Out the studio window, on view of the train yard, over the occasional sound of cars clashing along the lengths of rail, about a thousand gulls sleep on the roof of the school bus repair facility. When the cars screech so do a few of the birds in protest. They arrange themselves evenly spaced along the expanse. They showed up a few days ago, triggered, I believe, by a change in the weather.
Earlier today I saw a man laid out on in the intersection with his bike mangled and onlookers awaiting ambulance response. I put the van in park, opened the door and resisted the urge to do anything. Some off duty official was already on the scene. The man was squirming in pain. Onlookers urged him not to move presumably for fear of spinal injury. It was dark. The man likely ran through the light while riding along the sidewalk and got struck. I keep thinking, I should have gone to reassure him, no one was doing that. I backtracked and drove away instead. That unknown person is the most significant man I've encountered all month.
A week ago I was working in the studio when lightening hit outside the studio window. A deafening boom filled the room. I was stunned with blindness like a punch to the jaw. When I came to I stared out the east window and thought of home. If I had the choice I would travel east, pass home, completely circle the globe and return again from the west.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Prose and Poems
I call myself arrogant but I know it’s not true. It’s hard for me to even hold a grudge for an extended period. After a while, I see both views and understand and empathize with my aggressor or assailant or betrayer or victim. The problem is, with humans, you can never really know the experience of the other. Understanding may not help. It usually doesn’t. Know yourself, know what you want, act on this, stay focused. It’s all the makings of a good consumer, it is capital culture, knowing what you want and seeking out the means to that consumption. Time is the most costly and time is what often is needed most. To slip past danger with restraint and reason. With less.
Yellowstone burnt over in ‘88. The fires razed nearly three quarters of the forest and grasslands in that already hostile environment. I arrived after that for the first time. Before I had traveled there I hadn’t really considered it a destination. A break from the cyclical dronery of suburban squalor was more on my mind than a dormant volcano. I got both. Yellowstone is a bit in spirit like eastern Canada; there’re some wild things by way of tourism but the really outstanding places require exiting the vehicle and traversing land on foot. Rivulet’s and waterways and old stone and deep pools. Yellowstone can easily find your limits and test them. For example, a trek across the pitchstone plateau requires strategic water rationing. A few wrong decisions and you could perish in a few hours or a few days, in either case, a relatively short period of time. Moments then become acute and preparations essential. There’s no glamour in it, the challenge is against your own body and its corporeal limits and by extension really, death. Because death can come in an instant or over a day or a few days in a world where your safety is not a valued concern. You are out there, alone, or maybe with a friend and pass from the world as it is comfortable and connected and fast and instead into to the vulnerability of it. So I got used to vulnerability except that political death is far more violent a death and far more slow, and lessons of the land are useless to the dumb ass brawlers of NY State. These are no metro sexual pansies on the streets, they’re beasts hunting other beasts in vast droves of unemployment. The kind that on occasion will overrun police on foot patrol in order to score a Glock. I think of this and then the quiet life of obedience or the boredom of safety or the wretched possibility of failure. So everyday a story. Most days a failure. Rip a new asshole for the Romantics. Run away, make it yours and tie it up, bound to earth like a rotten bone. Your rotten bone.
The vast majority of stories go untold. There are more I’d like to tell here and now, more of the real thing, as it happens but as it is there are good reasons for silence. And some have counseled the best of reasons. They have stories too. Still, soon, relatively soon they’ll come out from the crust like hordes of marching insects.
Yellowstone burnt over in ‘88. The fires razed nearly three quarters of the forest and grasslands in that already hostile environment. I arrived after that for the first time. Before I had traveled there I hadn’t really considered it a destination. A break from the cyclical dronery of suburban squalor was more on my mind than a dormant volcano. I got both. Yellowstone is a bit in spirit like eastern Canada; there’re some wild things by way of tourism but the really outstanding places require exiting the vehicle and traversing land on foot. Rivulet’s and waterways and old stone and deep pools. Yellowstone can easily find your limits and test them. For example, a trek across the pitchstone plateau requires strategic water rationing. A few wrong decisions and you could perish in a few hours or a few days, in either case, a relatively short period of time. Moments then become acute and preparations essential. There’s no glamour in it, the challenge is against your own body and its corporeal limits and by extension really, death. Because death can come in an instant or over a day or a few days in a world where your safety is not a valued concern. You are out there, alone, or maybe with a friend and pass from the world as it is comfortable and connected and fast and instead into to the vulnerability of it. So I got used to vulnerability except that political death is far more violent a death and far more slow, and lessons of the land are useless to the dumb ass brawlers of NY State. These are no metro sexual pansies on the streets, they’re beasts hunting other beasts in vast droves of unemployment. The kind that on occasion will overrun police on foot patrol in order to score a Glock. I think of this and then the quiet life of obedience or the boredom of safety or the wretched possibility of failure. So everyday a story. Most days a failure. Rip a new asshole for the Romantics. Run away, make it yours and tie it up, bound to earth like a rotten bone. Your rotten bone.
The vast majority of stories go untold. There are more I’d like to tell here and now, more of the real thing, as it happens but as it is there are good reasons for silence. And some have counseled the best of reasons. They have stories too. Still, soon, relatively soon they’ll come out from the crust like hordes of marching insects.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Asian Marketing
All good stories start with a tragedy. It could be a small one or a peripheral one but you’ll find it there, the event that put bodies in motion. What makes a story truly tragic and/or terrible is if the motion produces unredeemable disaster and/or a dullard heroine. I like the sound of that, a dullard heroine, tragic.
The pills made me nauseous so I made myself puke around 3AM by shoving a finger to the back and fondling the soft palate. Up came the burger and rings from hours before still largely undigested. Maybe it was the food. More likely I was sick with worry. Down to the wire, no reliable jobs surface and money tight, to the point of necessitating a change, an immediate one. No real worries except that no job makes a whole bunch of shit difficult. Not the least of which is, where to lay ones head and possibly, where to lay ones girlfriends head? No matter, what’s another year of this in the long run, probably divine guidance. Maybe not the pills n shit but what the hell, if it relieves pain for a short time why not? It’s not like they make me lazy, matter of fact it’s the opposite, they provide relief well into the early morning hours when the machine hums with connective blips and rumbles in electronic accord, storing and shifting, compiling and stacking. Please forgive these words, their blatant poetics, they come out that way. It’s the way I sort of think, backwards, as if the sentence is being constructed like a baseball in flight, so by the time it reaches the batter the thing has twisted around so many times that only a hope keeps it intact, each time a fear that it’ll be batted out of the park like drunken swine. See what I mean?
Bah! No worries, more prayers, a different approach, another one, hours, days, wasted. It’s almost as if success requires a cross but probably not. I keep thinking, I should have left here a long time ago or I should have never come. Like Tommy say, “misery’s the river of the world” and/or “the world is kept alive by bestial acts.” Sure there’s good advice but most of it isn’t real. Take the lessons of the poor, when poor. Fuck. Refreshment, young coconut juice:
FRUITA with meat. FRUITA is a mouthwatering avalanche of flavor that will quench any type of thirst. By selecting only the choicest of fruits and picking them at the pinnacle of ripeness, nothing but the best is ever put in our drinks. That’s why we say. “when you want fresh and delicious, nothing satisfies you like a FRUITA”. Product Name: Coconut Juice. Ingredients: Young coconut juice, Sugar, Young coconut pulp.
Saturday, August 4, 2007
hypoPalliasse
eVeryday a board meeting, a drawing board, a paddle, a tool, a palette, a rusted nail, a stool, a heap, a plastic toy, electronics, a magazine, entertainment, a dullard reflex, a musical, a mansion, a box, a babe, a hairy guy, a meddlesome cop, an overweight rogue, a depressed wife, a good friend, a horse, a Samaritan, a vagrant, a bastard, a lover, a mortgage, a fucking cardboard box, everyday something new, something more, something overwhelming, delicious poultry, a glass bead, a concrete block, everyday something a little bit more toward an itch and toward the relief of that itch, everyday exhausted and completely satiated and sane under hot, dry Western silt or icy Southern seas or Eastern florae or Northern loose sealed permafrost thin veiled sun. Everyday slumped in a fine leather saddle. A glorious thing.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Splendid, Part 4
I saw long lines of men falling over from disease and sickness, hordes of starving people who somehow failed at collective preservation falling by the second. I saw Laotian mothers and fathers caught in between conflicts, felled, as children watched in knowing predisposed silence in the water logged rice fields, shirtless, short and knotted from labor. I saw weeping troglodytes from the American suburbs as their devices failed and images could no longer sustain illusion as mud swallowed their gear and bodies and whimpering. I watched on as the waves on the shore lapped over fields of jellyfish flopping from the heat of the sea while sullen Tsunami survivors scraped the poison of the things from their fleshy ankles and elbows and genitals with long strips of palm which also cut like paper, thin and veiled and precise. I watched as angry Grackles tore at each other in swarms over the heat of diesel engines along the embankments of major freeways, smoking under a hot noon sun while drivers swayed and swatted at them from cabs and stacks of spilled cargo behind dessert masks, some exhausted and weak, coughing in the dust, some half cooked, slumped and smeared against the soft asphalt and gooey radials. Then I awoke. I got up and mindlessly set about a series of memorized gestures and tasks like cleaning teeth and wiping ass, and went to meet the boys who were out at the grounds making final preps for the opening which by the looks of the weather would not be well attended.
When I arrived the dawn had not yet come. I popped a beer and sat a distance away looking at the piece, straining to make out even a vague video image. Eric and I sat in silence as the night approached. Sterz remained standing, circling the grounds, slowly dragging his paralyzed right foot sideways over the uneven sod. As dusk arrived, the piece began to take shape. Pulses of movement faded into view until the whole thing was dancing sails, alive with movement behind a turbid veil of mist and drizzle, the fountain below adding the sound. I walked to the edge of the hill looking down across the landscape and settled back on the piece. Sterz approached, tossed his cane and gave a tight embrace with his head buried in my chest. He was pleased, this was success, it worked. Maybe twenty or so visitors came that night, most of them passing by on their way to and from university buildings or simply on a stroll across the grounds. We settled in to the nook near the back entrance of the building and sipped on beers and wine in shelter from the drizzle. Some moments pass and I break the silence, “This place has ghosts, there’s something here, there’s energy here.” I recalled my dream. Sterz says in his slow and ordered way, “I saw my son here before he was born. I was riding my bike, I remember it clearly, when I looked up and had a vision of him standing in Khaki shorts near a forest. Heather, of course, blew it off but I remember it clearly.” I smiled and let a knowing grunt of air escape my nostrils. “Yea?” “Yes,” he replied as he dug in the pocket of his jean jacket to get his wallet, popped it open and there was Calder against a tree in Kahki shorts, a picture he had taken within the month. Not but an hour ago he had showed it to old friends who came to visit when he recalled the vision. I grunt again and nod in solidarity and sip my beer. Eric looks over, nodding as well, “this is my favorite piece I think. This is a really beautiful.” Eric has installed a bunch of them from New York to Miami and back. “Thank you,” he responds. I round the bend to take a piss but get distracted by the toad hopping delightful along the cool damp concrete. Places where amphibians thrive feel right. It felt balanced.
I wished Sara was there and before her Alicia, I ached for it. I allowed this transgress and felt the absence hug my ribs as I stood pissing against the dark wall of the museum. My heart became heavy and I blamed the spirits. I smiled to fight it. On the way home we stopped at the Irish pub and I made paper roses for the girls and a couple of guys who seemed like they deserved it more. I order a plate of sweet potato fries which despite being on the menu actually offends the barkeep. The Irish are strange folks I thought and laugh to myself. Mack calls the Italian and the Irish “the niggers of Europe.” I laugh ‘cause it’s true, that’s the thing about stereotypes and because I’m Italian and because Mack feels comfortable enough to say such things. A few drinks and some well made roses in I get to talking to the girls at the end of the bar. I think they came with a couple of dudes but fuck it, I had a broken heart due to the over indulgent spirits and needed to talk to a woman to dispel the madness. Plus the dudes were dumb enough to leave them sitting there. “So what are you guys doing here?”, the more attractive girl sitting closest to me asks. I point to Sterz, “this man is an artist and we just installed his work at the Tang. This was opening night.” “Really!” she responds with mock enthusiasm. They were clearly unimpressed, not art lovers. “What are you doing here?" I ask. I’m a representative from Xerox and doing my usual rounds, my sister brought me here. She points to the girl next to her. “I gotta look out for her, that’s my job,” her sister adds. “How do you make those roses?” They like the roses. I laugh and think of Ellen. I think of her laugh and the viscosity of her cunt nectar, I was addicted to it, then look up still wearing a smirk and address the question, “I learned it from an Irish bartender in Jersey.” The thought of it made me think of sugary green shots with Everclear or some nasty shit delivered by girls in belly shirts and tight cutoff jean shorts. "Wanna learn?" They look eager. "Here, grab a bev nap." We begin the rose lesson which is going well until the sister’s guy returns and kind of ruins the vibe. “So what are you guys doing here?” She asks the question again, being drunk and short of memory and a little bit taken with the attention. I ask Sterz for a card and hand it to her. “What’s this?” she says intending to be feisty and flirty but it comes out as crass. She continues, “I’m supposed to go to this website and find stuff out?” I imagine her in Xerox marketing meetings barking at the new trainees, sorority girls recruited through ties to business, connections made generations prior. Sterz reaches back and snaps the card away which produces a rolling laugh among the boys. She gives it another go in attempts to save the conversation, “I just mean what am I supposed to do with that?” Sterz’ card is simple, just the website. It comes off as more crass even though the poor girl clearly wanted to restore the peace. “And what am I supposed to do with this?” She looks at her poorly constructed rose, the result of the lesson which I never got to finish. “I dunno, maybe you could Xerox it,” I quip with a smile and leave to have a smoke.
When I return, the girls are gone and the boys are sipping down the bottom third of a mug. We settle up and return to camp Community Court, spirits continuing to swoop and dive at my memory like owls hunting rodents. Sara sends a text in the early morning hours, it reads – Goodnight baby, I love you. It feels good, like a cloak as I fall into a restless sleep.
When I arrived the dawn had not yet come. I popped a beer and sat a distance away looking at the piece, straining to make out even a vague video image. Eric and I sat in silence as the night approached. Sterz remained standing, circling the grounds, slowly dragging his paralyzed right foot sideways over the uneven sod. As dusk arrived, the piece began to take shape. Pulses of movement faded into view until the whole thing was dancing sails, alive with movement behind a turbid veil of mist and drizzle, the fountain below adding the sound. I walked to the edge of the hill looking down across the landscape and settled back on the piece. Sterz approached, tossed his cane and gave a tight embrace with his head buried in my chest. He was pleased, this was success, it worked. Maybe twenty or so visitors came that night, most of them passing by on their way to and from university buildings or simply on a stroll across the grounds. We settled in to the nook near the back entrance of the building and sipped on beers and wine in shelter from the drizzle. Some moments pass and I break the silence, “This place has ghosts, there’s something here, there’s energy here.” I recalled my dream. Sterz says in his slow and ordered way, “I saw my son here before he was born. I was riding my bike, I remember it clearly, when I looked up and had a vision of him standing in Khaki shorts near a forest. Heather, of course, blew it off but I remember it clearly.” I smiled and let a knowing grunt of air escape my nostrils. “Yea?” “Yes,” he replied as he dug in the pocket of his jean jacket to get his wallet, popped it open and there was Calder against a tree in Kahki shorts, a picture he had taken within the month. Not but an hour ago he had showed it to old friends who came to visit when he recalled the vision. I grunt again and nod in solidarity and sip my beer. Eric looks over, nodding as well, “this is my favorite piece I think. This is a really beautiful.” Eric has installed a bunch of them from New York to Miami and back. “Thank you,” he responds. I round the bend to take a piss but get distracted by the toad hopping delightful along the cool damp concrete. Places where amphibians thrive feel right. It felt balanced.
I wished Sara was there and before her Alicia, I ached for it. I allowed this transgress and felt the absence hug my ribs as I stood pissing against the dark wall of the museum. My heart became heavy and I blamed the spirits. I smiled to fight it. On the way home we stopped at the Irish pub and I made paper roses for the girls and a couple of guys who seemed like they deserved it more. I order a plate of sweet potato fries which despite being on the menu actually offends the barkeep. The Irish are strange folks I thought and laugh to myself. Mack calls the Italian and the Irish “the niggers of Europe.” I laugh ‘cause it’s true, that’s the thing about stereotypes and because I’m Italian and because Mack feels comfortable enough to say such things. A few drinks and some well made roses in I get to talking to the girls at the end of the bar. I think they came with a couple of dudes but fuck it, I had a broken heart due to the over indulgent spirits and needed to talk to a woman to dispel the madness. Plus the dudes were dumb enough to leave them sitting there. “So what are you guys doing here?”, the more attractive girl sitting closest to me asks. I point to Sterz, “this man is an artist and we just installed his work at the Tang. This was opening night.” “Really!” she responds with mock enthusiasm. They were clearly unimpressed, not art lovers. “What are you doing here?" I ask. I’m a representative from Xerox and doing my usual rounds, my sister brought me here. She points to the girl next to her. “I gotta look out for her, that’s my job,” her sister adds. “How do you make those roses?” They like the roses. I laugh and think of Ellen. I think of her laugh and the viscosity of her cunt nectar, I was addicted to it, then look up still wearing a smirk and address the question, “I learned it from an Irish bartender in Jersey.” The thought of it made me think of sugary green shots with Everclear or some nasty shit delivered by girls in belly shirts and tight cutoff jean shorts. "Wanna learn?" They look eager. "Here, grab a bev nap." We begin the rose lesson which is going well until the sister’s guy returns and kind of ruins the vibe. “So what are you guys doing here?” She asks the question again, being drunk and short of memory and a little bit taken with the attention. I ask Sterz for a card and hand it to her. “What’s this?” she says intending to be feisty and flirty but it comes out as crass. She continues, “I’m supposed to go to this website and find stuff out?” I imagine her in Xerox marketing meetings barking at the new trainees, sorority girls recruited through ties to business, connections made generations prior. Sterz reaches back and snaps the card away which produces a rolling laugh among the boys. She gives it another go in attempts to save the conversation, “I just mean what am I supposed to do with that?” Sterz’ card is simple, just the website. It comes off as more crass even though the poor girl clearly wanted to restore the peace. “And what am I supposed to do with this?” She looks at her poorly constructed rose, the result of the lesson which I never got to finish. “I dunno, maybe you could Xerox it,” I quip with a smile and leave to have a smoke.
When I return, the girls are gone and the boys are sipping down the bottom third of a mug. We settle up and return to camp Community Court, spirits continuing to swoop and dive at my memory like owls hunting rodents. Sara sends a text in the early morning hours, it reads – Goodnight baby, I love you. It feels good, like a cloak as I fall into a restless sleep.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Splendid, Part 3
Umbrellas. It was my first thought and last on the equipment issue. Umbrellas have the right shape and really don’t interfere with the aesthetic. Preferably we’d get assistants to hold the umbrellas if and when the rain came. Eric mentioned Yost was in town, Yost is an organizer and would definitely be connected to the artists if anyone was. We called him on the issue but needed a backup plan just in case. This was the day of the event and the summer so who knows if anyone would be around. Sterz and I go to find the right umbrellas, he mentions black and golf. We need the things to cover a rather wide distance and be durable enough to handle a moderate wind if staked properly. We head out.
The cell phone rings. It’s Mack. I answer, “Mack, Tell me you’re in Tennessee?” Mack had a family reunion in Tennessee, southern black folk style catered deal, something like a couple hundred people. He’s broke and generally not a traveler so even 3 days away is a stress factory for him. He almost didn’t go, right down to the wire so I was eager to hear the answer. “Dude, I’m never taking Greyhound again.” Shit, he took a bus. “I could have warned you, it’d have probably been cheaper if you rented a car.” But I knew he didn’t drive much and the city is in his blood and all that distance is scary especially when entering the South, especially if you’re black (or so I’ve been told), whether it’s justified or not. “It took us 26 hours to get here after the bus got a flat. We were in the fucking hills of Kentucky when the thing blew out. Adrian and I got out, smoked a blunt and waited for like six hours for another bus to come. Fuck that.” In the same breath you could hear the excitement. That is what travel is, good stories both horrific and glorious. “Now that we’re here, it’s awesome. You wouldn’t believe what they got here. Everything you could imagine. I’m about to head into this store where they sell JUST KNIVES and SWORDS. It’s like the size of a Walmart. And later I’m going to this go-cart track with TEN MILES of track, TEN MILES.” “Jesus,” I respond. I just wanted to listen, I’ve never heard Mack this excited, he was like a kid in a candy shop. “I just came out of this place where they had a confederate flag, lemme see, it said, the ‘South in my blood, a Yankee in my cud’ or something like that, I couldn’t believe it, it was so prejudice, I had to take a picture. The guy was like, ‘Where are you from?’ (for this Mack puts on a southern drawl) and I said ‘New York’ and he was like, ‘you’re a long way from home?’” “Damn,” I respond between breaths. “Yea, he turned out to be a nice guy but I couldn’t believe this thing. I got a picture so I’ll show you in a few days. I couldn’t believe it.” “How’s the family?” “Oh my god, there’s something like two hundred and forty people here, its unreal. The whole thing’s catered but you should see the amount of food just for our family, like huge vats of ribs and what not. It’s kind of awesome to think about it, that all these people are related to me.” I started thinking about my family reunions and the general lack of them and how even if there was one it would be based on the top bracket income folks n shit so it doesn’t happen or it gets to be too much trouble for the family that hosts. “It must be awesome.” “It is,” Mack says with a pause for reflection then gets right back to present. “I’m gonna get going into this shop but I’ll give you a call in a few days and show you shit. I gotta work this greyhound deal out, there’s no way I’m getting back on a bus. They’re insane, I can’t believe anyone would pay for a service like that.” “Next time we’ll drive. Hell, I’ll drive,” I say. “Yea, we gotta take a long weekend and drive down here soon.” “Stay an extra day or two if you can.” “I’ll see.” “Alright, go buy a gay blade.” I always use this gay blade line thinking myself so clever. Mack digs for a response, “I’ll look, I think they keep those in the basement.” We hang up and I see that Sterz has been waiting patiently. He adds, “This is so gay,” with a smile and and bit of a laugh because we were certain to succeed in the hunt for black umbrellas and because we were out of Rochester and because we were having an adventure. First stop, Targét. Last stop, Targét. We found exactly what was needed after only a few rounds and some directions from a hot chic.
The cell phone rings. It’s Mack. I answer, “Mack, Tell me you’re in Tennessee?” Mack had a family reunion in Tennessee, southern black folk style catered deal, something like a couple hundred people. He’s broke and generally not a traveler so even 3 days away is a stress factory for him. He almost didn’t go, right down to the wire so I was eager to hear the answer. “Dude, I’m never taking Greyhound again.” Shit, he took a bus. “I could have warned you, it’d have probably been cheaper if you rented a car.” But I knew he didn’t drive much and the city is in his blood and all that distance is scary especially when entering the South, especially if you’re black (or so I’ve been told), whether it’s justified or not. “It took us 26 hours to get here after the bus got a flat. We were in the fucking hills of Kentucky when the thing blew out. Adrian and I got out, smoked a blunt and waited for like six hours for another bus to come. Fuck that.” In the same breath you could hear the excitement. That is what travel is, good stories both horrific and glorious. “Now that we’re here, it’s awesome. You wouldn’t believe what they got here. Everything you could imagine. I’m about to head into this store where they sell JUST KNIVES and SWORDS. It’s like the size of a Walmart. And later I’m going to this go-cart track with TEN MILES of track, TEN MILES.” “Jesus,” I respond. I just wanted to listen, I’ve never heard Mack this excited, he was like a kid in a candy shop. “I just came out of this place where they had a confederate flag, lemme see, it said, the ‘South in my blood, a Yankee in my cud’ or something like that, I couldn’t believe it, it was so prejudice, I had to take a picture. The guy was like, ‘Where are you from?’ (for this Mack puts on a southern drawl) and I said ‘New York’ and he was like, ‘you’re a long way from home?’” “Damn,” I respond between breaths. “Yea, he turned out to be a nice guy but I couldn’t believe this thing. I got a picture so I’ll show you in a few days. I couldn’t believe it.” “How’s the family?” “Oh my god, there’s something like two hundred and forty people here, its unreal. The whole thing’s catered but you should see the amount of food just for our family, like huge vats of ribs and what not. It’s kind of awesome to think about it, that all these people are related to me.” I started thinking about my family reunions and the general lack of them and how even if there was one it would be based on the top bracket income folks n shit so it doesn’t happen or it gets to be too much trouble for the family that hosts. “It must be awesome.” “It is,” Mack says with a pause for reflection then gets right back to present. “I’m gonna get going into this shop but I’ll give you a call in a few days and show you shit. I gotta work this greyhound deal out, there’s no way I’m getting back on a bus. They’re insane, I can’t believe anyone would pay for a service like that.” “Next time we’ll drive. Hell, I’ll drive,” I say. “Yea, we gotta take a long weekend and drive down here soon.” “Stay an extra day or two if you can.” “I’ll see.” “Alright, go buy a gay blade.” I always use this gay blade line thinking myself so clever. Mack digs for a response, “I’ll look, I think they keep those in the basement.” We hang up and I see that Sterz has been waiting patiently. He adds, “This is so gay,” with a smile and and bit of a laugh because we were certain to succeed in the hunt for black umbrellas and because we were out of Rochester and because we were having an adventure. First stop, Targét. Last stop, Targét. We found exactly what was needed after only a few rounds and some directions from a hot chic.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Splendid, Part 2
Eric’s an excellent assistant. He’s also the vessel for a plethora of bizarre behavior and copious drug intake, seasonal. He’ll troubleshoot a difficult software issue or suggest an unseen elegance to a persistent problem only to drop the HD camera because he forgets to check the safety lock. Stuff like that. It’s the square one phenomenon. Worktime celebration is a veritable roller coaster but mostly good so we power on together because, well, is none of us perfect. For example, Sterz can barely go a meal without a special request or return of an item or entree. He’s focused on his palette to a degree unmatched in other humans. If the wings are too mild, they go back, if the eggs are dry, the Maitre de is notified, if the drink is sloppy or weak the barkeep is shamed. Also, each and all sauce and spice must be delivered at four to five times the house standard, nay the house maximum, and this is usual practice. It is simply what ought to be expected when dining with the Sterz. So Eric has some wiggle room, plus he’s twenty years younger and a learning curve is applied and tolerated. In this spirit, after the first day’s work we go for drink and end up with a six pack back at the Saratoga Community Court Motel, a real shithole who’s only redeeming quality is location. Eric, however, buys a bottle of cheap whiskey to augment the beers, drinks three quarters of the damn thing by midnight and busts out his cell phone to ‘make some calls’ and text madly. I don’t say a word, just observe and answer questions by raising eyebrows and nodding repeatedly with pursed lips in a gesture of acknowledgment. Like I say, he shoots straight for the most part, even in debauchery. This is a guy who actually made the call before proceeding on his drunkest night ever. It was shortly after my separation when I believed all marital problem shit was going to smooth over with a few prayers to Jesus when I alternatively crashed at his place to avoid the isolation and shame of the cold cushionless studio floor. He was dealing with unruly roommates and various woman problems so we headed to the local hipster dive where he announced, “I’m going to get more drunk than I’ve ever been in my entire life.” “OK,” I reply with the raised eyebrow, pursed lips and a nod. And this he did, downed some six strong long island iced teas and a few shots in record time. I literally had to carry him out of the place due to failed motor capacity and blindness. Once back at the apartment I waited two hours with him in the car for his girl to show up because I feared he would choke on vomit. He survived and I give him credit for calling it. This night, he paced the drinking so I wasn’t too worried about a repeat.
For privacy, Eric heads to the car as not to bother Sterz already lounged out for the night intent on the food network programs. A few hours pass and you can still hear the boy yapping away. No sense to it really, if he was keeping us awake, he was keeping others awake. There was some type of commotion, laughter, broken English being spoken when we hear the car start. “Thank you, Thank you,” Eric says. “Where you from?” “New Jersey, no kiddin’, me too. Way small world, way small world.” It was a classic bit, including the Jersey standard of asking “what exit?” to refer to home or travel and full discussion of traffic and gas prices on the turnpike and/or parkway on the way out of town. So classic in fact that Sterz and I laugh audibly.
A short time later Eric pokes his head in the room. It’s dark except for the pale television flicker. “I’m going to drive around a while to charge up my mom’s battery,” then promptly closes the door without waiting for reply. He had just received a jump from a late arriving traveler which became necessary because he sat talking on his charging cell phone in the car with the parking lights on while listening to the radio for the two hours prior to his announcement. We had driven his car down (which was actually his mother’s car) because it had the necessary room to accommodate three along with equipment and the van was a lot less comfortable. This plan he had for driving around sounded like a bad idea especially since he currently was driving on a suspended license and well beyond the legal alcohol limit AND all the display equipment for the piece was currently in the trunk of the car. Sterz promptly struggled out of bed, swung open the door to a flood of light from the headlamps on his naked body, “I’d prefer if you didn’t drive around. The equipment.” To which Eric responds, “oh yea, that’s right, OK, I’ll just let it run for a while here and hang out here.” And that’s what he did. Sterz and I traded jokes about him getting a DUI right there in the parking lot before nodding off. Hell, with Eric’s frequent lapse of common sense and the clear disturbance already caused we gave it a 50/50 chance he’d be hauled in by morning. I awoke about 4:30AM to the intermittent hum of the cooling fan, got up and turned the car off myself as he slept soundly slouched over the wheel like a slain gangster.
The next morning we swap Eric to a bed, let him sleep it off and return to the installation grounds to inspect the piece for weather damage. If all was well, Eric would be right as rain by show time and even if not, he’s never shirked work for a hangover.
For privacy, Eric heads to the car as not to bother Sterz already lounged out for the night intent on the food network programs. A few hours pass and you can still hear the boy yapping away. No sense to it really, if he was keeping us awake, he was keeping others awake. There was some type of commotion, laughter, broken English being spoken when we hear the car start. “Thank you, Thank you,” Eric says. “Where you from?” “New Jersey, no kiddin’, me too. Way small world, way small world.” It was a classic bit, including the Jersey standard of asking “what exit?” to refer to home or travel and full discussion of traffic and gas prices on the turnpike and/or parkway on the way out of town. So classic in fact that Sterz and I laugh audibly.
A short time later Eric pokes his head in the room. It’s dark except for the pale television flicker. “I’m going to drive around a while to charge up my mom’s battery,” then promptly closes the door without waiting for reply. He had just received a jump from a late arriving traveler which became necessary because he sat talking on his charging cell phone in the car with the parking lights on while listening to the radio for the two hours prior to his announcement. We had driven his car down (which was actually his mother’s car) because it had the necessary room to accommodate three along with equipment and the van was a lot less comfortable. This plan he had for driving around sounded like a bad idea especially since he currently was driving on a suspended license and well beyond the legal alcohol limit AND all the display equipment for the piece was currently in the trunk of the car. Sterz promptly struggled out of bed, swung open the door to a flood of light from the headlamps on his naked body, “I’d prefer if you didn’t drive around. The equipment.” To which Eric responds, “oh yea, that’s right, OK, I’ll just let it run for a while here and hang out here.” And that’s what he did. Sterz and I traded jokes about him getting a DUI right there in the parking lot before nodding off. Hell, with Eric’s frequent lapse of common sense and the clear disturbance already caused we gave it a 50/50 chance he’d be hauled in by morning. I awoke about 4:30AM to the intermittent hum of the cooling fan, got up and turned the car off myself as he slept soundly slouched over the wheel like a slain gangster.
The next morning we swap Eric to a bed, let him sleep it off and return to the installation grounds to inspect the piece for weather damage. If all was well, Eric would be right as rain by show time and even if not, he’s never shirked work for a hangover.
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