The Open Matt Project

Nerds on the Loose

This is a riot. The Movie Physics Page

Regarding the movie "Armageddon":

"...As is our policy we won't reveal the exciting conclusion but will offer a parting thought. Downing a fifteen-mile-diameter saucer would be a disaster. Krauss estimates it would weigh about 100 billion tons and that dropping it from a height of about a mile would release more than 10,000 times as much energy as the nuclear bomb used on Hiroshima.

However, that would be minor compared to the effects of releasing the antimatter fuel aboard the ship. The saucer would still be loaded with enough antimatter fuel to toast several cities as well as return to the mothership. The return trip would lift the saucer thousands of times higher than the one mile fall described. Hence, there would be thousands of times more energy stored in the antimatter fuel than released by a one-mile saucer fall. Breaching the antimatter's containment field would cause one gigantic explosion."

Miller's Guy

Ever since I discovered that Miller's Crossing was released on DVD, my movie nerves have been tingling with a Christmas night anticipation. I got it a couple of days ago through Netflix, and I've already watched it twice. I love that movie so much. There are SO MANY good scenes and lines. I'm not sure why it is I have only met a handful of people who really appreciate how much depth is in that movie. Most think it is just a quirky gangster movie, and are quick to compare it with the 2 G's of the genre (if you don't know, I ain't tellin'), but in my mind that's like comparing Hamlet to Macbeth - you can do it, but you're mostly just spinning wheels.

I also got a chance to see That One Guy, who is one of my favorite performers in the world. It's possible he will be playing again in September, so those of you in the bay area might get another chance to see him. It's a hell of a show that you cannot help but be absorbed into. Nuff said.

Truth or Dare

Contrast and compare.

I go out in the morning, bag on my back, to find something to do with myself. Something to invest myself into. It's hot out. I take up drinking iced coffee and exploring the shops and museums and parks of the city.

and

I get up in the morning, and think about what I can do with someone else. Someone to invest myself into. It's cold out. I take up drinking and finding someplace warm where I can at least smoke.

I'm not sure. I think I like the former. I think the more time I spend here, at least since I got back, the more I am learning to appreciate my own life and the people who choose to invest in me.

Bloody Dreams

I dreamt last night about being holed up with a psychopathic killer in the woods. There was a cute little cat there with us, and I spent a good amount of time feeding it the sandwiches this psycho guy was giving me. He was completely normal and actually kinda funny, and it wasn't until the cat got sick and the guy insisted I "finish the meal - gotta finish the meal" that I started to get the picture.

I tried to reason with the guy, but really I could see that I had flipped his nutcase switch and it was time to get the hell out of there and take my chances in the woods. I'm no fool, and I remembered all the psycho-in-the-woods movies, so I figured I'd run a little ways and then hide and watch him chase me. I ran up to the second story of the house we were in, and dove through the window to roll down the roof and land on a pile of firewood we'd stacked the day before.

I thought that would give me a good start since psycho would have to go back downstairs and around the house to get to me, but he was just as die hard as I was and he just went right through that window and rolled down after me. But as he landed, he dropped one of the two knives he had. He'd always had the cooks knife and the paring knife - useful for preparing those sandwiches, I guess. He had dropped the paring knife and grabbing it I ran off into the woods.

In the woods there was a bizarre chase from and to shadows. It was viewed from the third person, so I could see myself, and it seemed like a weird kind of waltz of stepping into a shadow, then stepping out. Sometimes the fallen autumn leaves would crunch underfoot - sometimes not. Sometimes you could hear the hard breathing of one of us - sometimes not. It was then that I realized he was mimicing me.

He knew exactly where I was, and came at me from just a few yards away. I blocked his stab and began to talk to him again. I thought maybe I could convince him that I wanted to go back to the house and eat the sandwich. I knew that I didn't stand a chance in a knife fight with this guy.

Amazingly, he bought it. He seemed surprised that I would want to go back - but hell "that's all I really wanted in the first place, wadn't it? A little snack?" and he mock-bowed and pointed his arm back towards the house. The second I saw his arm in the moonlight, I slashed his wrist as quickly and as hard as I could. I must have gotten him pretty good, because I felt a light slap on my foot of what must of been his blood.

Before he even had a chance to scream, I was running again. I didn't bother looking back because I could hear him coming right behind me. And the rhythm started there. The crunch of our feet, and the lub-dub of our hearts de-synching over time, punctuated by desparate cries of fear. I was waiting for him to bleed out. He was waiting for me to stumble. And he was losing.

I felt that I was running from death itself, coming and going. I heard his pace slowing and I could feel how cold he felt, even though my skin was radiating a pulsing warmth. I stopped and turned to look at him. He was an alabaster statue of a twisted reflection of me, splashed with blood from the chest down. His knife was gone and his fingers were curled and he rasped a feeble cry for help as he fell.

I laid down nearby and watched him. Psychos always come back after they die, and I was going to keep my eye on this one. I laid down in the bed of leaves and felt the heat of my skin against the cold of the night and the warmth of his draining blood against the cold of his death. I began to drift asleep.

I was in bed, listening to a delivery truck's door clatter to a close outside my house. I was guessing it was still morning and I hadn't overslept. It was cold, but I was still warm, lying there next to my fallen killer on the grass. I couldn't move. I was too tired and comfortable. I could only listen to the sounds of a bright Berkeley morning outside my window mingle with the rustle of trees in the dark woods where I watched death die.

*click*

Sun rise? ... sun set. Sun rise? sun set. Sun rise, sun set, sunrise sunset sunrise sunset sunrisesunset sunrisesunse-

*CRASH*

Note to self: Stop doing anything.

Tennesee Wisdom.

Here's to fighting, cheating, stelaing, and drinking:

If you fight, may you fight for a brother, if you cheat, may you cheat death, if you steal, may you steal a girl's heart, and if you drink - drink with me!

credit to Drew for this gem

In Love With Fools

I really should blame the MTV music awards. It's really the incalcuable volume of brain-damaging stupidity I've been (voluntarily) subjected to in the past six hours that are largely responsible for my current condition. In the end, I'm force to recognize that really, terrifyingly, nothing has changed since I was younger.

People still follow their gut instincts, more or less. They still reason out their ideas after the fact. They still favor fantasy over reality. There is still an inexhaustable supply of self-delusion and resultant idiocy.

I sit here with Liz the younger and her friend Cody, and mentally track the gauge of how close I feel to them as time progresses. Needless to say, in the final analysis it made no difference at all. They are all on their own, largely unobservant, trip.

More importantly is their emphasis on deliberately doing exactly that. Ignoring what is right in front of them. It's too horrible to look at.

I want to fuck you. I want to hit you. I want to be your friend. I want you to trust me. I want to go away. I want to stay here with you.

None of it is easy or comfortable to realize. None of it.

Wasted-ddd

So it's been a long night. Tomorrow I'm supposed to go out and hit Ikea for new furniture for my new home. So to speak.

I blew off Liz tonight. She tried to talk to me and be friends. I don't think she understands yet that she took a big shit on our friendship. I don't think she gets that I'm not the fucking chump she thought I was. I had to pat myself on the back for not allowing the open, accepting, loving part of me take over and forgive her. There isn't any good reason. She's not saying, "I'm sorry." She's saying "Nothing ever happened." And that's just more spit in my face.

I decided some time ago that it was better to not get spit on my face in the first place than to find clever ways of wiping it off. So she can basically enjoy her life without me. Quite a condemnation, eh?

In other news, I got my new/replacement camera in today. I'm fucking thrilled. I took a few hours out today to experiment and learn what is new with the latest model. By in large, the new camera is 90% the same as the old one, but the 10% that's different is the stuf I have been wishing was fixed. I can now turn off the stupid pre-light so people don't think I've taken the picture before I have actually taken it. I can auto-set the light and flash and exposure settings. It's great.

I got some fantastic pictures of Liz2 and her friend Cody. Cody is hot. It was an unexpected treat to hang with them today. I'll ask later and see if I they don't have a problem with my posting the pictures.

Potatoes

I decided to make myself an egg and potato breakfast this morning. While I was cutting the potato, I suddenly had to stop and collect myself. I felt like I couldn't breathe and I wanted to cry. I remembered Denali making potatoes at her apartment in Oakland. I remembered her using too much butter or oil or whatever and worrying about her dietary habits. I remember the smell.

I soaked up that memory and immersed myself in it. She is dying in me, and I only get these moments of her. It's horrible.

Postcards from the Ledge

It is way harder to not update than I thought it would be. I guess there is something to my wanting to write, just to write, after all. So I reckon for now I'll be writing in "draft" mode so the whole damn enchilada doesn't go and get posted, ruining the awesome effect of my absence.

Fuckit

I'm taking openmatt.com offline tonight. Enojy it while you can.

One Fine Night

I left the party early. The music was good. People were enjoying themselves. I left early. I had to go.

I walked back to my dorm room, went into my closet and pulled the coat-rack bar from its housing. It was a nice solid bar, aluminum I imagine.

I dragged one of the wooden, woven-backed chairs that were standard for the campus from my small room into my roommates room. He had more room, and I would need it.

Nobody was in the dorm that night. Everyone was at the dance, drinking, dancing, and enjoying themselves. So I knew I would have this moment to myself.

With a berzerker scream, I began to beat this chair with the bar. I screamed and beat it and in the darkness I felt the splinters of wood hit my face and fly into my mouth. I raised the bar over my head and brought it down with all the force I had. I felt the industrial-build chair resist and it was intolerable to me. I smashed it. I jumped in the air and swung with all my weight against it. I cursed and cried out in furious despair against it. I beat it and beat it until the bar started to slip from my hands.

The end of the bar I wasn't holding had twisted into a knot of metal. It no longer had the range it had as a bar. It was now a mace.

I sweated and shrieked and swung. I bashed and bashed until I had no distinction between myself and the rage I felt. The tears that ruptured from my face went unnoticed. The font of rage I was drinking from knew no end.

I reduced that chair into splinters.

Later I was asked about it, and I said it was no big deal. Maybe I was wrong.

I Hate You

That's right. You. The one who made me out as the mark I am. You thought it would be easy. You were right. You found the soft spots. It wasn't hard. I offered them buffet-syle.

Oh, it's so easy. I know him, I know his ways, I know what he likes, I know how he does it. And if you don't? It doesn't matter. I'm easy. I don't stay mad. I don't take it personal. I don't get offended. I don't have the same feelings as regular folks. I don't call you a bitch or a fucking asshole for trying to run me. I don't remember that time. I don't know you.

Go ahead, take your shot. I can take it. I can suck it up. Go for it.

Oh, what's that? Oh I'm no different? I hit you? I take advantage? I find your weaknesses and stick it in and break it off? Oh really.

You really don't know me do you.

Bon Apetit Bitches

I have consumed my third clove of garlic. I'm sure my blood is going to be dee-licious to those fleas now. Eat up my little friends!

Update: Ok, I woke up this morning and chopped up a big-ass clove. That's one. Then at about noon, I made muffin pizzas and chopped up two more cloves for those. Tonight, I minced three more cloves to make my spaghetti sauce. That is about six cloves of garlic, or enough to make my breath bad enough to melt glass.

Let's see how yummy I am now.

Confidence Game

I mentioned that I had sent out a bunch of emails to different people, and had hardly gotten responses from any of them. Some of these people are good friends of mine. Or were good friends of mine?

Perhaps they are on vacation. Perhaps they haven't checked their email in weeks. Who knows.

I am finding it increadingly difficult to care. It seems to me that the people who choose to have me in their lives gain the benefits of such, and those that don't - well, I guess they get to benefit from someone else. In the end, I like what I'm doing with myself and I am not particularly interested in slowing down to let the stragglers catch up.

I can't wait to finish the bedroom, and for Fedex to get here.

Good Morn- I Mean Afternoon

I guess I've scared away all my readers. Or maybe they've migrated to Rose's site. At any rate, I figure I've been writing about some pretty interesting shit but have had far more input to my comments on other sites.

On the good side of things, I got my new color printer working yesterday after many hours of cursing and frustration. I may take a picture of the pictures it's printing to show you how sweeeet it is.

On the bad side, I think fleas are coming in my house from the new open window in my living room. I saw one today on my leg. That is not cool at all. It's going to be garlic time today to get rid of them.

*sigh* Paper Chase

Sometimes you do the best you can, and then some, and things still go wrong. I had some banking stuff to take care of months ago, and because I was confused about how to do it, I figured I'd just wait until I was back in NYC (where the accounts were) to deal with it. That way I could sit there at the main branch and deal with professionals.

Well, I went to the Chase Manhattan bank on 5th Ave and 45th St (or so) and spoke with three representatives about what I wanted to do, what I needed to do, and how to do it. I went through very slowly and had the people actually fill out the forms for me so there was no mistake. I double-checked their information. I asked if they were positive that the information was all correct. I even peeked around the counter to make sure their screens showed the right data. My final step was to ask "so I am going to get X at Y day at Z location. You are positive?"

"yes, sir!"

Nope. They screwed it up. Exactly the error I asked them about - the mailing address. So I call today and find this out and go ballistic. These are the exact same assholes who will happily take your home if you miss a payment by one minute (and I don't begrudge them that attitude!) but can't seem to mail me my money after I left it there for 15 years.

Fortunately, my going ballistic seems to have scared the clerk. He put me on hold, just now, and in less than the time it took to write this he is cancelling the check and sending me a new one FedEx overnight.

I ask you, what's the point in being anal if you can't stop shit like this?

EZ Laffs

If women ruled the world.

Matt Vs. Couch: The Final Chapter

It's gone. At long last. Thank god almighty, gone at last.

One pair of pliers, a screwdriver, a crowbar, and a mini-sledge (as seen in picture) and that damned piece of furniture is history.

Stay Tuned: New couch a-comin'!

3, 4, better get out there and see it!

Jason Vs. Freddy? Fucking awesome. As usual, the reviewers who hate it are going in thinking it's a real movie, and are disappointed there aren't deep characters and intricate plotlines. Let me make this Crystal Lake clear, these movies have always been about creative body count and clever one-liners. Boy does FvsJ deliver.

Blood, blood, blood, and more blood, blood, blood. I actually laughed near the end because there was so much blood squirting, spraying, and being vomited up that it forced me to imagine the barrels they must have kept the stuff in. This was not your normal slasher flick - it was a slasher, chopper, stabber, souffle, smasher, etc movie. If you go into it wanting bloody action horror, you'll get it. Big time.

I won't say who wins this battle royale, but I will say that I didn't think they wussed out at the end. The end was just as good as the rest of it - and that is tough to do.

GO SEE IT!

1, 2, Jason's comin for you

I cannot wait. One of the most anticipated face-offs ever, and I'm going TONIGHT to see it! watch out for that claw hand!

In other news, I have probably written about 15 emails now that haven't been replied to in over a week. Bitches! Am I expecting too much, or is my hitlist of people to drop from my life getting longer at an accelerated rate?

UPS UCKS

I remember when UPS meant good things. I remember laughing at FedEx, thinking, "yeah, nice to associate yourself with the federal government - the USPS does so much better than UPS! ha ha ha!" I remember thinking that brown van meant progress, and quality.

Oh well. Now I actually choose the USPS over UPS. UPS is the company I ship with if I want to wait 3 weeks to get my smashed box from a guy who usually would rather be watching the game than delivering my package. I just called UPS to find out where the package their tracking says should be here, will actually get here. The driver apparently has until 7PM to deliver (or "until the end of their route," whatever the hell that means)!! So basically I've been sitting here all day waiting for this damn thing to come in, and now I'll be sitting here all night too.

Oh, and god help me if I am not here when they get here. I think they use psychic powers to get me in the 2 minutes I'm in the bathroom, so they can perfectly run out of their trucks, ring the doorbell, and run back to their truck and pull out before I even wipe my ass. It's scary, I tell you.

Meanwhile, Fedex is always here at 10AM or so, and the guy waits a minute at the bell for someone to answer *gasp*! Foolish me, for ordering UPS Ground instead of Fedex.

HAR HAR HAR! I'm Drunk!

It's too good not to put it up here. I'm proud and ashamed to admit I relate to this well enough to laugh my ass off.

Trust Fun Pt.1

Trust is one of those funny things that defies logic. It's like faith in that if you really believe in it, you cannot verify it without dispelling it. (see Uncertainty Principle) It's something that is created only by following an unblemished pattern of events that don't directly abolish it. Weird, huh.

I've noticed that I don't trust very much. I'm not sure if I ever did. My feeling is that if it is even possible to be betrayed, well, then you'd better prepare for betrayal. I believe every intelligence agency in the world follows this sort of thinking (aka paranoia?) and it leaves them, and me with a comforting result. If you do not allow someone, or something, the possibility of betrayal, then you find that it never happens.

For instance: I have an embarassing picture of a friend. I want to show it to another friend who doesn't know this person at all. Not only does this other friend not know the person in the picture, but their social groups don't even connect. There is hardly any chance at all that the person in the picture will find out I showed it - and even if they did, the consequence would be minimal to none (as they likely wouldn't really care.)

Result? I don't show the picture. There is still a possibility of the person in the picture to feel their trust has been betrayed, and that's too much. There is also the possibility of the viewer telling someone, and no matter what they say contrary to that, it still scores incredibly low on my Bengal Tiger test*. I just don't trust them if there is any possibility of them talking.

As a consequence of all this it's interesting to see who it is I do trust, and how much, and with what and when. Oddly enough there are only a few people I trust to a very intimate degree, and nobody I trust completely. It reminds me of an old joke I heard, "Friends help you move, real friends help you move a body." How many real friends do you have? And when you have that number, how many of them will give you up when the detectives pull you in?

* The Bengal Tiger test is a concept I came up with years ago in order to have a more realistic perspective on people's strength of conviction, including myself. It's pretty simple and goes like so: You take someone who has stated something they believe and put them into a cage with a hungry Bengal Tiger and you don't let them out until they recant. The key here is not whether or not they will recant, but rather how long it will take. Generally speaking, I've found that the spectrum is anywhere from one to ten seconds for almost every belief I've tested (mentally, of course.) On rare occasion I meet people who I truly believe would go toe-to-toe with the tiger just on the strength of their convictions. I keep both eyes on those people.

Random Burst

I wonder if she got sick and hated Paris because she really wanted to go to Ireland the whole time. I wonder if we had gone there if things would have been better.

It's stuff like this that keeps me up all day with the lights out.

Internet Surfer?

It just occurred to me that it doesn't make a lot of sense that most of the people on the matchmaking services portray themselves as outdoorsy types. They're always talking about how they love surfing or wakeboarding or mountain climbing and so on, but if that's the case then why do they have nice digital pictures of themselves on an obscure website on the internet?

Not one outdoorsman I know spends much time online. And if they did spend time online, they're not spending it at a matchmaking service. Don't outdoor activity people meet -other- outdoor activity people outside? I mean, I don't go to hiking trips and then start asking folks if they'd like to go home and play Xbox with me - that would be crazy! Or would it?

It's stuff like this that keeps me up at night with the lights on.

Interest of Conflict

I was recently asked what I would do with "the middle east" situation and in particular Israel/Palestine. I was also asked about why I still spend time talking about Denali. Then, some other time, I was asked about what I mean when I say Conservative and/or Liberal thinking.

When I'm thinking of things that have so many elements or so much scale that it's likely impossible to come to any kind of reasonable conclusion, I rely on a fairly new perspective I'm learning to respect more and more. It's a belief in the powers of conflict. It's bolstered by a second belief that involves the decay of static existence.

I can hear the two people who read this shit saying "what the hell is Matt talking about?" and so for the one of them who's gotten this far (likely due to my mention of Denali and the possibility of additional juicy details) I'll try to explain using the stuff in the first paragraph.

Israel. I looked this one up in my Encyclopedia. It says the Canaanites were there first, then they had problems with the Egyptians, then the Israelites invaded and beat the Canaanites in 1125 BC and so on and so on. I'm sure there was someone there before the Canaanites, and I'm sure in 2125 the land will have all-new challengers (barring it becoming an uninhabitable, radioactive plate of glass, which frankly isn't so different from it's current state.) The whole notion of "this land is your land this land is my land" is just plain intractable. The bloodshed over that dull slice of desert has been going on for over three thousand years now, and as far as I can tell it just seems to be as terrible a spot to take holiday as an abandoned uranium mine.

Both of the current sides will not give up. Some say the Israelis are conquering warmongers. Some say the Palestinians are cowardly terrorists. Some say the leadership of both sides is the problem, and the solution must come from the people. I mostly don't care - if pushed I'll fall squarely into a disgusting practicality stance that espouses maximum benefits going from me to my family, friends, neighborhood, and so on expanding outwards. By the time you get to Israel, it's pretty clear how I feel about it.

That said, when asked what I would do about it, I responded that I would do absolutely nothing more than what is already being done. I think it is the conflict between the two sides that will offer the best possible solution to both sides. The Israelis could technically eradicate the Palestinians within a day, tops. They are held back largely by "the international community" who would punish them for it. The Palestinians can only do limited damage to Israel, and by doing so they emphasize their commitment and desparation.

Perhaps one side will get tired. Perhaps Israel will wall off their lands and leave it at that - or just expand later. Perhaps Palestine will get a dirty bomb and kill millions. Maybe a great leader will step forward and pull a Sadat. Maybe he too will also be assasinated. What I feel is certain is that the conflict between them will result in the best possible end-product - and if that end product never comes, than at least all parties are giving it their best shot. It is the conflict itself that is most important.

Since nobody will have made it this far, I'll feel safe in confessing that I like wearing womens underwear. If you're still with me, you should feel rewarded enough by that admission to continue - in which case you are saying "but wait Matt, what about the possibility of conflict resolution, wherein the conflict is not ended in a winner/loser framework, but instead in a negociated winner/winner frame?"

Good point. I am all for that possibility. If I felt that were an option, I would heartily espouse it. Sadly, I do not think it is. Thousands of years of history, and only a handful of successfully negociated conflict resolutions just make me pessimistic.

So what does this all have to do with Denali? Or with my political views? Well, hopefully you can extrapolate from some of this so I don't have to egregiously ramble here. I believe in arriving at the best possible conclusion through the endless application of conflict. Do I think there should be gay marriages? I think the people who do want them should fight as hard as they can to make it so. What about smoking laws? Well, sadly, apparently not enough smokers voted - so what's all the complaining about? That conflict was lost. What about taxing the rich? By all means, grab as much as you can from the rich, they sure didn't get rich by being generous - just don't complain too much when the Christmas bonus doesn't come. Why do I still talk about Denali? Because I'm shadow-boxing and I'll either grow tired of it and move on, or I'll be in shape when the bell rings. All of these things will never end. They will change, they will become commonplace or fade into obscurity, but they will never end.

And I find that heartening. It's the surest evidence I have for hope being a reasonable proposition.

Scared of Commitment

There are three personal websites (AKA blogs) I have visited on and off for the past few months, all of which only update maybe once a month at best. I've decided to stop visiting them at all. It's beginning to feel like going to the mailbox to get a check you know doesn't even exist.

I imagine all three people know that I'm talking about their sites. My advice? Take them down. I know it all the rage to add to the Americana sideroads of the information superhighway, but since I'm probably the only person going there it's just unnecessary roughness. Think of the children. Act now.

Elusive Libido

I'm reading about spam and I find myself reading about penis enlargement and before you know it, I'm reading about Zinc and it's effects on mens sex drive (amongst other things).

So naturally, I order some with my next safeway delivery. Sadly, while writing this I notice that I have purchased 1000 60mg pills, and apparently anything over 30mg might be unhealthy. I guess I'll be breaking those pills up, huh.

I wonder if having an increased sex drive is really something I need. Or want.

More Me Please

One side effect of going to New York was becoming aware of how great I am. I had a lot of opportunity to spend time with myself, just walking around and sweating and drinking Coke and not thinking about anything in particular. I didn't think of it in that way at the time, but I'm noticing it now.

I'm great. I think I have been too aware of how people percieved me, and I think my adaptive abilities overextended themselves and manifested in a mimicry personality, one that slowly but surely overshadowed my own personality.

Now that's a mouthful.

So far a lot of people have noticed that I seem brusque or harsh, but they're really becoming aware of my usual easygoing and lackadaisical attitude taking a back-burner position to my desire to do, say, and be what I want.

I am certain this process will offend a lot of people. I apologize in advance, as that is not my intent. I simply can't maintain some of my trademark traits anymore and they're getting either stuffed in the attic, or put out to pasture.

I think it's less of a "new" me, and more of an old me. Regardless, this site will continue to be the bathroom window of my soul, so don't go deleting those bookmarks just yet.

*tap tap tap*

If you are moving your lips, silently talking to yourself, and not even looking at me - you are not listening. I don't care how many of my words you can repeat back to me, or whether or not you have a grasp of their meaning. You are, at best, hearing, but not listening.

If you are on the phone with me and I'm on hold, or you're talking to your friends, or basically anything that involves me silently standing there like a moron with a phone to my head - you are not talking to me. I am sure the other call is very important. I'm sure you'll have your headset volume set real soon. Here's a crazy idea: call me back when you want to actually talk.

Just because I waste my time, doesn't mean I want you to waste it for me.

I'll Be Bock Pt.2

Schwarzenegger is finally running for governor. It's obvious I'll be voting for him, but what's confusing me is the few people I've met who won't.

Say WHAT?

How is it possible to pass up the chance to have the mutha-fuckin' Terminator as your governor? The guy is rock-solid! He's always been a loyal and strong-willed American who doesn't waffle - EVER!

If you've ever seen him interviewed, you'd see in two seconds why this guy just has to be governor. He says what's on his mind, he is uncompromising in his ideals, and he loves this country! I mean hell, who understands better how hard it is to make a living than a guy who was a touring bodybuilder from a foreign country? He knows about being one of the teeming masses AND about being a famous figure, and you know what? He's bridged that gap superbly. He's still friendly and polite and humble in public.

I saw him on Howard Stern's show (amazing, since most A-list celebrities don't ever go on his show) and he was perfect, deflecting the most raunchy stuff with funny jokes and just rolling with the whole goofy nature of the show. One of the interns there wanted to meet him and Howard told the intern he could have 3 words and that's it. Arnold told the intern to come on over and sit down! This intern was shaking like a leaf and Arnold just talked to him about Conan or whatever without batting an eye. It was so different than most of the celebrities who are just there to promote things and they don't even want to talk to anyone longer than their agent says they have to.

*cough* he's also a republican *cough*

So I can't wait to find out where the campaign office is so I can start mailing letters or whatever the hell they do to make sure people win elections! Hot dog!

Suicide Ointment

I can see the look in your eye
I feel your gaze on me
It crawls through my skin
It swims through my nerves
and my hands clench
around your throat

and I can't breathe
I can't let go
and I'm fading
I cling harder
and darkness
everything I have is tightness
and death

The Fact of the Smatter

New York stories keep popping into my head and since I'm currently more interested in doing physical things than I am sitting here and banging out another long post, I've decided to just write the individual snippets as they come.

I'll Be Bock

I'm back. Being gassy on a six hour flight sucks. My first stop? Safeway for good beer.

A Blitzkrieg of Thanks

It looks like my time has run out. I'll be spending the next handful of hours gearing myself up for airport sitting and my eventual trip back to Berkeley. Talk about bittersweet.

I'd like to do my thank you's now, while I'm still here and feeling frisky.

Thank you Sasha, for allowing me to stay with you in perhaps the most convenient spot possible. Thanks for doing my laundry. Thanks for having air conditioning, and not being afraid to use it. Thanks for being patient with me when I was whining, wheedling, or weeping. Thanks for being my friend.

Thank you Rebecca, for putting up with my flakiness and my bitter moaning about your neighborhood. Thanks for helping me negociate plans. Thanks for actually rubbing me when I needed rubbing.

Thank you Joe's mom, for hundreds of things that I will try to condense to just a few here. For listening, cooking, guiding, laughing, and saying more with your face than I could write on this website. Thanks for letting the miscreants use your beautiful home.

Thank you Mia, for reminding me of so many good things about myself and for giving me hope that what I've found to be impossible isn't really. Thanks for introducing me to Spiro - he's cool. Thanks for not kicking my ass. Again.

Thank you Auntie Rina, for pimp-slapping the foamy crust of my Berkeley persona away long enough for me to see myself.

Thank you Linda, my fine sister, for filling the spots that I can't - and probably wouldn't if I could. Thanks for introducing me to your friends. Thanks for being pleasantly surprised by my arrival, since you were pretty much the only one that little plan worked on.

Thank you Sasha's roomates, for listening to my rants and for letting me stink up your house and for not cringing while I was roaming about with no shirt.

Thank you Dad, for giving me a place to crash and for the talks. And so on and on.

and finally, thank you thank you thank you New York City women, for keeping me fully aroused for the entire trip.

Wistful Thinking

I'm back at the AnyWWWhere cafe. I got the name wrong. It's actually "Kudo Beans" and it's on 4th St. and 1st Ave. I am totally in love with this place. Too bad I'm leaving tomorrow. I also love FriendHouse, an "asian" restaurant on 3rd. FriendHouse actually serves Chinese, Thai, and Japanese food - and it's all good. Real good.

Last night I had a FriendHouse Special Roll - Eel wrapped with Tuna, salmon, tempura flakes and I think chives in a rice roll held together with a very thin film of what I think was egg. The whole thing was resting in a mildly spicy curry sauce and I kid you not it was delicious. I have never in my life even heard of a place that will sell both Chinese and Japanese food and this place does both excellently. Amazing, and I will actually miss it when I go.

I'm glad that I haven't bothered to write that much about what I've seen until now. Most of what I would have said would have been "nothing is the same as it used to be," so I'm going to skip all of that and just jump to what is still the same.

My old Junior High School is still there. It's a filthy brown concrete bunker in what used to be a shitty neighborhood in what is now called Chelsea. It may have always been Chelsea, I don't know. But the school is there and the park across the street is there too. I stood on the spot where I had my first fistfight ever. I stood where I used to run away from bullies (and by bullies I mean everyone at the school besides me.) I looked at the yard where I used to play kickball - and where I almost got my face stomped into the dirt by the biggest kid in school.

The story is that while playing manhunter (one guy has the ball and everyone else tries to get it away from him - by any means necessary) I managed to miss the ball and ended up punching the biggest kid in the school in the face. It actually made a crack sound. Not good. Suddenly, the only thing moving was the ball bouncing away and I could see that I was basically fucked. Everyone saw it and everyone heard it. He was duty-bound to beat my ass. He didn't though. He just kind of shook his head and said "let's play" and that was the end of it.

Later, he saved my ass from a group of hispanic kids who lived nearby and who had taken an unfortunate interest in me. He actually stood up for me. His name was Ramon Rodruigez or something like that and I saw him years later working at a piercing place on 14th St. Funny, the things you remember sometimes.

The small streets around my house on Grove St and Hudson are largely still the same as they have always been. Chumley's still doesn't have a sign in front. Cherry Lane is still the same. St. Marks Garden is still there, if only a little overgrown. PS3 (my elementary school) is still there, and still reminds me of being lonely, falling in love for the first time, and being late. The Chinese dry cleaner is still there, even if he doesn't remember me coming in when I was just a little kid. Ottomanellis is still there. Murrays is still there. Zitos is still there, run apparantly by Mexicans. Go figure. The old chess store off Bleeker is still there, and it has two brothers keeping it company now. Joes pizza is still there.

Dojo West Side is still there, even if Eddies is gone. I had my first "Mission Burrito" at Eddies, years before I had any idea that there was a Mission Street in San Francisco or that burritos were a popular mainstay in California. It was a novelty back then. The Strand is identical - still no AC and still reeks of dusty tomed knowledge. The sidewalks still have dog shit on them, and when it rains it still smells like the mysterious elephant graveyard. The Italian restaurants are still manned by Chinese people and have Persian Gyro stands outside being worked by Latinos. I love it.

In Brooklyn two nights ago I went to a place I think was called "Super Burrito" - fully Mexican food, right? - and there was one of those Chinese ceramic cats on the counter. The place was owned and run by Chinese guys. The two tacos I had there were easily some of the best I've ever eaten. Oh, and no anal vesuvius afterwards. Go figure.

I've been watching the girls walk by while I'm writing, and if there is one thing I am really going to miss, it's the staggering volume of incredibly beautiful women here. They're all beautiful. I don't know how the city manages it. In September the city will get one more, and this paradise will be closed off to me indefinitely. What to do? Perhaps I'll move to Seattle or Houston and pretend I'm from New York or San Francisco, respectively.

I can't wait to get back to broadband.

Complainer, Master Complainer

Where to begin. Ok, let's start with the heat. It is hot here. It is hot like I am in Hawaii here. I am wearing all the wrong clothes, and I thought that I had packed light clothes and I am a big lover of heat. Yes. But it's hot. It would not be lying to say that my time in New York was spent sweating. I haven't checked the paper or the news (we'll get to that) since I've been here, but I'd shoot that the temperature is at least in the 80's, with similar humidity.

Now. What in sweet crying christ is the thinking behind not having air conditioning in your place. I could see it if it were just a residential-type situation, maybe, because you could just strip down and settle into the heat. But in a place of business? And a business that involves computers!? Case in point, this internet cafe I am at. It looks similar to how I imagine underground Chinese internet access havens look, which is to say dark, hot, smelly, and equipped with the cheapest shit machines you could ever cobble together.

Presumably it's an internet cafe, that's certainly what the sign outside says, but there is nary a coffee bean or related apparatus to be found. The venerable Chinese woman who popped out of the darkness to hand me a IBM punch card looks like she's straight out of central casting for a B-movie about dry cleaning. The punch card, by the way, is my timesheet - which is actually punched in an old-school timeclock. *ka-CHUNK* "Numba seven" and she points to the eMachine I get to use.

This entire post is under a Damocles' sword in the form of six or seven chained grade-Z and fully populated power strips.

And where am I? Perhaps in the depths of Chinatown? No. Maybe in an abandoned building somewhere in the Lower East Side? Guess again. I'm on Bleeker St. in the West Village, which is probably one of the nicer places in all of Manhattan to be. This place is simply and totally incongruous with its location. And honestly the only reason I'm even writing about it is because it took me almost an hour to find an internet cafe - and this is it.

Which brings me to the perplexing observation that New York City is largely still stuck firmly in the 20th century. Although I have seen a number of computers here, they are almost universally cheap and/or old. Gateway is big out here, apparently, and god help them. I have only seen one broadband connection, and that was at the cafe I posted about before (which btw, has since disappeared. Spooky.) and everyone here is totally resigned to dial-up access. I am frequently incredulous about this.

At least one third of the stores and restaurants I've been to do not take credit cards. We're talking in Manhattan here, folks. I had to pay a 50+ dollar bill with cash. Who carries that much cash around? New Yorkers, I guess. It's a real pain in the ass. What's the point of having a platinum card if you can't flash it around and pretend to be a big wheel? Bah.

I would also like to take a moment and report on the sorry state of restroom technology here. It's nearly barbaric. We're talking about bathrooms that are perhaps one foot bigger than the toilet bowls they house. The Fu Manchu designers found that in thier diabolic wisdom, the best place for the toilet paper is directly behind the person sitting. I have gotten more shoulder/back cramps than I care to mention. Not to mention the squalid conditions of some of these holes.

They occasionally make the bathrooms in Paris look good - and that is really saying something.

As a result, I have become something of a Romanian contortionist with my visits to the john. (As a side note, so far nobody in NYC knows that particular slang.) To pinch this topic off, so to speak, I'll toss in that apparently everyone's asshole is so rugged and experienced here that they can all use what I would describe as fine-grain sandpaper in a roll to wipe with. Fucking Sargeant Scratchy retired in the 90's folks! Get some two-ply!

All in all, I think that when I get back I'll have at least a good week of not complaining about the cold and the condition of the bathrooms. I may also spent that time in my bathroom.