the world has turned and left me here

american league idiot

Sport's Illustrated.com's John Heyman, on the heels of last week's dramatic 7th game victory over the Mets to advance the Cardinals World Series:

"Go ahead, crown the Tigers. They are more powerful than the Cardinals, better rested and generally better suited for a short series. They rolled through a difficult American League derby and should make the Cardinals go away, quickly and quietly."

And:

"As for the teams, this looks like a mismatch. The Tigers have the best starting rotation in baseball, and it isn't even close. They have two lights-out relief pitchers, and neither one of them is even their closer. Plus, they have power threats from the top to the very bottom of the lineup. The last three hitters in the Tigers lineup all hit at least 25 home runs. Top to bottom, they can overpower anyone.

The Cardinals are a nice story. No, make that a great story. But the story should be coming close to its conclusion now."

Um, so far, the Cards have won 7-2 in Detroit, lost 3-1 in Detroit, and won 5-0 in St. Louis. They are up 2-1 in the series with 2 more home games to play. I think this earns our friend John a place in the annals of AssHattery.

banana bowl: i just can't get you outta my head

Bought it. "Golden Banana Bowl / You're lovin is all I think about."

next customer, next customer

After the Cards Mets game (go Cards!) I need to pay my bill at the bar. I go next door to McDonald's, which has the closest ATM. The grease fumes nearly overwhelm me.

Then to top it off the ATM makes a noise like its doing something and then promptly moves on to the "new transaction" screen. Uh-oh I think: I've had this happen before when the so-called "transaction" wasn't so transactional. Well the debit from my account is transactional, but it's not atomic with the handing me of actual physical money, or a receipt.

So, beligerent sports fan that I am, I give the machine a sound kick. Instantly this rouses a gaggle of torporous McDonald's employees from their group chat behind the corner, and into action. Or rather, into more meaningless chatter, this time directed at me. "Uh-uh, whatchoo be doin that for over there?"

I had unwittingly just launched myself into Jerry Springer land. I ran with it. We go back and forth for a while.

"I'm just trying to get your attention. You need to put a sign on this thing if it doesn't work, you shouldn't just let people use it."

"Mmm-mmm, Mmm-mmm, next customer," (to the next guy in line), "sir, sir, can I help you sir..."

"Alright whatever, listen, lemme ask you, how would you feel if a machine just stole 100 bucks from you?" I hoped that one would hit home. Nope.

"Call the number, there's a number right there on the machine."

"Ok but this is going to be a huge waste of my time, do you understand? I will spend way more than $100 of my time dealing with this. That $100 is just gone now. Why didn't you put a sign up?"

"Next customer, next customer."

Etc. So I go get a pen from the bar and come back to write down the number. She comes over and is buzzing around me like a fly, shoving their newly crafted "out of order" sign in my face.

I look down at the ATM and see a Win2k bootup screen.

blood

I almost don't want to blog about this. Oh well, here goes.

Two nights ago, walking around the streets of New York, we suddenly passed an old Chinese woman on the sidewalk whose head was laying in a pool of dark red blood. There was so much blood it's hard for me to imagine that she just fell down. The pool was being drained slowly by a grate beneath her head...you could hear the subways below...we found ourselves wondering where it was all being channeled off to...and her face, so motionless, peaceful almost, only her eyes looking around in slow incomprehension...

That image will stick with me for the rest of my life.

(There were already five people calling 911; the cops showed up moments later.)

expression, impression: 10 new york vignettes

You can express things. Things can impress you. It's all flow, it's just a question of direction: is it flowing in, or is it flowing out.

Every person has their own flux balance, by which I mean they express more than they impress, or vice versa. Perhaps this is what we mean when we say so-and-so is an introvert: his net flux points inward. Things flow in and he doesn't let all of it flow back out; he holds some inside. Or when we say so-and-so is an extrovert, perhaps we mean that her net flux is outward. She exudes more than she absorbs from the world.

I declare them both to be criminals in violation of the law of conservation of flux. ;)

Today I was an extrovert. I don't know what got into me, but I talked to more random strangers today than I've ever done in my life. Was it the autumn New York sunlight, which woke me up at that perfect moment when it streamed in?

I don't know where it came from, but I liked it. Here's ten vignette-style encounters from my day.

1: disturbance

Girl behind the counter in a small soho clothing store: all of the clothing was disturbing. I felt I had to point this out. The first t-shirt I came to was a joke shirt about crack. Yeah, I can tell you're having a hard time imagining that one. I was having a hard time imagining it and I was looking right at it.

The next had a giant realistic cross. Then there was a Richard D. James-looking technicolor zombie face. And finally a greyscale bigmac with a thin rivulet of dripping red blood slashed across the middle. There was no undisturbing t-shirt in the whole store.

I don't think she had given the trend much thought. She seemed really into her imac behind the counter (she was an introvert) but I hope she found the process of random sampling and statistical analysis at least somewhat amusing. She was at least listening when I made fun of her for playing AFI--I noticed she quickly shuffled songs. Impression. Not a whole lot of expression. I can understand now why extroverts get frustrated with me. I was hoping for *some* sort of response.

2: the leather jacket

Chinese 20-something guy in a clothing store on the edge of chinatown: this place had clothes I liked. I liked them so much that I started trying everything in the store on. When I reached the end of the rack there was a nice leather jacket, which I started to take off.

"No, sorry, that's mine," the guy broke in, obviously very embarassed. When he broke in I had just started wondering why a small independent designer shop would carry a leather jacket from the Gap. My recovery was to talk about what an amazing find he had made--a piece of clothing from the Gap that didn't totally suck. "I always put my jacket there," he said. "I've worked here for five years and no one has ever tried to put it on." Well," I say, "I guess no one with your same impeccable taste in jackets has come in yet." He laughed. His acute embarassment had dissipated.

3: in search of daniil kharms

Girl behind the counter in a soho bookstore: I came in looking for works by a Russian surrealist poet I had recently run across in a journal. His name is Daniil Kharms. No way will I find anything by this guy I thought. But instead she started rattling off titles after an amazingly brief pause. The information flowed through her so quickly it was almost scary...I don't think I could have googled it myself and read through the search results any faster. (Even with something like surfraw amazon.)

It reminds me of the jazz guitarist I saw last night: one of those quintessential guitar geek turned guitar god types who have basically zero synaptic gap between their mental music and their physical music, and can play anything under the sun. (Luke Sticka I'm talking about you here too.)

As I listened to her digging through the list of publications, randomly remarking on the interesting details of each, making connections to other components of the literary scene, I realized just how huge a book nerd this girl was. She seemed very nice and interesting. But there was a particular edge to her when it came to how much she knew. The edge was a thing called pride. I wondered how often people got this same impression from talking to me..."a nice person, but something about them makes me a little uneasy..."

4: starbucks bathroom line

Middle-aged woman in line for the restroom at starbucks: we talked about maine, the leaves changing color, commuting, los angeles, seattle, and the nature of time. Especially about the nature of time in new york, as she had been in maine for the weekend. After all this discussion, we were still waiting in line. "Welcome to the only semi-public restroom within five blocks," I say. There's always a huge line for the soho starbucks restroom. I'm not sure its worth the price of admission either. They should put a clown with balloons or something inside to compensate.

5: team leader, north pole expedition, 2003

Bouncer for an upscale outdoors clothing store in soho: yeah, when you have $1200 jackets like some of these places do, I guess paying a bouncer is worth it. This store was the funniest piece of pretentious crap I've ever been in. Hands down.

Every last piece of clothing had some inscription on it like "Team Leader, North Pole Expedition, 2003." On my way out I told the bouncer what I thought of it. And you know what? He lost his composure and burst out laughing.

"I know exactly what you're talking about man," he said. We had a good laugh together about whether or not they were planning to open North and South pole locations...so you could buy this stuff after, you know, you had actually done what it proclaimed to the world you had.

6: rawhide

Girls behind the counter at evolution, a science store: we talked about the recent T-Rex soft tissue find and the implications thereof. They helped me find a great framed atlas moth specimen. They are also surprised to hear that the cowhides which they are selling for 300 dollars can be picked up off the ground for free where I come from. Hey, when have I ever passed over an opportunity to tease?

7: zanzibar

Cabbie from Zanzibar who picked me up in brooklyn: I asked him all my usual cabdriver questions, which is becoming a sort of routine. (Random sampling, followed by analysis: the scientific method.) This guy was a character though. Man. I asked him to tell me one interesting thing about the island of Zanzibar. "You can't hardly kick a soccer ball without it going into the ocean," he said.

8: come on! come on! gadget arm

Turkish couple who run an artsy furniture store a block from my apartment: for some reason I had never been in the little bedford ave mini-mall. What a mini-mall though: a hipster coffee shop, hipster haircutters place, a tibetan clothing store, an indie music shop, a computer gear store called "mikey's hook-up" and this nice little furniture store.

The girl and I reminisced about Inspector Gadget. There was a chair that looked like the one the evil boss of M.A.D. would sit in at the end, growling "I'll get you next time gadget!" What was the cat's name? We wikipedia-ed it. Apparently just "mad cat." Guess they used up all their creativity deciding what body part Gadget would scream orders at next. She told me the Turkish equivalent to "Go go Gadget arm!" was something like "Come on! Come on! Gadget arm!" I got an impromptu Turkish lesson.

We then started talking about Turkish names. To my surprise I discovered that their names were all very literal. I started telling them the names of all the Turks I have known. I have known a guy named "war." Who names their kid "war," in any language? The couple's names roughly meant "frontier" (the guy) and "sweet smell" (the girl). The guy tells me Turkish girl names are always like this. Often they are the names of flowers.

This very literal, non-abstract naming system is totally foreign to me. Is it similar to Native American naming systems I wonder? ("Bird-That-Craps-When-I-Kick-It.") I left the store much more interested in Turkish culture.

9: gold-plated bananas

Girl behind counter at art store on north 6th: there's this one piece in there that I really want. I keep going in and coveting it. It is a gold-plated bunch of bananas clumped around a slice of banana trunk: a veritable golden banana bowl.

As I'm sitting there basking in its glory, the idea occurs to me, what if I buy this, and there's a break-in, and during the struggle I reach for this rather heavy clump of gold-plated bananas, and I end up bashing the attacker's head in with it? How will the headline read? We discuss this. The article will probably just say "with a blunt object"--newspapers never descend into the interesting, the actual, details.

But what if the headline did read "area man kills attacker with clump of gold-plated bananas," and then goes on to never mention that detail again in the 10-line article? Boy, that would be great. I should definitely buy the bananas. And hope someone foolishly tries to attack me.

10: day i almost cut my hair

Dude with the record collection at the bedford artist's flea market: he's playing a typically bizarre selection of music. Typical for this neighborhood of brooklyn let's say. I remember that there were a few irish folk tunes in there. But no matter, his record collection is great, way better than the last guy's, and I find a bunch of stuff, including CSNY's Deja Vu.

I ask him if he's taking requests. I can tell he's in his "I'm the DJ here" mode and that he's not immediately too pleased with my request. Maybe I look like I don't have good taste or something. He asks me which one, and I hold up the record and point to "Almost Cut My Hair" (this one goes out to you Drew). "That's a good song," he concedes, "but I've got this next one all queued up and..." I say "that's fine man, I'm gonna be digging around here a while anyway, so whenever you get to it."

After another song he puts it on. And it changes everything. We all have long hair now, we're all playing guitar in our heads, blissed out. People are humming along, tapping their feet. This was definitely not occurring during Irish folk tune happy hour. A guy even comes up later and asks him "what was that?!" and demands to see the record--which is so, so mine, the original UK import in perfect condition.

The song finishes and the DJ guy throws on the David Crosby solo album. We have a joke about those "back-to-back" programming segments on mainstream radio where they play, like, two Metallica songs, and then like two Pink Floyd songs. And they always have some dumb name for this little gimmick. I compliment him on his taste and collection as I pay for my three records.

Somehow at this point he throws in one of those f*ck corporate-america statements--it's really quite disconnected from the conversation when I think about it, but you know this is always on certain people's minds. "And I'm just the little guy," he says. "We're all just the little guy," I say. "But things are changing man, the huge corporation will soon be a thing of the past. Although they'll do a lot of kicking and screaming on their way out the door. Like you hear now out of the music industry."

"Yeah," he says, but this "yeah" is a total dismissal--he takes me for a wacko. I probably sounded like one. He goes off to pet some girl's albino chihuahua. Cute girls with albino chihuahuas are infinitely preferrable to political discussions, so I can't really blame him.

ancient underwater city discovered

Off the coast of India. Initial carbon dating places some of the artifacts at over 9,000 years old. If accurate, this would require a major revision to the history of civilization as we know it.

plane crash

Yes there was a plane crash about 15 blocks north of where I work in Manhattan today. I'm ok as is everyone I know; sincere condolences go out to those who were affected by this accident. Events are still unfolding so it's unclear at this point why or how this happened.

city of god

So I finally got around to watching City of God. Yeah, it was decent, but I couldn't help thinking: what would happen if you turned it into a drinking game...you know, go shot for shot...

after all what do you have to hide

attention passengers
all bags, suspicious packages
vials of fluid, open containers
manila folders, pockets, ipods
credit reports, telephone conversations
packets, hard drives
cavities
orifices
private thoughts
dreams
superstitions
bellybuttons
memories
arcane knowledge
undergarments
consciences
and especially
dissenting opinions
are subject to random search by the police.
thank you for riding mta
new york city transit
and have a safe trip.