Fan’s Complaint

A heaven, a gateway, a hope
Just like a feeling inside, it’s no joke
And though it hurts me to treat you this way
Betrayed by words, I’d never heard, too hard to say
Up, down, turn around
Please don’t let me hit the ground
Tonight I think I’ll walk alone
I’ll find my soul as I go home

Each way I turn, I know I’ll always try
To break this circle that’s been placed around me
From time to time, I find I’ve lost some need
That was urgent to myself, I do believe

Up, down, turn around
Please don’t let me hit the ground
Tonight I think I’ll walk alone
I’ll find my soul as I go home

Oh, you’ve got green eyes
Oh, you’ve got blue eyes
Oh, you’ve got grey eyes

And I’ve never seen anyone quite like you before
No, I’ve never met anyone quite like you before
Bolts from above hit the people down below
People in this world, we have no place to go
Oh, it’s the last time
Oh, I’ve never met anyone quite like you before
Oh no, I’ve never met anyone quite like you before

New Order
Temptation (mp3)

(more…)

Anyone who knows me at all would know the answer to the above question, as well as the answer to any other question I ask that begins with the words, “You know who…”

I was dismayed to learn that I would be living with a couple of vegetarians in my junior year of college. Freshman year, when we lived across the street from the Veggie Coop, we used to fantasize about sneaking in to their compound at night and smearing bacon grease everywhere. The Veggies also had a fishtank on their windowsill, visible from the street, and the coup de grace of my fantasized invasion would be to have the veggies awaken in the morning to the smell of their fish being fried in bacon grease.

Remembering my obsession with exposing vegetarians to bacon, a friend suggested that I buy a George Foreman grill, so as to antagonize the vegetarians that I would soon be living with.

“Why you could cook bacon every day, right in the comfort of your own room!” he said, “The smell would get everywhere–in their clothes, their hair–and you would be immune to it because you smell like cigarettes!”

How could I refuse?

It’s not that I equate vegetarianism with evil, I just think that bacon, and most other meats are so good that it’s worth having a few years taken off your life. I sort of feel the same way about smoking (You know who else didn’t smoke?), drinking (You know who else didn’t drink?), Coca-Cola (You know who else didn’t drink Coke and invented Fanta?), and driving fast (You know who commissioned the VW Beetle?). There’s something about people who espouse “clean-living” that rubs me the wrong way.

I know smoking is bad, I know cheeseburgers will make me fat and unattractive (more so), but it’s my choice, so leave me alone.

***

I’ve gotten off track. I meant to post about hamburgers. I had always liked burgers, but it wasn’t until I started making my own that I realized the full potential of ground beef on bread.

I started out cooking frozen pre-made patties, moved on to making my own from ground beef, and eventually dabbled in seasoning and marinating.

Even though I do not make my own burgers anymore, having lost my grill in to the necessity of having to cram four years’ worth of accumulated crap into a tiny car, I still love a good hamburger. In fact, burgers have displaced pizza as my favorite food.

Burgers are just so simple yet varied. You can have tiny White Castle burgers that truly express the union of meat and bread, and you can have 19 lb. monsters with all the trimmings. And anyone can make a good burger at home. It’s the ultimate democratic meal.

All of this was spurred by the excellent A Hamburger Today which I stumbled onto this morning, and quickly devoured, resulting in a yen for a Double-Double Animal Style.

Seeing as how I’m around 3000 miles from the nearest In-n-Out, I think I’ll just have to go buy a new grill.

A quick google maps search revealed at least two Codys in the part of the country in which my dream took place. I have not been to either.

Cody, Nebraska is just south of the Nebraska-South Dakota border, but I don’t remember seeing cowboys or cheap cigarettes in Nebraska.

Cody, Wyoming is a ways from the border, but I think there are cowboys in Wyoming. If not cowboys, then at least ranchers.

Either way, next time I’m ’round those parts, I’ll see if I can stop in Cody to sup with Manos McFate.

I am somewhere in the great plains, driving east, heading home. The eastern horizon is already dark as the sun sets in the rearview mirror. There’s a sign for Cody, just 90 miles south, across the state line.

I’ve been to Cody before. There is a gas station just outside of town that sells really good cigarettes. And that state there has the lowest tobacco tax I’ll see until PA. I’ll take a short (90 mile) detour to bring a few cartons back to New York.

It’s a two-lane straightshot to Cody. I’m doing 100, and the engine is eager to go faster. She hasn’t gone like this since the last time I was in Utah. The sky is brown ahead of me–there’s a bad storm ahead. I hope I can get to Cody and back north to the interstate before the storm hits.

I make it to the gas station very quickly. There are some cowboys smoking cigarettes by their pickup trucks. I don’t like the looks of them. I’ll be in and out with my cigarettes in five minutes. Those cowboys won’t be a problem.

The restaurant greeter inside the gas station hassles me. I tell him I just want some cigarettes, and he makes me wait before I’m allowed through the restaurant. I finally get to go through, and instead of the convenience store part of the gas station, it’s a McDonald’s. The building is apparently a big circle, and I went in through the wrong entrance. I get through the McDonald’s to the trucker showers, and then I hear sounds like gunshots. Outside the window, I see hail.

Past the showers, and it’s another diner. The cowboys are in here now. They look at me as I argue with the waitress, who won’t let me through unless I eat there. There are truckers behind me coming out of the showers, attracted by the commotion.

I see my car through a window, absolutely battered by the hail, and I come to the realization that I am not going to make it out of Cody.

I don’t know what the law is in other parts of the country, but in New York (Flushing, anyway), one can get working papers and start working at the age of 14. At 16, one can work without having to get working papers.

I’m not sure exactly what the procedure is, or whether it’s the same now as when I was 14, but getting working papers involved going to some office in the school.

I was the second among my friends to turn 14, and I remember a lot of my classmates were looking forward to getting their working papers. I had no such ambitions.

Reading the “Class Matters” article in the Times today, I came across this interesting idea that would perhaps explain why.

…the deterrents to a degree can also be homegrown. Many low-income teenagers know few people who have made it through college. A majority of the nongraduates are young men, and some come from towns where the factory work ethic, to get working as soon as possible, remains strong, even if the factories themselves are vanishing. Whatever the reasons, college just does not feel normal.

I guess I just did not have that “factory work ethic.” Too high-class, you know–that’s why I smoke cigarettes I find on the street.

***

I am in the process of re-examining my reasons for keeping this blog. Expect changes (or none at all) in the near to distant future.

“Well you’re in your little room
and you’re working on something good
but if it’s really good
you’re gonna need a bigger room
and when you’re in the bigger room
you might not know what to do
you might have to think of
how you got started in your little room”

–White Stripes

Last week saw an article and an editorial in the Times about the Flux Factory’s “NOVEL
A Living Installation”. This week brings a Talk of the Town piece in the New Yorker, where, among other things, we learn that one of the writers trapped in a box is cataloging kitchen items on her blog. The other two writers also have blogs. The writers are not allowed to watch television, and are allowed only ninety minutes a day outside of their boxes.

I do not know if I could handle that lifestyle for a month straight, but I would estimate that I spent 5 out of every 7 days in the past month under those restrictions. In effect, I am in my own little box, and have nothing more than this blog to show for it. Maybe if I had viewing hours like they do…

It’s hard to keep up such intense anger. Hell, it probably wasn’t all that intense. I have better things to do, like washing, cleaning, polishing, and finally, waxing my car.

It’s been like two months since I last pampered my baby. I can’t believe I’ve neglected her for so long.

Sublimation is a wonderful thing.

***

I really don’t have anything to say right now, nor do I think I will have anything to say in the next few days. I’m looking forward to going to Maine, and then coming back through Vermont and New Hampshire (in order to color in the remaining states in the East on my map).

A is supposed to be my co-driver for this trip, but I’ve learned not to count on him. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough money right now to make the trip on my own. If he backs out, those states probably won’t be colored in until next year.

***

Whatever looseness or floating sensation I felt earlier has left me. I am once again anchored, rooted, tied down, stuck, mired, fettered, etc etc. I need to get back on the Program.

***

I dreamt last night that I was waiting around for something. It wasn’t even anything important like Godot or mundane like a package–I think I was waiting around for someone, anyone to knock on my door.

Story of my life.

Chinese American Humor / What Kind of Asian Are You?

fuck you all

I have had it up to here with the yellow cunts, and as a result, with c**ts girls in general. As of now, I am declaring a moratorium on desire, and I am also declaring that I am married to my car.

***

It is now 16 hours later. I am still angry, but no longer drunk, and I have enough of my faculties to reconsider some of my words.

Last night I drank mint juleps at a bar called Julep. It was good. But then I tried to make conversation with some girls, and it ended in spectacular failure. The girls ended up clinging to the one person in our party who didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, only in america.

So yeah, I’m through with drinking, and girls, and everything else, New York included.

Bitches.

Fuck you.

***

Addendum: My angry words don’t apply to you if you take drinking seriously or are a bartender, or if you don’t answer the question of what’s your favorite book with “Da Vinci Code.”

goddamn bitches. why did I even bother. every fucking time I make a fucking effort I fall flat on my fucking face.