"Write on, my man."

KUNG PAO FRESHNESS

2008-07-25T10:58:00.003-04:00

created by Jamie Hewlett

The year of the monkey

His is the pen behind Eighties comic-strip heroine Tank Girl, virtual band Gorillaz and the opera Monkey - and soon you'll be seeing his animated title sequence for the Olympics on TV.

AND...
BAMAN AND PIDERMAN by ALEX BUTERA

Mosaic Bench around Grant's Tomb being rebuilt

2008-07-24T17:32:00.009-04:00

NY1 reports

The mosaic "Around the World" themed bench winding it's way around the Neo-Romanesque tomb for Grant is finally being restored. Visually it can most be compared to a creation by Antoni Gaudi, solid but organic. It morphs and meanders randomly and depicts the various cultures of the entire world through colorful little tiles of glazed pottery. It was always a fun excursion for me when I was a kid. I could walk to it with my parents from my apartment and school which were on 111th street and 112th street respectively. It is around 124th and Riverside Park. It was always a starkly different kind of place from the rough neighborhood and it made my young mind aware of the world of art, memorials to the past, and the cultures of the world SIMULTANEOUSLY. the fact that the same artist is rebuilding it warms my heart.
Above 110th street was quite the dichotomy. Pimps, Hookers, Addicts, Catholics, and Liberals all living in the shadow of the largest Gothic Cathedral in the world.
This is 112th street. I went to school on this corner from 3 to 13 years old.

there's no place like Uptown. even now that it's been taken over by gentrification and the ever expanding reach of Columbia University. There's still Koronet, the largest pizza slices on earth...and they still have video games. although I doubt the tough kids who used to pull knives out are still there...
Commentary by the son of the Artist rebuilding the mosaic bench:

"I was quite young. I was 9, 10, and 11. We took three years to do it," says Tony Silva. "I remember this was a pretty tough neighborhood back then. There was lots of, you know, young hoodlums and gang members around and they were kind of scary folks, but little by little they started to come around and work on the benches themselves and it made them a little less scary to see them excited about a project like this."

Graffiti mission debacles with Self

2008-07-24T11:51:00.010-04:00

If anybody read my post about hitching a ride to 42nd street on an out of service train, please go back and read what i added about Self. I left him completely out of the story having been confused with another story that was similar, as it turns out, as he pointed out, he was there BOTH times. I can't imagine what i would be leaving out if i waited another 10 years before writing these down. memory is fleeting...unless there's a soundtrack :)

He got me thinking about some other moments we shared. Like the time we were taking tags on 96th and Broadway one night in the heavy rain. We found that bombing (writing graffiti) in the rain was a great idea. first of all, you could hide under a big umbrella so it just looked like there was somebody standing near the wall, maybe lighting a cigarette. Also, cops back then didn't want to deal with writers, they had murders and violence to quell, and to jump out of the squad car in the rain was doubly unappealing to them.

So there we were, Left-One was doing big bubble letters on the old...ehh i forget what used to be there, it was like a supermarket or something. Self and I were watching out for cops in the middle island in the intersection. Self had bad long distance night vision so it was mostly up to me to watch for incoming. I was usually pretty good at it, and if i saw anything i would yell "WATER!". that was our code for 5-0's rolling. But this time my good eyesight was useless because these motherfucking Detectives suddenly jumped out of a Yellow Cab.

Cabs in NYC were the ULTIMATE undercover vehicle for cops. We actually considered it cheating on their part. You could spot a regular squad car with the lights on top from miles away. You could also get good at spotting unmarked cop cars because they were always dark colored Chevy Caprice Classics and had a very distinctive rounded shape. But there were always ten to twenty Yellow Cabs in sight at any given moment. We just wrote them off as non-entities. In other words, I would walk up to a wall, right in front of a fleet of cabs, even in their headlights, and just start tagging away without a thought to who was watching. Those cabbies probably saw a LOT because nobody ever thought to wait for them to pass. And usually, DT's (Detectives) never bothered us because they were too high level for Vandalism, but these guys felt the urge to do it this time. Before I could even yell, two plain clothes cops had thrown Left hard into the metal gates he was writing on, getting a nice amount of his own fresh paint on his face and chest. Self and I just stood there astonished. we knew..from experience..that it was best for us to stay anonymous just in case somebody had to go to the precinct and bail him out.

What followed is a CLEAR indication of how things used to go down on the upper west side before all the Yuppies moved in. the cops made him hold his large umbrella over THEIR heads so they didn't get wet. then they searched his pockets, found his big bag of danky weed, POCKETED it, and then told him to take a hike. they got back in their sneaky ( and somewhat UNFAIR) unmarked Cab and took off, leaving Peter with all of his unused paint. we continued our bombing mission after that. only now we couldn't get high...

Speaking of smoking while on a tagging mission, another memory I have of writing with Self, besides the time I had to bail him out of the Chinatown Precinct at 4AM, was when we decided to bomb the truck yard near Grand Street and Lafayette. We used to love getting into lots where the big boxy white trucks that deliver around the city are left at night. If there weren't any guard dogs then you were free to go in. The trucks were perfect because they were all white, and they got all over town daily. like rolling advertisements. plus, they were always parked so close to each other that nobody would know you are there and you could wedge your legs between them to reach very high spots.

Self and I planned on doing this one night. we got there very late, like 3AM and decided to roll and smoke a blunt and then do our mission. Only we got some Tabla from 106th street. this stuff was like mystery meat. it was questionably little and dense and definitely wasn't all weed. It also took down quite a few people at one time or another. One friend ended up losing his mind right before graduation and had a convulsive fit RIGHT in front of the dean. others would just panic or start throwing up. the two of us considered ourselves too hearty to be knocked down by one blunt of it. So we sat in the little triangular park where Lafayette and Kenmare come together.
after about 10 minutes we suddenly realized that we were zonked out of our heads and proceeded to get paranoid and freaked out by what we were planning on doing. I always freaked out a little on the inside before going writing. so much could go wrong back then. several times i would be rolling out for a mission and a black cat would cross my path. that was an all too common happenstance for me and it always put butterflies in my gut.

but this time we just plain over smoked ourselves. we sat there staring in fear at the yard and wondered what was going to happen if we went in. we talked ourselves down slowly, until the panic wasn't as total and finally, reluctantly, trudged forward to meet our fate. I believe we just sat there wide eyed and zonked for about a half an hour, like two of the three stooges. nothing ended up happening to us that night. we tagged the shit out of those trucks.

2008-07-23T12:13:00.005-04:00

My Broseph Bro-ham Budster, Dear, posted an image that has hung in my room since i can remember. It's from 1975 so i guess it was hung up on my wall when I was 2 years old. We lived on 111th street back then and it was ONE HELLUVA TOWN.

There are very few possessions of mine that are that old and well kept. My first ski boot from the age of 2, an egyption cat statue from the Metropolitan Museum, and that framed poster.

Life always has a soundtrack

2008-07-22T16:41:00.011-04:00

I love my ipod! before that i loved my CD walkman. and before that, I loved my walkman. I LOVE music, so much that I have to admit that I am listening to music most of my day. I miss meetings at work because when they are announced, i am lost somewhere in my music, animating to the beat. I daydream to it all the time and spend hours in my own world. I can identify with movies a lot when there's music playing. It's probably because a lot of my experiences are set to music in the same way.

Since I have a pattern of finding new music and then listening to it a lot until I start getting sick of it, the songs get ingrained into a set of memories. usually the memories of a time period that is about a month or two. Exactly how long it takes to get tired of hearing the song too much. That has the effect of essentially cataloging my life in terms of music, as if it is a library cataloging of life, by tunes. Often the songs have nothing to do with the memories in terms of theme, just in terms of coincidentally happening at the time of liking the song. so if i hear something like Bruce Sprinsteen's "Born in the USA" i don't get flooded with the memories of actually being born here, i get memories of living in Ireland and riding in my mom's rental car. it was 1985 and that song was on the radio all the time back then.

Hearing any old Fleetwood Mac or Beatles song can always transport me to the summer days of childhood. when I would lie on our Shag rug, in the Vermont sun, while my mom cooked yummy food from her garden and my dad grilled a perfect steak out on the porch.

My sister posted this gem. Just hearing that voice sends me spinning back in time. Stevie Nicks...I LOVE YOU.

Just imagine puffing on a spliff and macking out in THAT dressing room, that day.

If i hear an old Run DMC song i get the butterflies in my stomach as if it is just about to be my turn to perform in my old break dance troop.

It's the same way with distinct smells. hearing the song triggers the memory whether i want it too or not. mostly it's a pleasant thankfully, as most of my memories are pleasant. Sometimes i wonder if i would be able to get these memories so completely and clearly if it weren't for the sudden re-emergence of a certain tune. if i try to recall a memory without any song as impetus, the memory lacks the clarity and attached emotions and sensory experiences of the memory. it's usually just "paraphrased" rather then, when a song pops on, i can suddenly remember the very mind state of the time of the memory. i can remember how i felt, and what i thought about while listening to that music. it can often be so strong and surprising that i catch my breath.

I would love music even if it didn't have this incredibly personal ability to remind me of times long past because music stands alone and appeals to me even the first time i hear it, without any past experiences to get involved. but the fact that it does do this to me, that i can travel through my life with a well thought out mix, just adds to its magic and too its power over me.

I have always had issues with my ears, and i was once told by a well meaning Doctor that i could eventually lose my hearing. i had only partial hearing as a small child so it wouldn't be anything new to me. But the part of this possiblity that always got to me the most, as i grew up, was the loss of music. I knew that i could learn sign language in a worse case scenario, but to lose music would be something that i have yet to come to terms with. that's a loss that i can't even imagine.

Checker cabs and double decker buses

2008-07-18T12:05:00.015-04:00

The Daily News put together an Ode to the NYC taxi in honor of it's 100th anniversary...

Here i am sitting in a somewhat cramped back seat of a modern NYC taxi. I have my own AC controls, a credit card swiper, a GPS locater and television. Its a far cry from my memories of the huge tank like checker cabs i grew up with that had so much room that you had a bunch of feet between your toes and the divider. A large gadget-less void that was big enough for a potential nose dive if the cab stopped short. especially since there were no seat belts back then to stop your body from trying to steal home base. I remember the huge cavernous space and high, nearly vaulted roofs of those old tanks very fondly. I am, of course, happy that AC is now standard in cabs. especially considering that it is currently 95 and humid. back then there was no escape from that heat, even if you stuck you head out the window while the car was in motion. but i really miss those fold out seats to accommodate 6 people or just a mom and her squirrelly son. The fold out seats weren't big or comfy by any stretch. But i loved sitting in them and facing my mom, dad, or sister and making faces at them as i watched the city blocks recede in the rear window.

I also remember a lot of arguing about how to get places and how much it should cost with the drivers. But maybe that was brought about by feisty parents. i think it was also due to a lack of standard when it came to meters and how often they were faulty or broken. They used to be mechanical so the driver would flip down a lever and the thing would start ticking to time and distance (hopefully). Its funny how nowadays i don't even consider that the meter might be over charging. Back then my dad definitely did. I have no less then 5 separate memories of fights erupting between dad and driver. my dad's a rather big guy who wrestled in college so he was a very intimidating guy in a fight. Unless, of course, if the taxi driver was ready and grabbed a tire iron. When that happened my dad's ability to duck and weave suddenly displayed itself. He was fast! Ahh, the good ol' days.

Another fond memory about nyc transportation was the old double decker buses. They were bigger then the ones in London and riding in them gave me an eagle eye view of the neighborhood. I loved those buses so much that i made my mom or dad wait for one to come. As they got removed from service one by one, those waits starting getting more and more fruitless. I guess that was one of my earliest experiences with the odd sensation that "progress" in NYC doesn't necessarily mean "change for the better".

BEAT STREET

2008-07-16T11:15:00.003-04:00

Linoleum taped to the floor of the bedroom...nuff said.

That's not outer boroughs. A lot of that was filmed around Manhattan.

Hitching a ride on an out-of-service train WHILE on acid

2008-07-15T14:44:00.042-04:00

Is dumb. dumb. dumb. dumb.

but 19 years later, it makes for a pretty good blog post. so here it is.

I and three of my good friends were on acid one night, down in midtown. I think we wanted to go to one of the video arcades in times square that no longer exist. they were the kind of places that most resembled the bar on planet Tatooine in star wars. Smokey, dark, and extremely dangerous, even for Han Solo. the scum of the earth lurking behind every corner, waiting for a chance to prey on the weak. they would take your quarters and walkman at knife point if you weren't paying attention, or just decide to beat the shit out of you for getting close to their high score. a lively and fun social spot for three young boys knee deep in hallucinatory influences. believe it or not, none of us had ever even read any Hunter Thompson yet, so we were pretty much cutting our own path through the jungle of insanity.
It was hot, africa hot. or worse yet, NYC hot. sticky and no movement of air. you would inhale your own breath if you didn't keep moving. kind of similar to sharks that can't stop swimming in order to breath. we were in the 50th street station on the blue line waiting for a downtown E or C train. we had taken up one of the thick wooden benches that used to be in all the stations. it was around 2 or 3am so nothing was coming. my friends were all smoking cigarettes, i might have been too actually. all i remember is that i was really messed up and the smoke was just sitting there staring at me. it was so hot the smoke didn't rise up and away, it just got thicker and thicker and enveloped me completely.
between the heat, the spinning visuals going on all around me, and the dense reeking smoke, i began to get sick. well, i didn't begin to get sick. i GOT sick. i lurched forward and sprayed the ground beneath us with a nice even coating of barf. so now you can add the smell of that, and the look of partially digested pizza to the mix and the environment became quickly intolerable to the 3 of us. Self, Cosmos, and Ages (my three amigos) jumped up and ran away from the bench while i wiped the shrapnel off my lower lip.

I should take a second to briefly describe my three fleeing friends. not just because they were, and still are, very important to me. but also because they have very interesting backgrounds and were part of the flavor of NYC back then.

Ages came from a pretty poor household. he lived in a very small apartment with his Dominican mom in the projects behind Lincoln center. His neighbors were very dangerous drug dealers that covered their front door with "Jesus Loves" stickers in a show of humorous irony, or maybe it was to throw off the cops. i never asked them. but Ages was always the center of the party. everybody loved him and he had somehow managed to parle' himself into one of the best private schools in the city where he was very popular. he was a football and baseball star. he was also unbelievable funny and always down for adventure. to this day, i find that my friends and i still quote him regularly. unfortunately his awesome sense of humor wasn't universally appreciated by the uptight asshole teachers of Fieldston High School as much as, say, my sense of humor was. of course MY parents paid thousands of dollars in tuition so tolerating my miscreant behavior became simple economics. Where he got fucked out of a diploma and ended up disappearing off the map somewhere near San Jose, i was allowed to graduate. it's really very very sad.
Ages and I on 181st street in front of a burning van. circa 19 years ago.

Cosmos was also not very well off either and he lived in subsidized housing in hell's kitchen. He was the child of Algerian parents, spoke 5 languages and was basically too smart for his own good. He ended up in trouble simply by making people feel small in comparison. He was one of those guys who spoke of Inner Chi energy and focusing oneself in the universe. Right before lacing on some Doc Martin Steel tip boots and swinging from a street sign to karate kick someone in the head ( that's not a random analogy. it happened). He was the super genius who got dealt a bad hand. His mother moved to Alaska to become a Moony (the cult), and his dad was kind of a loose canon. he was the kind of lunatic that could only come out of the old school...and he came from old school Algeria. I once went to his house in the projects and his dad asked him if he wanted dinner. he said yes, and the next thing i know the guy is yelling and screaming at us in a language i can't even recognize. he then throws a packet of baloney at us before kicking us out. his dad eventually kicked him out for good. roughly around the same time, he was caught with a hit of acid at Horace Mann, kicked out of there, and was suddenly on his own. My mom ended up saving the day by putting him up for a few months and then using her clout as a defense attorney for foster care children to get him into the Kaplan house on St. Marks Place. but thats a whole other story. needless to say, Cosmos was a boy who faced tough odds, but was more then well equipped. he was that flower child who could kick ass and score higher then you ever did on any test. As a matter of fact, Cosmos moved out to oregon and got a masters in brain activity and is currently on his way to London to start a brain related job. it's always good to hear from him.

Self was more or less the leader of the pack most of the time. He was from the upper east-side and before that Governor's island and before that Hawaii. His dad was in the military so he was the one guy in our inner crew who had actually lived outside of NYC. He was also the first one of us to get into Graffiti via an older, very well known writer who managed to pass to Self a lot of skill and technique. Self was by far the most talented writer and artist we had and he raised the bar on us, which i think made us all work harder to get our own art up to a certain level. He was also key in getting us all into skating. By the time we were a writing crew we had already been a skating crew. Everywhere we went was by board, we always had them tucked under our arms or under our feet. It was more then a mode of transportation, it was our lifestyle. We often mixed the two pastimes. skating around taking marker tags was a great way to spend a night..or day. thanks to Self, both of these themes came together in our crew. We weren't thugs, as we liked to think, or as some people ended up thinking of our crew...we were like Self. Artists on wheels. Although I can't leave out one of Self's better talents. He didn't take no kinda shit from nobody. Most of our fights came from that aspect of him. people misread him because he had the look of a nice jewish boy, but the heart of a, um, lion. Now he is living in a great house in LA with a half-pipe in his backyard, which is approved of by his lovely and successful wife and two adorable kids. His artistry is still flowing, only now, like me, he has gone digital. he helped make the Harry Potter films amongst other great films, and now he is making an 3D/2D animated version of the widely known comic Block-Hedz.
Self-One...his backyard in LA...

So these three power houses had left me in a cloud of their smoke and a puddle of the consequential up-chuck.

"yo, where you guys going?!" I yelled as i got up and slipped in the puddle a bit trying to catch up with them.

"Fuck the train, it's not gonna come. let's go through the tunnel to forty doo-wops! We gotta get away from that nastiness" said Ages over his shoulder.

Now, in retrospect, OF COURSE THE TRAIN WOULD COME. just not in the time that we wanted it too. so i nodded in agreement and we walked to the downtown end of the platform. gave a quick look back at the station, saw nobody, and proceeded to enter the darkness. It's the local so we were up against the far wall where there is a foot wide ledge that you can walk along. slowly. if you lose your footing you fall about 5 feet onto dark tracks. there are rats, puddles of sludge, and all sorts of sharp and dangerous nooks and crannies to fuck yourself up on in the pitch blackness. there was also the hum of the third rail below, just waiting to turn one of us into the next Ramo of Beat Street. so we had to use the distant light of the 42nd street station and the occasional dirty light bulb to make out the thin ledge from the dark void.
Every 2 blocks or so there was a small exit to another shaft that seemed to be mostly for workmen. They were also good places to go when trains pass. But the long arduous stretches between them were just ledge. although the wall we were up against wasn't straight. it was a repeating alcove or arch-like indentation that was about 10 feet wide. at its deepest it was about 3 feet and at it's edges the ledge width was a foot. it made it difficult because one second we had enough room to face the direction we were creeping along in, and the next second we had to turn sideways and slip carefully past the outer edge of each alcove. it was hair rasing and slow. and we were...again...on acid. I tried not to freak myself out by looking too long at anything or trying to see into the pitch black at all. i just kept my eyes on Ages' Fieldston Football shirt. It was one of those brightly colored jerseys that had the school orange on it. his number was in bright white and the sleeves were bright white, making it visible in front of me.

It was after about 4-5 blocks that i noticed something changing. we were deep into the tunnel, about half way and i noticed the front side of the tracks getting lighter. then i noticed Ages getting lighter. I turned to see what was doing that and saw it. It was a train. And it was already pulling out of the 50th street station where we came from. the headlights where big and getting bigger. I guess we figured we would here it before it got too close, but we didn't. probably because we were making so much noise ourselves fucking around and joking about what we were doing.

"HOLY SHIT! GET TO THE NEXT EXIT NOW!!" I yelled. I see the flash of 3 sets of eyes look back over my shoulder and suddenly disappear and start moving forward away from me. I chased after them. but it was too late. we couldn't run for fear of bumping on of the alcove sides and falling in and we were too far from the next dimly lit exit. I would say we had a city block to go to get to the next little workmen exit. Cosmos suddenly stopped at the deep part of one of the alcoves of the wall and mushed himself up against it. Ages then flattened next to him and i was last to flatten myself up to the wall. I remember Ages trying to put his arms around the three of us and pushing towards the wall. there was a lot of "Oh Shits" and "Fuck dudes" and "This is crazy" remarks and I remember feeling the filthy concrete all cold and wet against my face. I peeked to my right just in time to see the train barreling down on us. I peeked down at my feet and could tell in the train's headlights that we had about a foot and a half between us and the edge of the ledge. What i was really worried about was the off chance that something was sticking out from the train or if the train's speed and size would create some kind of wind vortex that might pull us into it. I also remember thinking that i wanted my mommy.

The next thing that happened was pretty much unbelievable. The driver must have spotted Ages' bright white sleeves wrapped around Self, Cosmos, and I. The horn sounds really loudly and keeps on blasting as it passes us. the screech of the breaks being pulled and the train whizzing by was incredibly loud. our own screams got completely swallowed up by it, and yes, we were a' screamin'. I would like to take a moment now to mention that this story happened TWICE. everything up to this point was basically the same both times. but the time i am not talking about was graffiti related, and when the train came to a stop and the doors opened two cops came flying out just barely grabbing us before we ran top speed back the other way. You can run much faster when the light from the train is illuminating the ledge and you don't have to worry about falling into the tracks because the train effectively prevents that from happening just by being there.

but back to the acid trip time. this time the train stops, and one lone door opens. a fat face pops out of it and yells "Hey, whada fuck are yuz guys doin' here?! Yuz aint allowed on da tracks! Get inside here!"

We raise our heads and look incredulously at this random conducter and realize that he just wants us to get on the train. "We thought that the train wasn't running and didn't have enough money to go out and walk down to 42nd and then pay again" said Cosmos. smart guy that he was.

The conductor just shakes his head and mumbles that we weren't allowed on the tracks again. We looked at each other, realized that this guy was a bit "slow" and we weren't going to get much trouble from him. so we boarded the train. In the light of the train i got to see that both of my friends were now black like charcoal from the dirt on the walls. we looked like chimney boys from mary poppins. the train doors close behind us and the train starts moving. a minute later we pull into 42nd street and the train comes to a stop halfway in. the conducter steps out and uses his key to open just one door for us. "Dis train is outta suyvice. yuz boys don't do that again..ok?"

we nod at him and step off the train. i remember there were a few people at the stop who seemed very confused about why three filthy boys who clearly didn't work for the MTA got off an empty train half pulled into the station. we had literally just hitched a ride from the conductor.

2008-07-14T13:56:00.003-04:00

NY1 reports that NYC might lift the ban on dancing that has frozen people for decades now. the city limits dance floors to establishments that pay for a very expensive "Cabaret" license.

it was mostly ignored until Guiliani squeezed the life out of the city by cracking down on just about everything.

I think the impact of this is a lot bigger then New Yorkers realize. It's been footloose up in this piece for too long. yay!

Sesame Street it ain't anymore...

2008-07-10T15:36:00.013-04:00

One aspect of the gentrification process i have had the pleasure/horror of witnessing in my neighborhood since the 80's is the sudden disappearance of old old friends. I don't mean the friends that you call to meet for dinner or drinks, or the kind you go to the beach or park with. i am talking about the "deli guy" or the "lock smith guy". the guys/girls that you deal with on a daily basis, the ones whom you exchange short but pleasant small talk with. the ones that mark your day, like you said hi and chatted with the "newspaper guy" on the way to the subway every morning and that was one marker in your daily schedule.

these people used to have the effect of making me feel like i was in a small town, even though the empire state building was looming in the background. it made me feel like an important individual to my huge surroundings, not like i was being swallowed up by it. I was never at all anonymous, as i waved to this person or shouted "YO!" to another. because without those small acknowledgments of recognition, it is a very easy thing to feel surrounded, yet alone.

sometimes it would suddenly occur to me how well i knew some of these people, like Shim See the korean deli guy on 85th street and Columbus. I knew him since i was a kid, and he had given me my first summer job slinging frozen yogurt for $5 an hour. he had also sold me my first 40 ounce. he was , like, a MAJOR person in my life, as were so many other individuals i need to strain to remember.

nowadays, as i walk past the latest Starbucks or Fastfood spot that used to be a small family run Pizzeria, i realize that the loss is larger then just the good Pizza. what we are left with is overpriced coffee, frustrated and over juiced yuppies, no wait for placing an order but a looong wait to GET the order (ever notice that little corporate trick? mcdonalds does that too). Plus these places are staffed by surly impersonal people who clearly don't want anything to do with the customers they ignore every day, and they get replaced like once a week. it's really very sad to think about how much that changes a neighborhood. the mom-and-pop shops full of people who had pride in ownership or in what they did all day. I used to go to a small grocery store run by turkish guys and one of them, Oktay, used to make me guess how much my mom's bill would be. if i was within a dollar i got a free lollipop. try to find that kind of awesomeness in a whole foods and you'll be standing there all day being told to move out the way.

The most shocking aspect about this painful process is it's suddenness. it was like bombs going off randomly making places and the people in them vanish overnight. the LAST deli on Broadway thats within 4 blocks of my house went out of business last month. this means that not only has rising rent managed to knock out BASIC services (like toilet paper and a bagel) to a neighborhood of people, it has also managed to make old friends of mine disappear like thieves in the night. there's never a going away party, a picture opportunity, a chance to say goodbye. you just walk out of your apartment one day, and down the block to the deli like you have for the last few decades, and suddenly you are facing an empty dark abandoned room where your deli used to be. Mohammed and his sons will never again serve me that coffee that was a mere 60 cents and yummier then starbucks. they will never see me all drunk at 3 am jones-ing for a bagel or a chocolate milk and have a laugh about it. they will never sell me the ny times on sunday again. they are just memories now. just like that. poof.

to add insult to injury, i have no doubt that what will end up being there is useless to me. i will be walking another 2 blocks just for TP, and will pass 2-3 starbucks and 7 banks along the way. this gentrification thing goes a little bonkers after a while. at first it's exciting to not duck bullets and crack heads, but when the delis go, and all those neighborhood people that defined the community go with them, what are we left with? bad coffee and a bunch of assholes who have NO idea what used to be there. grrr.

I guess it's hard to realize that what you thought was permanent and a large part of the character of your hometown is in fact, just a phase in a fluid process of change. i always wondered why old people were so grumpy about change. now i am starting to understand. things don't always change for the better. but they inevitably change, especially a big crazy place like New York City. thats the price we pay for such a non static environment.

This is the kind of guy I was up against on the San Francisco single's scene

2008-07-08T15:47:00.002-04:00

The Douche levels are off the charts. It just gets better and better. Thanks La Rocca.

http://view.break.com/527579 - Watch more free videos

David Eddings and "the Will and the Word"

2008-07-08T13:12:00.040-04:00

This Image created by Geoff Taylor

When I was growing up I was an extremely lucky city kid because my mom took me and my sister on great vacations for the whole summer. we had started in Martha's vineyard, then Vermont, and ended up in Tuscany when i was 15. But in the summer of 1985, we were living in a poet's small house on the side of a mountain, overlooking a bay in Ireland. There was plenty of time to just live there, make friends, and get into reading books from the local library. I found an author who shook my world. David Eddings. Before that, and that summer, I had been a fan of science fiction and fantasy fiction mostly, and a morbid fan of religion/Christian based fiction on things like witches and the anti-Christ. the Christian lore was especially tasty that environment. I could walk a mile or two and find an abandoned Abbey that was built eons ago, washed in the red light of the sun setting over the Atlantic. Inhabited only by nettle bushes, cow poop, crows, and the occasional rabbit or cat. Sitting in that place, in the shadow of such a structure, reading about the war of angels and Satan seemed much realer then it would have, if i were reading it in Central Park. My imagination loved to try and grasp worlds far different from my own, but similar to the one i was getting a chance to see, and creatures that were like humans, but more interesting, like immortal Elves.
Photo taken by Krystian Kozerawski

Before that summer, I was also a huge lover of D&D and all things Tolkien. I was reading the Hobbit as i was learning to read, in Vermont, where I could walk into the woods and easily believe i was in middle-earth. these epic tales, that created worlds with maps, are in a lot of ways, still affecting how i dream and sometimes day-dream. I still would love to be able to learn a spell, or get into a battle on a warhorse, armed with a two-handed 6 foot sword enveloped in blue fire. It's a dork's paradise in my head sometimes. one that might feel at home at a Comicon Convention, but oddly, doesn't.

So David Eddings managed to grab my imagination at a perfect time. He created a whole world, with kingdoms that vaguely resemble Earth's historic kingdoms, and intertwined it with a set of holy books that outline a war between gods and religions that end up centering around our child main character. It was a bit soap opera-ish and often formulaic, but the characters were great and the story was epic. He also created a set of physical and "magical" laws, that allowed for a blurring of reality. i.e. magic that could be explained philosophically. I walked around spewing that philosophy all day in my own head. i talked about it to myself, mostly, and my sister who has an equally vast appetite for alternate worlds and possibilities. Questioning the "realness" of what i see around me, or at least the perceived disconnect between my mind and my surroundings. and being more questioning of the mundane, and less questioning of magic, legend, and prophecy. as if the latter might be more valid then the former. I felt in my young heart that there was a good chance that life would get far weirder and more like these stories then what has actually transpired in my real life (I am not a powerful immortal sorcerer, I am an animator). I unfortunately never learned the magic or became a Pawn of Prophecy like i so thought was a possibility back then. Not surprisingly, I then turned to learning how to VISUALIZE magic on tv and film. There's no getting closer to it, in this reality, without being disappointed.

David Edding's main stories revolved around a boy who learns that fate and destiny, and the basic struggle of the universe was based solely on him. who WOULDN'T love that kind of story? especially a boy of about the same age who dared to believe in the possibility that everything might be an illusion and that really he creates everything, or that everything happens because of him. the idea that maybe the earth was created just so he would have SOMETHING TO WALK ON, while he did the deeds that gave the universe it's very reason for happening. just imagine how empowering that is to a kid who isn't even allowed to drive a car, or drink a scotch at the pub in town? It's the kind of narcissism that makes a young mind ecstatic, expanding into the infinite possibilities of the future. I thought i was just some dumb kid with learning disabilities for a while there, now i was learning that i could actually expand into a god.

It was perfect. the boy learns as he gets older that he is the absolute focus of all that is evil, and all that is good, and that his mind is expanding as he is put into danger. he learns that his Will alone can make things happen. very much like it would in a lucid dream, only it was reality. Mr. Eddings is genius in his descriptions of the abilities and how they make an almost real sense in how it works. I started believing that if i just concentrated hard enough that I too would be able to change into a wolf, or eagle, or to call down lightning strikes by just throwing my will at the sky. or be able to morph my own body with the image of a wolf. transposed for a moment as my cells bow to the weight of my sheer thought. he called it "the Will and the Word" and i really thought it could happen. it wasn't an elvish spell that needed to be recited, it wasn't some witches mixture of potions and frog's eyes. it made sense. You bend your consciousness at an object, the force that gives you the strength live and think, and then use a word to communicate to that object, to funnel your thought into the real world and make the thought become reality.

there's a part in the story where Garion, the main character, and of course, the boy i wanted to be, rolls a boulder over. he was a novice, and just practicing his new ability. the rock's weight feels like it is on his body and he feels exhausted like he actually physically lifted the thing. when he manages to fight off the extreme fatigue, he realizes that his body sank into the soft grass under the weight and he was now stuck. his mentor laughs at his mistake and wonders why he never considered the laws of cause and reaction. he needed to exhert force under the rock, AND force down against his own weight against the earth itself. because, logically, the weight goes SOMEWHERE, and logically he ends up taking on the weight himself. it makes sense in a the paradigm we find ourselves in everyday. My physics teacher, Dr. Chuckrow no doubt believes in it too (if you believe in telekenisis in the real world, of course..which he did :)

I did too, sometimes I still do. but then, i felt like i could do it myself. It was kind of a gut feeling or inate suspicion that i had it in me. all it would take was TOTAL CONCENTWATION. So, i spent an hour or so, on the side of that Irish mountain, trying to topple a pile of rocks, and to force the sheep a few yards away, to drop their guard and walk right up to me. I would command the thought, and then utter a word to make it real. I figured if i couldn't do one feat, maybe i could accomplish the other. as if they were different uses of "will" and maybe i had more of a knack with dumb mammals then i did with dumb rocks. I kept on saying "Fall" to the rocks, and "Approach" to the sheep. like a dork. thankfully, i was alone on that hill with the sheep so nobody saw how silly i was.

to my absolute chagrin, I couldn't bring about either results. the rocks remained still, and the sheep got no closer then the 5 or so yards that they always tolerated (they were a lazy bunch of animals, they would allow me to approach to a certain point and then they would move as fast as i would, always teasing and tantalizingly close, but never close enough to touch...something that maddens a boy who considers himself a fast runner, to the point that i must have spent days on those hills trying to just grab one of them...but never succeeding) so to get them to obey my thoughts would have solved a major problem for me at the time. moving the rocks would have been cool, but not as cool as controlling the sheep. either way. my mortal, limited, no "will" having ass, couldn't do any of it. that was a hard pill to swallow. very much like the pill of getting your first job out of college. i thought the world would fall at my 20 year old feet as soon as i told it i was ready. but instead, i had every adult letting me know how much i DIDN'T know, and how much i COULDN'T do...and just how much they weren't going to just fall at my feet. I guess you need to learn how to walk before you can run.

You start out HUGE and endless, then you get struck down to infinitely small. life happens when you decide to go from there. from Infitely small, to bigger then that. that's what "the Will and the Word" taught me.

A sampling of my blackbooks

2008-07-05T22:48:00.008-04:00

click on the pics for enlargementoutline, paint drips, resulting piece

best peom ever written...wei wong.

the blotter page...
half-e artwork. notice the driver is on the wrong side. drawing oneself into a corner...

california writer

bask1 original.

A list of indicators that I party too hard.

2008-07-02T16:10:00.039-04:00

Starting with teenage incidents...

1. I barfed off a 20 story balcony on the upper east-side and watched as it spread out and showered, with an even mist, at least 20 yuppies.

2. I got caught peeing on the 20th precinct by two detectives, i thought it was a school. thankfully detectives didn't give a shit about misdemeanors back then.

3. Despite never having owned a gun, I once threatened to shoot a bouncer RIGHT as he was about to let me in. actually, to be really honest, i said "this is MY neighborhood (which it wasn't), i live around the corner (which i didn't), i'm gonna go home, get my gat, and pop a CAP in your ass". despite my best Ice-Cube impersonation, the weight and effectiveness of that psychotically worded threat was lost to him, especially when my friend Bask1 stood next to me and laughed the whole time. then Bask1 and I proceeded to get into such a violent wrestling match at the next club that people cleared the room out. time to go home.

4. I poured out a whole 40 ounce on the cast of the movie "Kids" heads because i didn't "like" the way one of them treated his girlfriend. i was on a roof above them, and apparently the guy didn't even have a girlfriend. although to this day i swear i saw him hit a girl.

5. when i was 15, and years away from having a driver's license, I drove my friend's jeep around midtown for 20 minutes. he had mistakenly left the keys in the ignition while he went to pick up his girlfriend. I remember doing it because, after drinking a 40 ounce in about 5 minutes, my friend Half-E convinced me that the cops would give us a ticket for being drunk sitting in a car that was still.

6. I rode on the roof of a car being driven by a guy with no shirt and half a fifth of whiskey in his hand that ended up going off a 6 foot cliff/drop.

7. the next year we did the same thing on an SUV, only without the cliff and it was my friend who fell off this time.

8. I got pulled over in vermont, at 3 am on a country road. my friend was driving the SUV. I was STANDING ON TOP OF IT...SURFING.

9. I once attacked 30 guys with an empty bottle.

10. My friend Self and I, got so drunk that he took a graffiti tag RIGHT IN FRONT of two cops drinking coffee. I ran like a drunken monkey uptown. They were so astounded that they didn't really know what to do with his drunk ass so they told him to fuck off and walk home. Later, when we saw him lurching uptown, I and two others decided to attack him and we ended up in a pitched battle in a big pile of garbage.

11. My friends and I took a bunch of acid, and decided at 2 am that we needed to drive to Rockaway Beach Queens. we made it to the triborough bridge and then the driver, Big Boy, cut off the only other car for miles. it was a pissed of taxi who then smashed his car into ours and nearly spun us off the bridge. then we found two people having sex on the beach and hid so we could watch them. come on, we were 16 years old.

12. I think i might have smoked crack once at a house club in the 80's.

13. In Biarritz France, i drank a jug of wine, got attacked by dogs, woke up under a bench with dog poo on my pants.

14. later on, same trip, passed out in a public park in Pamplona Spain during the running of the bulls, woke up with a man trying to un-lace my boots.

15. At 4am, in sheep's meadow in Central Park, i hallucinated and thought that rats were attacking me. and they were.

16. I fell down the main steps at the Palladium Club (now a huge dorm on 14th street) and took my friends, and about 15 people down with me. In the pile at the bottom, i looked at my friend Ages, and yelled "Dude, watch where you're going!".

College and 20's shenanigans...

1. After a particularly wild party I woke up lying across my front steps, with my keys in my hand and lipstick on my face. Madison, Wisconsin.

2. I woke up under a car with my legs sticking out under the drivers door. ( i guess that was in case the owner wanted to move the car they would trip over me first...i am smart, i think ahead)

3. I got my friend's SUV blocked in behind a frat house at a party. the next day he had his car and i didn't remember how we got it back because we never went inside to find out who blocked us. i walked by the frat house the next day and saw that somebody had driven a truck through all their hedges and torn up their lawn.

4. I woke up in bed, fully clothed. my large window above my bed was smashed, the screen was kicked in and lying under me, and i was getting snowed on by the storm outside.

5. I have a vague memory of a night when Matter and I were walking by a two story outdoor mall. we climbed to the second floor balcony and realized that if we jumped off, right above the awning below, we would bounce off the awning a few feet up and then fall another 12 feet or so into a snow drift. we did that for an hour or so. unless that was a really weird realistic dream.

6. I was dancing with two blond swiss girls at a downtown party, was handed some pills, took them. smacked the DJ for no reason, got kicked out, decided to lie down on the sidewalk on a quiet side street off of Lafayette street. Cortlandt alley to be exact, a no man's land. took off my scratchy Official Patrick Ewing tank top because it was hot and bothersome. proceeded to roll around on the ground, and look up at the stars. got up a few hours later, walked a few blocks, realized i was filthy, shirtless, walletless (it fell out of my baggy pants when i was rolling around) and no cabs were stopping for me. I finally cornered one on a side street and showed him that i had a cell phone and needed help. called my loving incredible sister, who then paid for the cab at 6 am. she gave me a weird look when i got out all half naked and filthy, i said "don't ask". and went to my apartment to sleep it off. she never did ask, god bless her.

7. I got so messed up one new years eve that i left the party to wait by the elevator for no apaarent reason, then i passed out, woke up at 4am. wondered why the party seemed thinned out, and thought my friends were lying to me when they told me how late it was. then i barely remember how i got on a plane to Peru an hour later. still cross-eyed.

8. I decided i wanted a hard boiled egg at 4am. put an egg in the microwave, and blew the door right off.

9. I was living in a brownstone attached to a building by the basements so i could do my laundry there by going underground. i got home wasted one night, realized my blanket was still in the drier, decided to go get it. locked myself out, realized i was only wearing boxers, spent the next 30 minutes sneaking around the maze-like hallways of the attaching basements while the doorman watched on surveillance video a man in his underwear slinking around. my vague memory of that indicates that i was "slinking" because i was lost, and i was scared i would bump into some totally innocent and unprepared female tenant. thankfully the doorman recognized me and didn't call 911. i ended up getting the spare key from him and then, in my drunk state. walked OUT THE FRONT OF THE LOBBY, down the sidewalk, and back into my house...in the cold rain.

10. I dislocated my shoulder, throwing a slice of pizza at someone.

11. in the hamptons, i once woke up in a garbage bin on it's side, under a kitchen table.

12. also in the hamptons, in the country club on the grass tennis courts at 2am. I was smooching a bridesmaid while wearing my step-father's 6k dollar Ungaro tuxedo, when all of a sudden, the sprinkler system went off. at the time i also couldn't get water in my ears, for medical reasons, so i had to run away top speed. taking off like that NEVER looks very manly. especially when i ran straight into the tall fence that borders the courts, face first at top speed. the meshing left an imprint on my mug and chucked me backwards into a skidding, rolling fall. grass, tux, water...bad combo.

I am actually leaving a lot out, just in case i run for President someday...

Dane Cook was funny.

2008-07-02T12:40:00.004-04:00

this clip makes me cry laugh. Dane Cook blew up around when this came out. but he kind of fell off after this. enjoy.

LOBSTER BISQUE

I'M A FIRE-BREATHING DRAGON

BIG BUCKS, NO WAMMIES!!

That Childhood feeling, designed into a website

2008-07-01T15:12:00.007-04:00

remember that feeling you had as a kid? you felt like you had absolute potential, but your age rendered you totally ineffectual? like the world was your oyster, and you had your whole life ahead of you. you had made no mistakes yet, and to date, had no regrets. but you still weren't allowed to cross the street alone to get a slice of pizza and a Tahitian Treat soda!

well, this website captures that feeling perfectly...

My FOURTH post of the day....

2008-07-01T14:47:00.010-04:00

and, I FEEL GREAT!!

double blind date gone wrong. here's proof that girls fart...

Who remembers Beepers?! I DO. I used to sell them in bad neighborhoods from door to door! that was FUN. well i only did for a few weeks :) to go an a tangent, that job let me see some crazy areas in Queens and the Bronx. did you know there are neighborhoods in east New York and Queens where ALL the signs are in Indian and Pakistani?! i remember getting hungry and walking into a "deli" and finding NOTHING that i even recognized as food. next door there was a store that only sold the traditional bright colored silk that the Indian women wear. but i digress. back to beepers.

We used to rely on my friend Zar's one and only beeper. if you were with him, people could find you. other then that. you were on your own once outside of home. that meant that you had to make plans and actually stick to them. there was no figuring shit out on the fly. we also used to use public phones to make collect calls. only it was during the time when they automated them. so you could actually say your location instead of your name and as long as you didnt pause between words you could get out all the info you needed before the name recording cut you off...like, "you-whadap-this-is-zen2-i-am-headed-to-sheep's-meadow from-the-west-side-be-there-at-the-spot-in-20-minutes-bitch"

the receiver of the call would hear that, and then just decline the call. we had our tricks for saving loot cakes.

Channel 35 (channel J)

2008-07-01T14:32:00.003-04:00

Manhattan Public Access TV. it was kind of like the wild west of TV. or maybe it was a precursor into Youtube and the internet, and the masses making videos. It was basically a free-for all of privately made tv shows that anybody with a cable box could get, 24 hours a day. after about 10 or 11pm it got REALLY riske'. i can thank Channel 35 for teaching me about "Golden Showers", "chicks with dicks", escorts services, 976 phone sex numbers, Amber Lynn, group sex, and just about anything else i couldn't learn on the playground from my friends. besides the playboy magazines i found in my grandma's attick (no doubt from one of my uncle's 70's collection of smut).

I feel like this was a major asset to growing up in the city. it ensured a forward thinking childhood. one that wasn't completely commercial. one that was liberal and relatively un regulated. there's no better way to grow up :)

it was also full of great stuff, like Al Goldstein's MIDNIGHT BLUE. Robin Byrd's Show, and Ugly George. Al Goldstein was the publisher of Screw Magazine and also a pure New Yorker of yore, with a strong opinion on just about everything in the city...

Robin Byrd had a show that was basically a strip tease. I liked this one, except when the dudes came on. I got to find out i wasn't gay at a very tender young age because of her show. i would have never known that i didn't want to see men naked, in that way, except for getting the opportunity to do so in the privacy of a child's bedroom.

"Wilding"

2008-07-01T13:43:00.021-04:00

I miss a lot of things about old NYC but ohhh, how i DON'T miss walking down a street, and noticing a herd of thugs coming my way like a cloud of trouble. Being a teenager meant that you were always a target even in your own neighborhood. seeing these groups forced a fast morbid decision. knowing that to turn and run virtually guaranteed a long hard chase, and to not run meant a possible beat-down and mugging, but maybe a reprise for NOT running. oddly enough, i made it through more then one of these roving packs of marauders simply by lowering my eyes and pretending that they didn't bother me. sometimes that got you enough respect to save you from getting surrounded.

as a matter of fact, like the above link, i have been surrounded more then once. one time it was actually my friend Ages fault. we were hanging out on a stoop on summer night and a group of guys walk by on Broadway. we were up a side street so they didn't notice us. Ages, for some unknown reason, thought it was a good idea to yell the name of our crew at them, NBC. well, suddenly they all ran at us and quickly surrounded us. apparently, they had been LOOKING for us over a graffiti beef and their job had been done for them by my friend. long story short, i wouldn't let them take my headphones, and my friend Ages was mouthing off to them. so one thing led to another, well, heh heh, actually, they said they were the "Stick Up Kids". that name was robbed from a gang starr song at the time, and i couldn't resist saying "so you guys S.U.K.!!". surprise surprise, I got sucker punched and jumped. but like other experiences in my life where i am outnumbered by so many, i found a quick way out by ducking low and punching through the line. when there are more then 8-10 guys trying to fight one guy, what happens is they get in each other's way and can rarely figure out who is who, if the underdog moves around a lot. so, i moved a lot. Especially if it's on a stoop and they can't circle around and fan out. i got a good hit on about 4 of them, but also a few good lumps on my own head and face before i backed away, swinging and kicking and got out of the scene. that crew never got the drop on us again.

in talking about "Wilding" and crews, i'm not going to pretend i was never part of it myself. i certainly was no innocent in this. i was "wilding" once or twice with my own crew. i found out for myself, that being on the giving end of that phenomenon was much better then the receiving (in the 80's in NYC it was labeled "Wilding" by the media). it was basically kids, in groups, losing control. or i should say TAKING control. i remember walking down Broadway with a large group of pretty angry down trodden guys. mostly from the projects on Amsterdam and Columbus above 91st street. these guys were on a mission to show everybody who was in control (seeing as how, their whole lives, it HASN'T been them). i remember watching people just melt away on the sidewalk. newspaper stands being attacked for all the candy and magazines, almost being pushed over by several guys. i remember garbage cans being emptied on cars and tires being slashed. being somewhat future minded, i tried to stay with the group but didn't do any of the really crazy stuff, just so you know :) it was chaos. i guess, you could even say it was revolution in a micro form. whatever it was, however you defined it, it was NYC.

This is kind of what it was like when the city was so rough and tumble...kids with no options, cracking under pressure. losing it..on everyone, and everything. maybe they've been smacked around their whole lives, told what to do, insulted. now they have a bunch of friends, now they're gonna make people pay.

check out these crazy kids in Paris. check out the French and how tough they are! tell me you don't want to kick their little frenchie asses by the end of the video.

justice stress (official video)
by 75_prod

Summer Storms

2008-07-01T12:39:00.014-04:00

I lived in California for about 5.5 to 6 years and only heard thunder about three times. of course it rained, more so in San Francisco then LA , but it did rain a fair amount. one thing it doesn't do over there, that it does here, is the sudden and incredibly powerful summer rain storm. you know, the wall of wind and water from New Jersey? the one that happens right after a super hot and humid afternoon suddenly turns dark like twilight? thats when New Yorkers know to run for cover, and they also know that they won't have to wait long so shelter is the best option over braving through it. it explodes on the scene, dumps itself all over everything, and then it's gone and the sun is out within minutes.

I kind of like these storms, of course only when i don't get injured by flying debris. I like them not just because they are fast and exciting, but because they freeze life in the streets as pedestrians congregate under awnings and in entrances. they also pull the humidity right out of the air and wash the streets of filth. but mostly, its the "freezing" of life that is the best part. I have countless memories of taking shelter from these flash storms. Holding my mom or Dad's sturdy wet hand as a startled but amazed child, staring incredulously at the street as the water comes down so fiercely that it bounces. where a few seconds before we were headed for the park or the museum in a dry familiar city scene, now we were in a mini hurricane. it makes the ground look all fuzzy like a million little sprinkler systems are going off at the same time and i would wonder if it was going to ever be normal again. then there is always the chest shaking thunder and the bright fingers of lightning that stab at the tops of the buildings.

my countless memories of waiting out summer storms are fond. because when these storms happen it doesn't matter what you were doing, or even if you are late for something. most of the time i was with my mom, dad, and/or sister, sometimes friends, and most of the time we sheltered calmly and relaxed while the shit sprayed down all around. the fact is, nobody has a choice but to shelter and wait, so the break from reality was accepted and it became nice and amazing. plus the breeze felt nice, and the rain was a welcomed break from the heat. those old 7-up commercials nailed it with the whole "feels so good coming down" song. i can't imagine that people from the California coast even got those ads. here is one, not the one i wanted (the city summer scene) but at least there's one...

So, if you take it as a forced break, as a relief from the heat, and as a show of spectacular power, you can enjoy it. you get to talk about it with the people you are with. you talk about it with the strangers who get caught at the same time as you. it's actually fun. after all, you CAN'T just go about your business in it, unless you accept the fact that you will be taking a full-on shower in your clothes. not even an umbrella can stop this kind of rain, because it does bounce up and sideways, and because the storm will just blow your umbrella out of it's way like it's got a hand to swat it away with. so, you just take a moment, you look at the majestic power of nature spanking the hubris of the city. you get reminded that the colossal concrete city around you is not really in control of the environment, that the city is really just nature's bitch in the end.

I have a memory of driving uptown on my motorcycle on 6th avenue after working at a Broadway theater on the stage backdrop. it had been one of those unacceptably sticky summer days, and sure enough, at around 45th street i looked behind me and saw this wall of darkness descending from downtown. out in front of it, and no more then 3 blocks back was a wall of water. you could see the edge of it clearly. and it was heading towards me. instead of trying to find shelter, i saw the light change and decided i was going to see if i could beat it. with a motorcycle, i could weave enough through rush hour traffic to stay out in front of the traffic light sequence, all the way up to 59th street. at that point you have to either go into the park or wait at a light to get onto Broadway. i chose the park and did some pretty leaned out turns to maintain my lead on the rain. i pulled into my garage, near the West Side Highway JUST IN TIME. i got a few drops, but missed the deluge by seconds. then i got to weather it out in the entrance of the garage anyways. but like i said, once you are in one of these it's really just time to give into the natural spectacle of it and enjoy the show.

Recycling classic hip-hop skits with a whole new twist...

2008-06-30T15:45:00.002-04:00

One thing i used to love about the latest hip-hop tape was hearing all those little skits between the songs. they were always great the first time, but then as you got used to the album they became the repeated conversations that you were always fast forwarding through. on a tape player or record that could be annoying.

finally some guys in an office figured out how to breath new life into two of Wu-Tang's "spicier" skits. by mouthing the ultra hardcore conversations as if it was taking place in a white-washed office environment. it's kind of genius because it says a lot more then i think these jokers meant it to say. you know, about opposing cultures and how they try to isolate each other and...whatever, Zen2. just play them damn shiznits.

Top 10 3D Street Artists

2008-06-30T15:42:00.000-04:00

Taking the techniques of forced perspective to whole new levels...click the pic

There's plenty of parking on the dancefloor

2008-06-29T13:56:00.007-04:00

Major gripe. NYC. Dancing. Wha' happen? Guiliani happen. He shut dancing down in the dancingest place possible.

need i remind people that this is the birth place of break-dancing and hip hop?!?!

I never thought that institutionalized dancing could be a possibility. that the man could say that dancing is not allowed. that moving to a rhythm is something punishable by a fine or violation. this was something that couldn't happen in a free country except in the movie Footloose. and that happened in a little podunk town and we all laughed it off like, that could never happen in MY town.

well it did. and we aren't even organizing a prom dance at the edge of town, or anything. there's no outrage. people just stand around all the time, and don't even realize that they CAN'T dance. go ahead. try it. at a restaurant or bar, someplace that isn't a big club with a Cabaret License. you will experience the most awkward NYC experience you have ever had. a waiter, or bartender, or bouncer will walk over and ask you to stop dancing. it's the law. they can get a big fine for having people dance when they aren't licensed for it. think about that New Yawk.

When two great things come together and make a third, even greater thing

2008-06-26T14:16:00.005-04:00

Peanuts do the movie Clerks

Reminds me of the old Reese's peanut butter commercials about the accidental combo of peanut butter and chocolate...who eats peanut butter out of a jar at the movies?!

And here are some mashups. a phenomenon in music these days where somebody mixes two songs together. some are incredible.

Jay-Z vs. the Verve

Blondie vs. the Doors

Eminem vs. Eurythmics

Kanye West vs. Beethoven

Justin Timberlake vs Corey Hart