attitude.

So I spent an hour or so writing, and then I read and tried to get back to sleep. It was a strange day/ The weather was unseasonably warm but the light of Paris has what I find to be a sad quality. Randy and I took a bus down to the Louvre, bought some books, and then walked back the the 20th.

Parisians are very nice until hey make you for an American. Then all bets are off, which is too bad. It`s exhausting to go around a city and have to be conscious that you are of the most unpopular group of people in the world. I imagine Serbs would have been better liked, even at the height of war in old Yugoslavia.

I have a feeling all of this is good for me nonetheless. It will be hard to return to Canada and the USA. There`s nothing there quite like Paris.

No matter how long I've lived in big cities, Paris manages to make me feel like a hayseed. Not that it's such a bad thing.

This place is great: Paris is really an eye-opener

Everywhere I move through this city I smell perfume: And on top of that perfume is the smell of whisky and tobacco, and diesel and 2 -stroke scooters that buzz the tiny streets

I love it. All the girls are really cute, and everyone's a communist.

I should just stay here: Fuck it all

I find myself wanting to move back to New York. That's not a good thing to find myself wanting, for it ain't gonna happen anytime soon. I realized that what i did wrong when i returned to the city at the beginning of November was failure to RENEW my relationship to it. I figured we'd just pick up where we left off, and it didn't work; the chemistry was all wrong. Upon reflection, I got to thinking it was like seeing an on/off lover after a long hiatus, and trying to bypass the whole seduction phase... (and just grabbing her tit). Everyone and everything has to be seduced - OVER AND OVER. If you can't get with this aspect of existence, you may as well just die.

On a more spritual level it's about living in the moment and about spontaneity. Every object is the Buddha and every situation is the guru.

Quitting smoking is much easier than its survivors will lead you to believe. It's really underrated at that.

Only in Willimasburgh do I see,
a face in the crowd - on a sidewalk.
I'm struck dumb by the brilliant luminosity of her.
I hesitate, and I'm reaching out a hand
to her shoulder
to stop her for a moment.
I can't possibly feel so much for someone,
and it not be something that we share.
Her every gesture is that of my eternal lover.
Every flicker of her eyelash and angle of her chin.

As if bit by a tropical spider
I find myself paralyzed,
and the moment passes.
She moves by me into the crowd,
never to be seen again.
Inside me there is only emptiness and loss.

But then I see another girl..!

Montreal is so quiet. It takes the strangest changing of gears to deal with this place.
I worked in Janie's basement today, putting insulation on all the water pipes. It felt good to do something other than vegetate, but i found myself wondering what happened to the fire I used to have for home improvement. Did I just remodel one too many? It's so crusty and nasty in janie's basement that I wore my orange flight suit. it may as well say L.A. COUNTY JAIL on the back. Where else do you see an orange jumpsuit? I walked over to outremont to visit terry and Yo; everyone was staring at my orange suit. I wished I'd worn something else.

This week is really about quitting smoking. It must be day VI or VII now. I'm not sure; it doesn't really matter. I work out at the Y every other day, and I'm reading SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION. I think about New York, and Sara, and the film and all that shit, but it seems like another world now. Right now life is Montreal and a fresh dusting of snow every morning: Montreal is about weather that makes you stand up and take notice.

The part of life that I live for is somewhere in the future. This is like filler. I keep saying i'm going to go off to portugal or France, but I have trouble imagining anything so bold. Still, the thought of staying here is worse.

Tonight Vale and I went out for supper. It was very special and sweet. I think I finally saw all the work I've put into our post-realtionship: The trust and the vulnerability are tangible. We seem to be free of all the competitiveness and pretense that followed our breakup. I visited her new home, and came ustairs to say hi to Yann. It was all really nice.

When Vali and I said goodbye, I know we could have kissed, there on her front porch. I'll be thinking about that one for awhile. Underneath all the politeness, and the dutiful visits, I'd basically lay down my life for that girl. I guess she knows that.

I had a sudden impulse to particpate in the larger blogging community. As usual, I find myself on the outside-looking in. And so I began to consider jumping in on the apology week theme.

Was this an N.A. (Nick Adams) concept?

It's interesting to note here, that when I first began to read the apologies I had a vague feeling of discomfort. But that's not unusual for me. In that moment I attributed said uneasiness to my historic "outsider" mindset. I had a spike of irritation with myself for being so predictable. Later, on reflection, I considered that the very essence of apologies skeeves me out. In the 12 step world, there comes a time TO MAKE AMENDS TO SUCH PEOPLE WHEREVER POSSIBLE...

(fuck that shit man!!!)

During the filming of NOTHING REALLY HAPPENS, I had more than the usual apologies to make. My most chronic offense is treating people like idiots: Seth, Justine, Casey and Beca were my victims. It's a terrible burden to be right all the time. Then again, they made their displeasure known - in spades.

As I skim the Filbert blogs I see that everyone, as usual, is "grooving together" and digging the same things. I on the other hand cultivate my differences and try obsessively try to play to my strengths.

For that I apologize to everyone. I should really try harder to be one of the guys.

I figure I can afford to apologize to Nick, for talking non-stop about my own life. Consider this my appy-polly-loggies.

To Melissa and Mike, I would like to apologize for being at all times ham-fisted in my conservatism. I actually take very little pleasure from political arguments. My actions are a better indicator of who I am.

To Anna, I apologize for rolling my eyes when you talk about the inter-relationships of your friends. Do you know what I'm talking about?

And Bob; I apologize for never being sufficiently grounded and present when we intercourse socially.

I think that's everyone in the foreground Filbert pages.

Peace to you all

NOTES ON A CRUSH
(this is from last week)

DAILY you allow yourself to think, to consider, to hope that (the object of your desire) will come to you.

The crush flows against life's inherent spontaneity. Despite the belief we cling to that "there is always hope", the situation will not improve. If it was going to happen it would have already.

The sight of another lightheartedly flirting with (the object of your desire) is more fearsome than death. And you have about as much power over it.

As you near the lowest levels of misery, there eventually comes the step of deliberately revealing the obsession to (the object of your desire). Here begines the full-on reversal of fortune. This is when things really begin to turn downwards.

Ther anger, frustration, and impotence you feel in her presence begin to form on your face a gruesome mask that you can't take off. When you catch the eye of (the oject of your desire), you attempt to be friendly, sweet and non-oppressive, but this only causes the mask to contort even more hideously.. This mask is chained to your head for the duration of the crush.

Finally you reach the decision to remove yourself entirely from the presence of (the object of your desire). Like a broken-hearted young man who enlists in a faraway bush-war in order to escape the maddening obsession over a woman. In the instant you say your heroe's goodbye; this is the moment of dignity which you will pay for with your life. you will the most certainly see something in her eyes that makes you hesitate and wonder if she wouyld rather you stay.

But it's too late. It was too late before it even started.

I'd like to think i'm hitting some kind of stride with this job - and this trip (this whole experience) in new York: But i'm not. I'm seeing with eyes I never expected to be wearing.

The boggest (the bloggest - I meant BIGGEST) problem here is the crush i have on sarah. I may as well have a toothache, or hemmorhoids (sp?). or maybe that's just the symptom. And the problem is something deeper! An inner hole! (no wait - SHE has that) I never get crushes anymore, and for fucking good reason. They're not fun. Having a crsuh makes the object of your desire HATE you. So dumb.

I almost went to stay with terry i was beginiing to feel so lousy here. It doesn't matter becasue all i do is sleep and watch DVDS anyway. Fortunately the work is going not bad - though tonight Phil remarked that the single shot we did of Carmella looked like a Mexican soap opera. I thought it looked like dogshit. i winced when the camera rolled. It's going to happen on hinky little movies. Ouch, it hurts though.

I miss the dog. i fear my dad may have taken his love away from me. BooBoo and I make a great team. If he was here i'd own this town.

I'm doing one-arm push-ups now. By the end of the film i want to do 25 per side.

When we shoot night exteriors in big cities, it's customary to have a cop dedicated to the set. The officer's role is to make sure nothing negative occurs between the film unit and the neigborhood. They also do some traffic control. When you shoot in dicey neigborhoods, it's reassuring to have those guys around, becasue a film shoot draws people like moths to a light, and I've seen it happen where street types begin harrassing crew members.

Last night we were shooting on Sutton St. in the greenpoint section of brooklyn. All day we'd heard forecasts of rain. sleet and hail. This made me very anxious, as I know night exteriors to be risky enough, without the water/electricity relationship, or the high winds/grip problematic (shit blows around). I'd just added a last light to a shot of an old car parked at the curb, when this cop with a thick rockaway accent says to me: "Get that light out of the street! You gotta keep a twelve foot fire lane open here."
I was rushing back to the monitor to see how our shot looked, and i stopped in my tracks, sighed, and winced.
"Sir," I said, looking at the cop finally. "You are quite seriously hampering my creative process."
I'd meant it as a joke. He didn't take it too well.
"Get your damn light outta the street." He said menacingly, "or I'll really give you something to worry about."

The funnist set-cop I've ever encountered was in L.A. We had this crusty old guy from the motorcycle division. The scene we were shooting was too sisters having the big hash out of their lives, the night before one was to get married. We were shooting on melbourne St. in Los Feliz, but it was supposed to play for Providence, Rhode Island.
As the camera rolled, these two lousy, primadonna actresses did their sisterly argument - screaming stuff like: "MOM AND DAD ALWAYS LOVED YOU MORE THAN ME! THAT'S WHY I STUDIED SO HARD AND BECAME A BIG CORPORATE LAWYER."

When the A.D. called cut, I could see other crew memebers laughing and holding their noses. The burly grey-hairedcop leaned to me and said: "Hmm. I think I'm smelling an academy on that one."

How funny. How weird.

I must have stepped into one of those emotional air pockets tonight. A really nice day off ended with a late dinner at the diner up the street, and I run into my cousin martha, and she's like a stranger. I noticed her inside talking to my friends while I was outside on the telephone. When I came in to say hello

"Hey, how's it going?" I said, leaning forward to kiss her.
She kissed me back, and then put her hand on my right shoulder and began to sort of push and pull me back and forth by my sweater.
"I know - you're here." She said. "I saw you outside."
I hesitated as she push/pulled me, trying to register what it meant. She stared at me without any trace of smile.
"Are you high?" I asked, finally.

Anyway, weirder things have been known to happen. I asked Terry about it as we walked back to the house. He just stared straight ahead.
"I ain't getting in the middle of any of your family's shit." He said, shaking his head with a cynical frown.

I must have seriously missed something while I was outside on the phone. This is probably not such a big deal but there are other weird thing afoot.

I don't really know where I belong. Usually I try HOPE that it's the same place as where I am. There's so much potential for things to go wrong, or people to radically turn against you (I mean "Me" - I just say: "You" - it's a weird usage thing in American English).

There's a weird wind blowing through new York tonight. Perhaps the rain brought something. Whether this whole story turns into a dream or a terrible nightmare will have nothing to do with me.

Last Spring in the city of Angels,
I was faced a terrible chore.
My great love had ended and best friends retreated.
T'was high time to open a new door.

Forced to leave a house of mirth,
I'd known none but the greatest of luck.
I packed up my stuff, and gave back the keys,
setting off in my black Nissan truck.

Laida, a girl I'd met in SF,
offered her Hollywood pad.
with time-a-wastin' and homelessness looming
Her pad wasn't soundin' too bad

The place was a godsend, very cosy and girly,
surrounded by gardens and trees.
I could pass the nights watching digital cable,
or picking through her DVDs.

The day I showed up with my boxes,
I'd packed that day while I cried,
there was the sound of another girl there,
kinda knocking about inside.

I made my arrival obious,
by coughing and shouting hello.
A gentleman's duty's to reaasure a lady,
not barge in "a la" creep or weird-O.

She opened the door but a sliver,
hers was the bloodiest of eyes:
Who are you and what is your business?
I'm not into rock and roll guys!

I explained how I'd been invited,
she was by no means satisfied.
She curled back her lip, bared her white teeth,
and just stepped right on back inside.

Desperate to prove my relation
to the "lady" of the house herself
I showed her the key that I'd managed to find,
on the fuse boxe's wee hidden shelf.

And despite my great sense of displeasure,
being treated like some common brute,
I couldn't help but think to myself,
God DAMN is this girl ever cute!

I know not of you MAN she said,
even if you are Laida's mate,
I'M here at the moment and I'm doing my laundry,
so you'll just have to sit there and wait.

With that madamoiselle closed the door,
and she closed it quite hard at that,
I stood on the stoop, and thought to myself,
this girl is a real little brat.

Ten minutes or so passed while I waited,
and she finally made her way out.
I'd hoped that she'd smile or say some goodbye,
but to her I was no more than a lout.

Fast forward now eight or ten months,
To a New york loft - and a whole new kind of play.
This is the place, where I've got the juice,
and guess who'll be coming to stay.

My host, an old war pal of sorts
explains'me his altruistic flash
She's coming over here to work on the film,
and with us she is going to crash.

I hardened my face, and snarled these words,
"Big deal! - that chick's vibe is fleeting."
But I have to confess, with no small trace of shame,
that my heart it sure 'nough went-a-beating.

And so this song reveals to you reader
how man is so strong and so meek.
I don't know whether to slap that girl's face,
or gently carress her dear cheek.

Travel always leads to feelings of uncertainty in me. Knowing this is very valuable. I'm back in New York, and it's like a social experiment on myself. I say, if you ever want to know how you REALLY feel about something - I mean get into the unsocialized, inner-child- QUIT SMOKING. I was doing fine on the plane to New York, but when we landed I listened to my messages and both terry and David informed me that neither of them had received my flight itinerary, and they were both at different parties, in different boroughs, so i'd have to make my own way home. I'm in a cab, with 200 lbs. of lighting gak, with no keys to anywhere (and it's cold). Yeah, I was getting a little cranky.
Anyway. New York has changed, and it's exactly the same. I love it, and i rememebr why I left. I don't think it's healthy for the environment I live in, to be bigger, louder, more imposing or dominating than anything else in my life. New York drones everything else out. It's impossible to forget where you are, when you're in New York.

We played flag football in McCarren Park on Sunday. It was sunny, windy and brisk; just the weather I've missed from the east coast. When i met everyone else at the field I felt shy and didn't say much, even though they were all very nice. I never thought of myself as much of a football player, but I did alright. I actually made the game-winning touchdown. Oh baby.

Today at 3:20 in the afternoon I set back out for Williamsburgh from manhattan. It was really horrible traffic, everywhere, on every street, all day. Delancey street leading to the bridge was (as terry put it) "third world". I ain't driving into manhattan AGAIN during daylight hours. It's too claustrophobic. The island is busting open with big cars, and they're all fighting their way onto these old bridges that can't nearly accomodate them. I never noticed it before.

The best thing about this trip, and hgelping out with such a chronically disorganized film, is that i can really give a lot to people I love. Just being quite is the most valuable thing right now, as the yelling has begun in the production office. The more manic it gets, the greater my need to be calm and kind, and useful. That's the best thing about production: The better you get at it, the more you can give.

It's funny to me that Tony Soprano always watches the history channel and Biography. That's all I ever watch either. I never cared for episodic television. Presumably Tony Sporano is an extension of the show's creator, as are all the rest of the characters. In episode III of season IV, Tony goes off on a vent about "special interest" and asks what happened to the guys like Gary Cooper. Cooper he describes as "the strong silent type" who didn't complain about being "poor, Irish from Texas - whatever the fuck".

I watched the Biography edition of Jimmy Stewart, and he struck me as having lived his life the same way. He worked in the studios, he married one woman and stayed with her until she passed away. When WWII broke out he enlisted in the Air corps and flew B-17s over Europe. When the war ended and he was discharged , he returned to his "job" as an actor and never mentioned his service. When he was honored by the academy back in the late '70s, he appeared on stage looking great, silver-haired, with the same likable smile he always had. Unimpressed by his own life.

A week later Biography profiled Marlon Brando: "The rebel, misfit actor". It came across that he was always the center of attention, with his mysterious method and use of props to prepare himself. Then, as his career progressed, he got sidetracked by all these things that were removed from his own life: He became involved in the Tahitian independence movement , and American Indian struggles. He was frequently getting arrested, and God knows where his kids were or who was steering them into the adult world. He was taking all kinds of self-prescribed shit, and juicing and turning into a whale... Then, by the '80s his world was collapsing: his son killed somebody, and Brando himself was sitting in the docket, sobbing and pleading for the court to have mercy on him. I guess his half-Tahitian daughter killed herself, and there was some speculation about sexual abuse in the Brando house. The whole thing was a smoking, flaming wreck. Very tragic.

Obviously there's more separating Jimmy Stewart and Marlon Brando than a generation gap, but I couldn't help seeing the simlarity between Brando's life's arc, and A LOT of people I grew up around.

Some of the best movie watching experiences I've had were those instances when I dozed off in the middle of the film for 10 or 15 minutes. I could count on feeling quite refreshed and interested - receptive - once I was back from my slumber. It feels good to give oneself permission to sleep.
Gartists must possess, among other things, a rigorous honesty about how they view and mythologize themselves. Where else would fictitious characters come from? The ability to understand the value in an experience, a landscape or a certain light; I imagine that's what enables one to draw from it again and again. If you know why sunsets are romantic (fleeting, rarified last breath of the day - before plunging into night, mystery, sex, lunacy, danger), then you can use those pieces like spare parts. I guess this would be most true of filmmakers. Musicians must experience such emotional stimulii in a completely different language or sensibility.

I watched Montenegro tonight, and I felt my dormant longing to be a fiery Slav reawakened. I imagine that's what one's supposed to feel. Perhaps not everyone responds the same way. There's like 10 other people I've ALSO always wanted to be: They take turns at the helm of my subconscious imagination.

I dreamed last night that i was in Montreal, and I finally had a new motorcycle. I was very self-consciously proud of it. But I also had my old bike, and I kept needing to leave one or the other at someone's house. I was supposed to go to janie's (which had relocated to park Ave. between Van Horne and Bernard) but I was stopped in a store by two of the Mexican guys who worked on painting my house. We got into a fight, and one of them tied a lit cigarette to my arm with a little black piece of silk. I got it off with a very deft calm move, and then began stabbing him in the bottom of his feet.
I really need a change. Maybe sleep in a bed that has access to better dreams.

On the morning of the day in which I am to die, I hope to...
Lovely a time I'm having with Vince and Judy &
Kid gloves fit snug but are not fashionable. How
expensive - I'd even say expansive, hemispherical... I lose
track Whack! lip smack-shellac bivouac nice rack
Kerouac was unrecognizable in his teddy bear
costume. Personally i believe we all love to wear someone else's
clothes the wind-o I wont too sea know moor. Fair wall and
Good-buy anything you want. But you'll have to carry it around all
day-o, day-ay-o, daylight come and me won' go
home cooking. that's what I miss the
most - Oh Daddy, you the MOST!! The most far-out cat daddy.
But I have a smashing woodsplitting motherfucker
headache medicine didn't work for the
skeleton - skinny. That's what we're all gonna be on the BIG
Halloween Nightmare on Elm St. Psycho Blood beach The Thing
Squirm in their chairs. But the king did not
expect the best. because this Halloween's gonna be on fire.

Mel's Halloween Opus

Long time no blog!
I took a couple hours off from my chores and tasks around the big blue house yesterday; so that I could visit a funky little motorcycle shop down by the ballpark. I chanced upon this [guy] and his start-up garage through craigslist.org. He advertised "a whole bunch of F-2 and F-3 parts" that he'd collected for years. My bike being without gauges, or matching colored wheels I figured I'd see what I could... See.
It's not often I find myself down on the Embarcadero, and I was struck by the utter newness of it. It's really a planned city, without any semblance of spontaneity or random expression. I realized, by my own equation, that it had none of what I consider Quality. But I should qualify that my reaction was influenced by the lack of numbered addresses visible on any of the new retail/office complexes. I was rolling along on the bike, my eyes dangerously off the traffic, scanning the sides of these buildings, and unable to situate which block of king street I was on. Suddenly I was forced onto the southbound 280, headed for Potrero Hill. The plight of the newby. I'm sure the workers just haven't gotten around to bolting the number plates onto the buildings.
But after all this driving, the motorcycle shop was closed. "Goddamn everything!" I thought to myself. I'd called the guy on the phone two hours before, and he didn't mention anything about closing early. Thinking to myself that the fellow may just be on a coffee run, I took out my book and decided to settle in and wait for awhile. I was rather grateful to be in a different setting, away from my house and my neigborhood. I leaned against the bike and began to read from CITY OF QUARTZ when a middle-age couple, climbed out of a white SUV, approached me and asked if I was: "...Looking for Casey?" They appeared to be his folks, and as they went on to explain how they were up from San Luis Obisbo, basically dropping in and checking up on their son, and his new (13 months young) enterprise. They expressed dissapointment that he'd split in the middle of the day, while clients (me) waited outside. I gathered he wasn't overburdened with customers - at least not in mom and dad's opinion.
Interesting thing. Usually I'm the one who does all the talking, but these guys - in what I'm seeing now was an atempt to hold me there until Casey returned and snared some sale - essentially bent my ear about their son. They told me of his lifelong misadventures (including federal prison), his dreams of redemption in a motorcycle shop... And I thought about ur friend N.A., and breathed a discreet sigh of relief on his behalf.
I was thinking to myself: Boy would Casey hate to know about this conversation. Mom and dad are sweet; I found myself touched by their openness about their son's (comment tu dis..?) issues. But the utter lack of respect for his privacy was at the same time quite awkward. I don't know what I'd do if my mom and dad were telling some stranger the kind of stuff I wouldn't even share in an AA meeting.
And I don't mean American Airlines.

Ahh... Gusty, warm nights in October. I'm set to walk over to the cafe on 22nd street and make a plan (pitch a plan - is more like it) to the very sweet German girl who works there. I saw her on the street today, and she told me to come by her work at eight - when she finishes - and it seemed to be hummin'.
But now... Ah, confidence, bluster, swagger, bullshit... Where do they go?

I've noticed no one writes LOVE STUFF on Blogger; at least in our little camp. It's not the greatest, this "boy meets girl" thing. Not the most interesting story out there. My back is sore for some reason. It's that tired-sore that always seems to suggest psychosomaticality. I'm trying to figure out if my loss of mojo to go hang with this girl stems from my own depleted energies from working, or some "worm hole" of the moods I unwittingly crawled into.
Or, if it's something coming from her; a shift in her consciousness. Life is not in a vacuum. I wish I could just lie down on a hardwood floor.

I walked the dog around the neigborhood and up to Dolores park tonight. There were several parties going on in different corners of the park - some final hoorah for Critical Mass. I steered pretty well clear of them; somehow the energy didn't seem that positive. It was more like people looking for a struggle in which to pour their energies. All over the mission district I saw groups of six or seven cyclists, heading home after the big rallye, and filling the lanes with their bikes two and three abreast. A small taste of power tends to have an ugly effect on weak-minded people. The whole thing seemed defiant and confrontational, for the sake of defiance and confrontation. HEY MAN, DON'T FUCK WITH US. WE'LL HIT YOU WITH OUR KRYPTONITE LOCKS.
Everybody's got a plan to make the world better. Invariably calls on other people to change what they are doing.

I keep having these weird encounters with groups of lesbians around here. This area has become the stomping ground for young, angry, punk-rock dykes. They go to the Lexington Club on 19th street, and when there's enough of them together, they start fronting tough. How dumb can you get? I've heard other people recount the same experience. Gay, straight... It's all the same. If you act like a shithead, you will be treated like a shit head. Sometimes you'll be treated like a shithead even if you're an angel. That's just the nature of life.

Shit. It's Sunday, and I have to go work on the house. Everyday I work on the house. It has gotten so hard to keep at it. I think I am in the sixth or seventh week of painting, and though it's near done - everyone says so - I can't seem to see the end. The most interesting thing about this process, is seeing myself brought to the end of my will; my strength; my resolve. i consider myself the strongest man alive, but I'm watching the steeply banking downward curve of my focus.
The hardest thing is knowing how much personal business needs seeing to, and not having the nergy at the end of the day to deal with it. yesterday our front door lock went on the fritz, and I just left it. For all I know the house is wide open. My room upstairs is just a sty, mattress bare, clothes on the floor, alongside garbage, crumpled up receipts, pieces of sandpaper. If only I coyuld finish today, in one twelve hour rush of work. I would totally do it. Instead I'm only able to fill holes and gaps in the wood with caulking and bondo. I want to take this day off, but I'll regret it tomorrow.
It's scary to push myself so hard and so far.

I'm experiencing a goddamn amazing piece of time travel today. I's like a science fiction movie, in which a character keeps walking through those viscouous liquid time portals, unwillingly walking back and forth from one dimension to another. Today it was 1994 for me; halfway through my undergrad and trying to extract some information or service from concordia University.

It all started when i decided i would apply to UCLA's MFA program, with the notion of fast-tracking myself to YET another dimension, where everyone's above the line, the grass is green and the girls are pretty: With a masters degree i could say goodbye forever to grip trucks, sandbags, cable runs, shitty six day weeks... But the deadline is upon me, and suddenly i have to rememeber my student ID # and password for the on-line admisiions and transcript services (and the former wasn't VALI - when did I change that?)

When I left concordia, and Montreal, i never thought I'd look back, but now six years later THINGS HAVE CHANGED. dealing with institutions takes a lot of experience. I feel like I'm out of shape. I have two weeks to hustle my application together for the Fall 2003 semester. That one won't be in my hands.

I gave Mike Manzone notice of my intention to take over his apartment on march 1st, 2001. He seemed agreeable to it. I have a stable life in my future. Just the thought of it seems to energize me.

My blogs are not smelling too fresh right now. What, it's been three weeks since I touched this. Goddamn, what happens? It's like a blackout drunk - waking up in jail, or a wrecked car. I don't even drink. I'm addicted to painting.

Everything i want to write is too personal for blogger-forum. I don't know if that's good or bad. I should probably branch off to another venue of personal expression. Ambitions thwarted by procrastination; I'm not going to lay that one out. Letting fall every plan or design... Smoking has really cost me a lot in the last 18 months. I only have one week left of that.

I was excited about going to new york a few weeks ago, but now i'm shuddering at the thought of living out of bags for another month - two - three months. Who knows? I know i can buck up, but it's not too inviting.

Zack asked me tonight what i planned to do on Sept 11th, and I hadn't thought about it. Inwardly, I figured I'd wait and see what happened... you know - out in the world. Maybe I'd arm myself in the house, and listen to patriotic radio broadcasts. I'm not going out and around the Mission district. I know there will be marches, and demonstrrations calling for peace and rethinking of American policy. I think that's so childish and simplistic and goddamn holy. I'd rather go out to Alameda and attend services on the U.S.S. Hornet. I find that much more comforting than the alternative-world of this neighborhood. I don't know what I'll do on Sept 11. If I work on painting the house, i'll probably hang an American flag on the scaffold. Everyone else on the block can find their own interpretation of events.

The week seemed to run by in hyper-time, and i didn't get to exert any creative energy on blogger or anywhere else, unless you count LA PEINTURE.

The stress level of the week was moderate most of the time, with a couple moments of code red when we rigged the scaffold to do the 35' high sunburst of bartlett St. My dad seems to think I'm going over budget, and I need to start thinking about cutting corners. I'm of the mind that there couldn't be a less perfunctory prep, unless we painted right over the cracked, peeling paint. Sigh.

Last night Terry and I went to see an old French film at the castro, and I found myself uplifted by the experience. When we entered the theater, the old Wurlitzer organ was playing LA VIE EN ROSE in baseball-time and we giggled at the wonderful otherness of it. I found myself thinking about value and romance, and the book of short stories i want to write which would explore those themes.
Sitting in the theater, as the lights dimmed down, I was struck like lightning with the conclusion that exposure to life, and people and ideas and culture saves us from our own nihilistic thoughts. In that moment, I realized that the Herculean task of painting our old house has a certain, preciousness to it - if i can find it. I can be Chaplin - or harold Lloyd - riding on the hands of the big clock tower, or scrambling up and down the scaffold, with gallons of beautifully colored liquids -clanging against each other, gently seeing to every inch of the old, wooden facade. A nail or a screw here, and some sanding there, and as we move the scaffold another 10' feet, the poor, broken old house emerges with a sparkle; and every passer-by smiles, and thanks us for taking care of the old place.

This week I will begin the first installment of the "Painting the Gingerbread palace" feature on filbert.net. There will be pictures and stories. I hope everyone stops in to take a look.

I only had a couple of minutes to read the other bogs on filbert this morning, but it was like a book I couldn't put down. Only later when I was at work in San Rafael did it occur to me that the growing collection of people submitting words (on filbert.net) has begun to emit an energy greater than itself. Or I should say, for me, its meaning has deepened. I began to wonder if I couldn't detect a pattern or rythmn of life - faintly - the ripple across our many private consciences. Huh.

Everything seems kind of crazy and upside down, but no one is getting hurt, so I'm not worried. I'm trying hard to get Terry and David Hale to conribute blogs to the page, so hopefully we'll see some new blood.

Why does that seem suddenly morbid? Seeing new blood?

Today I was working for Brad, trying to figure out why a 220V dryer plug was smoking at a house up in Marin. The power was supposed to be off, and I was a bit absent minded as I rapped with Tim, and Don the customer. I was squatting down, prying the the plug out from the steel box with a screwdriver when it suddenly blew up: There was still current in the circuit from some hinky, old school wiring job done in the early seventies, and I'd inadvertently shorted it. The arc was shooting out blue/orange flames about a foot, and sparks of burning metal poured onto the floor like as they would from a mini-crucible. I pulled my hand back as fast as I could, but not before it was burned and blackened. Tim said later it was smoking as I tucked it into my armpit and said; "I'm burned"

But it seems okay, so I'm not overly upset. Like the car crash Matt and I had on Fountain St. in Hollywood; no one was hurt, so I thought it was pretty cool. I'm beginning to realize that I'll take anything over normal, day to day life. The only things that make me feel alive are emotions, and I only respond to the powerful ones anymore. Addiction.

Sex seems to be the furthest thing from my mind. How odd. It's as if my body spares me the distraction, becasue it lend snothing to the process in which I'm living. There is nothing cosy, or sweet or sensual - sleep-in-on-saturday-morning about my existence. It's all mental fucking discipline. They say (in martial arts) if you control the head, you control the body. I'm astonished to see, at 33 years old, that I've finally wrested control from my pay-per-view imagination.

Terry and I dropped into the mst fascinating place tonight. He had noticed an arresting, old-timey diner on Bayshore blvd. called SILVERCREST (WE NEVER CLOSE) and insisted that we go. I've driven by the place many times on my way to Visitacion valley, but it had never occurred to me to drop in. Well tonight was the night.

The SILVERCREST diner is all crimson red-painted stucco on the outside, with red neon lights from the sevnties announcing its pleasures to the passing vehicles. We pushed open the back door to go in, and it was 1970 inside. A group of cool, streetsmart, older black guys were playing pool in the darkened backroom bar, A scratchy jukebox had a James Brown track going - something i'd never heard before. And all night there were old soul and R & B songsplaying - that I'd never heard before.
A man walked past us and suddenly asked: "How y'all doing?" He wore an oldtimey brown, pinstripe suit and sandals with socks. One of his eyes was obscured by a milky cataract: The other was framed by a scar that could have been made with a chainsaw. He walked up to a row of five identical vintage pinball machines, pumped a quarter in one, and proceeded to play at it for no less than an hour and a half. He left without ordering so much as a coffee.

We sat the bar, a little bit unsettled by the perfect otherness of our surroundings, when the owner himself walked up and gruffly asked us what we would have. The old guy had his gray hair combed into a hustler's pompadour, and he wore his shirt open to show what once must have been a very alluring chest. I was scanning the breakfast menu when Terry suddenly started yammering at the guy in Greek, without so much as asking where he comes from. Of course terry had found the one Greek in san Francisco.

We're like family down there now.

This better not crash.

Something great might come out,and I wouldn't want to lose it.

I went out with Suzette for a few hours tonight. Sweet girl, if not a little distant from life. She has her feet pretty well planted on earth, with only a few exceptions.

Shit, i'm bored. I may as well just go to bed. I have all these house-demands that must be seen to tomorrow, and I promised Nick I'd help him organize his garage.

It seems when i think about blogs during my day, I rememeber interesting (at least to me) tid-bits that I can put in my blog later on. It's clear to me that I'm much too far in the zone with this painting thing. I'm doing my typical all or nothing charge, and evrything is falling apart. Yet i can't take my eyes off the goal. I fantasize about freedom from this place, and this project, and yet I don't exactly know what i'll do or where I'll go after.

But i feel deep down that I'll come flying out of here like a catapault. Energy. I pray something nice comes of it.

Vinnie's back.

And I've been gone too long. This is not going to be long because I'm on an early-rise program (that way the bad juju can't get me). Finally everybody left, and I'm able to return to my monotonous, predictable life of coffee, cigarettes, house-painting and baby.

I've decided to work on training baby to be a watchdog, instead of a guard dog (cause there's a difference). A watch dog barks at the sound of an intruder to the house. A guard dog puts him in the ground. Once i'm awake I can do that myself (lol).

I powerwashed the houser this weekend. What a goddamn stressful experience that was. I had meant to be low-key about the whole thing, but when I pull-started the machine (it's GAS) it was so loud, I may as well have been in a bi-plane. I started the wash down in the breezeway on 21st st., and the water jet was taking off dirt, grime, airborne pollution, paint chips, pieces of house... Everything was blowing 30 feet away onto the neigbours place, and the parked cars on the street. I was stripped down to shorts and sandals, soaking wet, swearing - going up and down the ladder (which was too short). So much fucking crap came off the house i had to wash most of Alan's place after - and then there was 500 gallons of black water pooled down in his shed entrance, swirling with branches, paint chips and pigeon skeletons. And that was only one small part of the whole three day job. This thing is so massive.

But I got the star quaterback flying in from Montreal. We're gonna be PENDEJOS EN CONTROL, gussying up the old whore of a house , just like we did back in our reefer-smoking, plalteau-painters co-op days of youthful; misadventure. Wiyth terry on the crew i feel we shall be invincible.

"Give me ten divisions of men like that, and our problems here will soon be over."

"Ahhhhhhh! The puppies...!!!"

"Are you leaving? Cause I'm COMING."

Well, there's sure been a lot of laughs the last few days. Every guy I know is taking some shade of ass-kicking this Summer - so I don't feel too bad anymore. And it turns out the dead whale was just another 1/4 mile to the north. We'd have smelled it if we were downwind. Too bad. It's probably just a skeleton by now. I make light of all that because I can't really deal with a blue whale getting run over by a tanker and washing up in Marin County. I can only deal with the animal apocalypse through cruel humor, set off like a hand grenade in a crowd of people.

Vinnie's baclk alright, and he's half out of his head from the paint fumes - or the stench of some personalities around these parts.

At the Ingleside police station, on Ocean ave., there's an old slab of bullet-proof glass hanging on display next to the desk where they write down reports and deal with the public. The lexan (i think that's what they call it - now) has five highly visible impacts from what I guessed was a 12ga. shotgun firing 00 buckshot. It looks quite striking, hanging there on the wall. It's the first thing you see when you walk into the station. The second thing you see is a plaque commemorating an officer who was killed in the line of duty, back in 1971.
Now I don't know why, but 1971 just seems like the year that kind of thing would happen. The early seventies has this tough, psycho, bluntness to it; or so it seems to me now. Maybe it's just the way cars were designed... Those Detroit irons, with their V-8 hemmies and glass-pack mufflers were the chariots of that decade's villains. There were certainly a lot of tough-guy movies (DOG DAY AFTERNOON, DIRTY HARRY, TAXI DRIVER).
I found it easy to imagine the night it happened. The parking lot full of cruisers, and fog rolling in from Daly City... Some Hellborn villain with a trenchcoat and three-days growth of a beard, skulks up to the old wooden door of the precinct house and slips in under the greenish glow of the bare flouro tubes... Pulling that sawed-off duck gun from under the coat and...
"Can I help you sir?"

In any case the night that the cop got killed was the same night the lexan got that nice, decorative etching. I asked: That's how I know. I happened to be there at the precinct because some fool kid with a shaved head in a souped-up Honda Civic hit me in my truck and then drove off. It was more dramatic than that in the moment, but I'm just tired of recounting the story. I changed lanes, pulling in front of him: He didn't like it, so he pulled into the emergency lane and passed the two cars on my right, cut hard across two lanes of traffic so that he was 4' in front of my bumper, and then he locked his brakes. I didn't have a chance of stopping, so I skidded right into the back of his car. He booked out of there, but another car stopped and the driver said he saw the whole thing and would testify the guy had made a reckless, deliberate move causing an accident - and then fled the scene. So I'm probably not going to get shagged for any money (thank God).
But it's looking like there's nothing I can do to that punk kid. The cops won't touch a traffic violation, unless an officer witnesses it. No one really cares. What the kid did is basically legal, because it's not covered by any part of the vehicle code. I doubt that kid even has a licence, let alone insurance. Driving like he was I would guess he is a convicted felon. No one just pulls a move like that suddenly - out of the blue.

When i finished the paperwork at the police station, I asked one of the cops what happened to the guy who shot up their station house.
"Did he get the San Quentin gas chamber?" I asked the desk sergeant.
He barely looked up from his paperwork.
"He was never caught." He grumbled.

So why in Christ's name do they have that 30 year old nightmare hanging on the wall like a trophy? Is that to show what a tough job it is? Or to remind people to be patient when they wait in line for an hour to report their injury or wrongdoing? I was really puzzled about that as I drove home. These guys adorn their station with a souvenir of the night some psycho came in and shot the place up like a Terminator - and then got away - through a parking lot full of cop cars. Whatever.

I was just grateful to get my car home and into the garage without any altercations, road rage or freeway shootings. There was a humorously ironic moment as I drove home, and looking back in the rearview mirror, I noticed my new punched-steel cab screen that protects the rear window (since it got smashed in three weeks ago). I cover my back, and I get hit in the front! What do i need now? Roo-Bars? A roll-cage? Self-inflating tires? I'll just have to go back to the truck accesory center and spend some more money. Just make the check payable to Mad Max.

I'm struck by the high political content of my fellow bloggers at filbert.net. Perhaps I should jump in too.

Then some might say: Perhaps not, Vinnie.

Ever since I was in film school, I kept hearing about the "old-boy networks" that kept women out of the movie business. It was assured to me that I would one day become one of the gatekeepers, as that was a position a white guy was guaranteed, but it didn't really work out that way. Perhaps it was the year that I spent in Latin America: People said I possessed a "Corazon latino". I wonder if I could use that to get into UCLA grad school.

Anyway, women do really well at the crew level of film production. I suspect this "fast-track" is a result of guys (best boys and keys) who like having chicks around, which is a form of objectification, but if that gets you a union card and some benefits - what the hell.

But I wonder why there aren't more women struggling to break into the male-dominated world of construction. No one is swinging at the glass ceiling of drywall carpentry, or plumbing. I've worked on hundreds of construction crews, and it's a cock-fest through and through. I think iIt would be great to have some gals around. It would be almost tolerable.

I read somewhere that women and minorities are under-represented in the world of architecture. Now obviously you don't need to know conduit bending and rebar framing to design a building, but it would make sense to me that someone in the field would have to possess at least SOME background in the trades, as opposed to a mere certificate from an art school. We build on the experience of others. Every stud you nail up in a house is a microcosm of the Brooklyn Bridge, because the principles are identical. Layout, cutting, joining...

When John Roebling died, something like four years into the ten year construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, it was his wife who picked up the project and carried it to completion. She didn't write columns about women's under-representation in bridge-building, from the student's lounge of the gender studies department. She just jumped in and did it, and I would imagine she thoroughly understood the project because she was a partner in the family business of cable-making. I don't imagine she did this in order to attain rockstar status in 19th century New York society circles.

I've heard that James Cameron can perform any technical fuction on a film set. From mixing sound, to loading magazines to setting C-stands; he has a firm grasp of all the mechanics of production. That's a total grasp of the medium. I think that's a worthwhile goal for anyone who aspires to lead. But now most directors and D.P.s go to film school, and graduate right into their postions at the top of the industry. It's a shame because those sexy jobs are like a fancy uniform worn by an army officer who's bought a regiment for it's social status, but shuns other officers who've actually had experience in a bush war.

Like in THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.

I think I'm most annoyed at my new environmentalist roomate, who can't seem to even get a handle on recycling. The guy never seems to turn the taps all the way off, and if the toilet's running, he'll let it go for hours. In his room he has five 100W bulbs burning in the overhead chandelier, instead of just getting a 60W desk-lamp for his computer table. But to hear him go on about proposed oil drilling in Alaska! I think that stuff is just social grist for San Francisco kids. You have to say what everyone else is saying. I guess if you went to Los Angeles with a mouthful of Ralph Nader and Noam Chomsky, you'd last as long as water lily in the Mojave Desert (and I'm talking L.A. - not Santa Monica)

All the roomates I've had here, upon moving out, throw all their unwanted crap into the breezway between our place and Alan's. When people are under the gun, it's TO HELL with principles.

Nothing will turn you into a redneck quicker than the rental business. As long as home-ownership increases in America, folks will vote conservative. It's not the media herding everyone around with frightening headlines about crime and terrorism.

Brad was telling someone a story about a carpenter who had sawed off the end of a piece of plywood that he was actually standing on. I guess the point of the story was that people actually do such things.

Today I got to thinking that I did something similar, when i rented this apartment to a couple of guys, on the promise that I would "almost never" be around. Well, I'm around. I live there. I sleep there, and wake up there. I have my morning coffee and shower there... I'm there. How fucking dumb. I wasn't supposed to be there. I hang out in the garage a lot.

The camping trip turned out to be kind of nice. Roadtripping with one's old man can be challenging, but we did alright. The lowest moment had to be when we drove 26 miles up a valley, and then plunged down another 16 miles of dirt roads, to get to a hot spring (which i insisted that we go to) only to find forty cars there. The place was a friggin' built-up ashram/meditation center. And this is in the hinterland. What was I thinking? That there would be a wild, untouched "stash" of a hot spring - in fucking California?

Ass-rams and zen yoga centers have this really positive, benign image (becaiuse they're soooo spiritual), but as far as I'm concerned it's just one more way to get you to pay $200/day to go into a hot spring - THAT'S IN A NATIONAL FOREST! How is that any different than a resort in palm Springs, or a golf course in Florida? I'll tell you what's different: Semantics. Which (ety-MO-logically means "some antics". Like - those are SOME antics you're up to, but I'm smelling through it!

So we dusted that place, and set up camp in a very buggy site about five miles back up the hot, dusty road. Whatever.

Walking up 21st street tonight, I turned back towards my house, and caught sight of the moon - the big, bright full moon, with fast moving white fog drifting by -- it made me gasp. I really did a double-take. I thought to myself - "the moon is full. So that's what's going on." The house looked like something from a horror film, with the tall chimney pots and plastic owls silhouetted against the gunmetal-blue night sky. And then i thought to myself: I can't believe I have to paint that motherfucker.

Summer 2002. You son of a bitch- are you still here?