Generation Why?

2008-07-28T17:42:00.003-04:00

Greetings from seclusion! I keep telling myself that I should be posting something on one of my various blogs, but the whole thing always feels so self-indulgent and self serving that I haven't bothered. Lately though, there have been a couple people who were wondering where the hell I've been, so I figured it was about time. So with that out of the way, here's what's been going on:

1) In the spring I applied for a scholarship to attend the one year residency program at the Hunter College School of Social Work. Basically, I get to keep working at Pathways To Housing, and get a fully subsidized MSW in the process. In May, I received a letter notifying me that I got the scholarship! Woo-hoo! As classes approach, I'm actually starting to look forward to going back to school. Best case scenario, this will rekindle my interest in all things intellectual and serve as the kick-in-the-ass I all too possibly need. Worst case scenario, I get a terminal degree for free. Either way, not too shabby.

2) Kristen and I are still together. It's been over three years now....officially my longest relationship. I never would have thought it when we first got together, considering that we're the one-night-stand that never ended, but I can't imagine my life without her now. I love her more and more every day, and to watch her continue to grow into this confident and determined and amazing person who believes in herself....it's a joy to watch. Really. She's finishing up at the French Culinary Institute later this year, and then she'll be looking for jobs. She loves doing what she does, and I find myself sometimes envying her for that. I don't know if I love anything as much as she loves cooking...

3) Which brings me to....poetry. Ah yes, my ex. My on again, off again, fickle lover. The self-indulgent bitch I can't ever seem to come to terms with. I don't know what to say about her. And I think that part of the reason I haven't been updating this blog is because my relationship with her is what always compelled me to keep up a public persona. Nowadays, I just don't care. Don't care about performing, or publishing, or touching people with my work. Honestly, I'm doubtful that my work would ever make a bit of difference, even if I did devote my life to it. The fact that I can disappear off the face of the planet for months at a time, without the world missing a beat seems to attest to that fact. So why bother? Does that mean I won't write anymore. No. I write because I have to, and there will undoubtedly come a time in my life where I'll have to write my way out of one predicament or another. But for now, I'm tired of trying to be something I'm not. My whole identity as a writer is bound up in my social identity, and it's become increasingly difficult to maintain the pretense of sociability when the whole thing is so awkward and painful for me. I do it to prove to myself that I can, but what's the point of only doing something so you can say that you did it--when you don't derive joy from it. Lately, I'm more concerned with doing what I want to do.....which may seem completely selfish. And to some extent it is. I've spent most of my life being miserable, either on account of my depression, my inability to change a world that doesn't seem to want fixing, or as a result my ongoing attempts to ingratiate myself into the world of "normal people". Well, the truth is, I'm not normal, I'm tired of saving the world (though I'll inevitably continue to try my best to do it), and the best thing for my depression is often just to focus on what's important to me, instead of worrying about what other people might think. Lately, I've been questioning the extent to which my choices even matter. Sure, I do quite a bit to help others, and so much of my life has revolved around trying to do the right thing, but in my absence won't there always be someone else to do the same thing? I could devote the rest of my life to creating literature, possibly at the expense of my own happiness. Or, I could sit around playing video games and getting high (purely hypothetical, of course). In the end, I'm not convinced that choosing to do one or the other will make the slightest bit of difference. Beyond that, even if I'm not writing, I'm still devoting the majority of my life to helping my clients. So it's not as if not writing makes me any less of a good person, right? Don't answer that. I suppose that this is when most people start a family, or find God, or whatever it is that people do when they approach 30 and recognize that the world existed before you, it will go on existing after you, and the odds of your making a significant difference to it are waning by the day. Oh, delusions of grandiosity, where have you gone? ;-) So what do I do? Continue to force myself to brave a world that makes me more miserable and lonely the more I confront and fight it? Or, paradoxically, take refuge in what I have, enjoy the peace and quiet and tranquility my relative isolation affords, even if it comes at the expense of my ego's longing to be remembered? Obviously I've been opting for the latter of late, and part of me wants to be convinced otherwise.....but I'm skeptical, to say the least....

4) I say relative isolation because lately, I want more of it. I'm tired of noise. Sirens. Obnoxious people. Belligerent people. Arrogant people. Stupid people. People. I want peace and quiet. I want to be left alone. I don't want to have to bite my tongue and grin and bear it for fear that opening my mouth will lead me to blow up and make a decision I'll end up regretting. Maybe moving to New York, for all of the wonderful things that have happened to me here, isn't a long term solution for me. I don't think the suburbs are either. Lately, I keep imagining living on some nice, secluded land, far away from the constant tension I feel in this place. I carry it all with me....all of it. In my body--my shoulders are so sore. In my jaw--Kristen can hardly sleep next to me. I feel like I'm constantly on the verge of exploding, and while I don't want to hurt anyone, there are so many times I'm tempted to let it all out, fuck the consequence. There are so many peope who prey on the patience and decency of people like me, and like I've written before, I'm tired of biting my tongue. I feel like the next chapter of my life, maybe in a couple years, will be quiet.....just the word itself makes me feel better.....quiet. Ahhh. That's all I want. Maybe an organic garden full of fruits and vegetables. We could harvest them and cook our own food. No one to bother me. No one to hurt me. I'm not talking Unabomber or anything crazy like that (though I'm a little disturbed myself at how easily this feeling could start to turn into that). I'm hardly a Luddite. I love my technology. I like being able to engage with the world--from a distance. But this place, it doesn't feel right for me anymore. I can't carry it all on my shoulders. I can't take all of the constant hostility: from my clients, from strangers, from the kids who loiter outside of my door making noise day and night. I just can't take it anymore, and in the absence of being able to up and leave (which isn't feasible at this time), I take solace in my fantasy. A nice little house in the country. A fire out back. Watching the sunset. Picking fresh fruit from the garden. Honestly, it sounds like the nicest thing in the world....Dear lord....I've gone domestic...lol.

5) I could prattle on about politics, and pop culture, and make my little inane observations. But hoenstly, who cares, really? Maybe I'll come back around to a place where I feel like it matters. Maybe I'll miss feeling witty and insightful. But for now I'm confident that the world is just fine with me in the margins. It's really where I'm most comfortable. And who am I to argue with that?

2008-01-23T22:20:00.001-05:00

There is no God...

2007-10-01T19:19:00.001-04:00

The Greatest Song Ever...

2007-08-27T23:41:00.000-04:00

This happened right outside my apartment earlier today....

A twelve year old girl got hit by a stray bullet. The bodega they show in the video is directly across the street from my place. So between the grandmother in the wheelchair who was killed by a stray bullet outside my old apartment, and a 12 year old girl getting shot outside of this one, I've been in the middle of two senseless shootings. And that's not even to mention the guy who got shot in the face three blocks from my place on Franklin Avenue. Or the guy that I almost stepped on trying to get on the train at Franklin, who had been stabbed in a triple stabbing, and was just laying there on the ground in a pool of blood.

At least this girl got lucky. She'll be alright.

And then there's shit like these shootings, which happened a little while back a little ways up the block from where I used to live on Franklin. It says that the one guy was buying a lottery ticket. Damn. If that's not one fucked up poem waiting to happen, I don't know what is.

And I like my neighborhood, but this shit needs to stop. Stupid wannabe-gangster drug dealers and fake ass thugs gotta go and mess it up for all the rest of the decent people who live around here. It's not right. This kind of shit makes me want to move out into the middle of nowhere, far away from anywhere where I'll have to worry about the idiocy of people getting other people killed for no good reason.

Whatever...I'm still alive. So I guess I'm one of the lucky ones.

What's wrong with people?

Never mind our government torture and terror, genocide, and every other thing that leaves you wishing you could just give yourself a lobotomy. I guess what bothers me even more when it's right outside your door is that you can't escape it. You can stop watching the news, you can disengage yourself from politics (why I'm a social worker now, as opposed to the political activist I once was), but it's like this is the world's way of insisting that, no matter how hard you try to convince yourself you live in an essentially decent world, surprise fucker, it's just not. No matter how much good you can do, no matter how much refuge you take in love and doing something positive with your life, you'll always come back to the screaming reality of this shit. I feel like I do when I was fifteen and I had a psychologist, and I would sit there and run through the litany of fucked up things that I saw in the world, and all he would tell me, after perseverating for an hour at a time, was that--while he totally agreed with everything I was saying--he just didn't agree with my emotional response to it. And this is not to blame him. He was right. But that's the point. The cold hard truth at the base of that is that part of growing up is just accepting that the world is a cold and uncaring, fucked up place, and that in order to live a decent live, you just have to accept that as a fact of the world and move on. And each day it gets a little bit easier. News of genocide is filler between checking my fantasy football scores and and my fantasy baseball scores. Kids getting shot is something I check because I see police tape and thirty cop cars while I'm across the street getting Guinness so I can kick back and watch some Bob Saget stand-up (I'm serious, don't knock it until you've tried it....fucker is brilliant). The war in Iraq becomes fodder for some good jokes on the Daily Show. We resort to absurdity to make sense of a reality that's too often too hard to bear. I love the shit, because it makes the fucked up world we live in a little more bearable, and makes me feel a little less crazy. And what's the alternative? The only unbearable thing, is that nothing is unbearable....

Anyways, I digress. So if you ever wonder why I blog about gay monkey porn, or being the lovechild of Euhud Barak, Julie Andrews, P Diddy, a young Sean Astin, and Luca from the second floor....it's because of shit like this. Because that shit is funny. But all this other shit.....it just isn't. Peace and Love Fuckers. Hug Somebody.

Your Loving Curmudgeonous Fuck,
mcs

2007-08-26T14:08:00.001-04:00

What I've Always Known Deep Inside...

It's strange, because for years people have been asking me: "has anyone ever told you that you look like a mix of Julie Andrews, P Diddy, Jackie Chan, a young Sean Astin, Luca from the second floor, and the prime minister of Israel?" And I'm always like, "yeah, but really, who doesn't?"

2007-08-26T14:03:00.000-04:00

Warning: This Post Is Rated NC-17!

....with that warning out of the way--Welcome. This post will not be for the squeamish.

1. So in the midst of Kristen telling me that I should switch my Trillian (IM) icon to something different "butt fighting monkeys" (her typo)....which inevitably compelled me to google "monkey sex" to mess with her. Ladies and gentleman.....if I can impress one thing upon you, don't ever google "monkey sex" without a filter. Ever. For one, I found out that there is a website called beastclub.com, which advertises itself as the "web's first gay beastiality website". And all I can think about is, really, there's a market for this? Really?!?! I mean, are there really people out there thinking "Ya know, I've wanted to get into beastiality, but the idea of a monkey getting it on with a human female....I don't know....it just doesn't do it for me. But gay monkey sex.....Eureka!!!." And then I started thinking about some guy out there, browsing through his favorite beastiality websites thinking "damn, this is some damn fine monkey porn", and he comes upon this site and he's like "oh....jesus....human males....and male monkeys together....now THAT'S JUST SICK!!!! May Jesus have mercy on your souls!!! If there's one thing I know, it's that the creator intended for male monkeys and human females to be together, and anything else, well that my friend is just an abomination of nature!!!"

2. This picture cracked me up.

"Awww....I give you perfectly meaningless monkey love and you're gonna make me cuddle? Really? Let's not try to turn this into something it isn't babe, kay?"

3. Has anyone else noticed how they've been taking less and less attractive women and putting their pics on the myspace new friend invitations? Apparently they caught on to the fact that most of us know that women who look like the ones who have been trying to friend us don't talk to people like us, so we've just started ignoring the friend requests. But, these new women actually look like real people, so you have to actually click on the link to see if the friend invite is real or not. Damned you, you crafty bastards! You got me again! What I'm waiting for is the day that they start using pictures of one-legged, Quasimodo looking women in an attempt to guilt me into friending them. So, I'm apologizing in advance to any one-legged Quasimodo looking women out there who sincerely want to be my friend. Ya know what? I want to be your friend too, but people like this are making that impossible. And when a demented man and a one-legged Quasimodo looking woman can't be friends anymore, well....I don't even want to have to think about living in that kind of world.....Damn you myspace!!!!

4. Many of you know Guy Lecharles Gonzalez. But what you may not know is that he made a video back in the day that's been all over the internet lately. If you see him, give him a shout out cuz he's bashful about it, but he really deserves the props. The man's a genius. Seriously. Just check out the video.

He's all growed up now, but as brilliant as ever!

5. I have a client whose mother is completely incapable of brevity. Quite literally, it takes her twenty minutes to tell you why she's calling: "Hello, how are you. I am calling to tell you that I would like to tell you something. Because my son is in the program and because he is in the program I think that it is good to tell you things. So I call you to tell you things because this is what I think that it is good for me to do. Because he tell me that I call Pathways, and I think that that is a good idea"....etc, etc, etc.....I swear I'm not exagerrating. Our office manager will tell me that I have a phone call and won't tell me that it's her, and I'll literally spend the next half hour deciphering her telling me that her son just needs us to deliver medication to him! I think it may be a language thing because she's Hatian, but damn woman! Spit it out!!!!

So she called the other day to say that her son was in the hospital and that she thought that someone had been putting drugs in her son's food. I think that someone else was telling her this, because in spite of speaking only broken english with a thick Hatian accent, she's like "yes, I think someone put trees in his food." Trees? And so I was like "fo shizzle? They came all up in his crib, all up up da heezy and put trees in ya boys food? Man, that shit get me so heated, I'm bout to smoke an El right now!" ;-)

And she was like "yes, the teenage boys he have in his apartment--maybe they did it." And really, that's just messed up. I mean, what kind of world do we live in when a man can't have sex with teenage boys without having to worry about them putting drugs in his food?" Na'mean?

I could go on and on about my clients, but I'll leave it at that for now. If you want more client stories, just say the words and I'll post a couple more.

Hello......hello......anyone out there? Fine, I never liked ya'll anyways!

Trying My Hardest To Let The Real Me Shine,
mcs ;-)

2007-08-08T22:27:00.000-04:00

This Is Awesome!

2007-08-08T22:03:00.000-04:00

Oh yeah, this too...I know, I should be living in a cave, but I miss this shit...

2007-08-08T21:31:00.000-04:00

I know, I'm a Neanderthal, but this shit's cool...

2007-07-27T18:24:00.001-04:00

The Big Apple

New York is the cemeteries of Queens. Its smiling headstones.

The Hudson poking fun at the East River from over Manhattan’s shoulder.

The seductive skyline of the Manhattan Bound Q.

It is a salty sunset at Battery Park, the jibaro yawn of strawberry fields.

It is the Day-Glo dawn of Times Square.

The melodious boi of Eastern Parkway

hummed over the Talmud, the t’ai chi dawn of the parks of Queens.

It is the soy-stained plantains and chicken wings of Chinese restaurants,

Indio-Cubano-Chinese joints staffed by Mexicans and Puerto Ricans.

It is Bootleg DVDs, $1 batteries, and the helium inflected hiccup of a clacker

clutched like a ticket stub for entrance into the American Dream.

It is guys named Country who will never leave the city.

Neighborhoods composed of men with names like Panama, Grenada, and Jamaica,

domino games that sound like a meeting of the United Nations.

It is being able to call a bunch of people walking down the street a parade.

It is piraguas, snow cones, shaved ice, raspados, frio frio, halo halo, patbingsu, and kakigori,

none of which are the same thing as Italian Ice.

It is experiencing every culture in the world, without ever leaving your block.

It is the welcoming arms of Ellis Island, a city of immigrants living in a country

that has forgotten where it came from.

It is hustlers and pimps prostituting portfolios on Wall Street.

It is the courage to oppose a war fought in our names,

marching through the ashes of our own.

It is a place where even our Republicans are too rational and progressive

for the rest of the country.

It is standing in the footsteps of those that came before you,

to hear the echoes of those who have stood on this hallowed ground.

It is Whitman’s Yawp, Ginsberg’s Howl. It is “Smoke? Smoke?” “Some change?”

“Batteries?” “DVDs?” “Newports? Newports?” It is “excuse me ladies and gentleman,

I am here today selling candy bars for my basketball team.” And, of course, everyone’s

favorite remix “I’m not selling candy bars for my basketball team, I’m just a kid trying

to make an honest dollar instead of selling drugs or doing something bad.”

It is being in a monogamous relationship with a train, to know the difference

between the 2 and the 3, the 4 and the 5, the 1 and the 9, to ride the train

to the end of the tracks, to take the R to the E to the G to the above ground transfer

to the 2 or the 3 to make a two hour commute between Brooklyn and Queens, to know

that you’re only moving one mile.

It is card games being played in the back rooms of Bensonhurst.

It is knowing enough to avoid the green puddles on Saint Patrick’s Day,

and any puddle of any kind that you see on an elevator, stairwell, sidewalk,

subway platform, ceiling, or any surface of any kind.

It is knowing which bodegas sell what and which ones to avoid.

It is roller disco Saturdays in Central Park.

It is the best team in baseball….and the Mets.

It is Jackie jacking the color line out the park.

It is a borough that lost its baseball team.

It is a blackout where no one got hurt.

It is physically impossible graffiti tagged onto the ethereal elevations of buildings above

and darkness sprayed depths of stray-light speckled tunnels below.

It is a foot of snow being called a blizzard.

It is the women, the first day of summer, a calendar whose days are defined in flesh,

a daily regimen of “what ifs”, the sore neck inducing whiplash switch of a hip.

It is love triangles defined in the length of a train ride, the downcast geometries of loneliness.

It is admiring the God Damn of the curves of the Brooklyn Bridge, wires clinging like straps

to the body of one of the city’s last monogamous pieces of sky.

It is summer’s humid breath blowing in your face, begging for some tongue.

It is the view from Central Park, staring into the face of the surrounding city’s gap-toothed

sun-gilded adolescent grin, scaffolding like braces to shape the still awkward smile.

It is the way that you’re so….dirty. And I kind of like that.

It’s the way that you’re thick, the bulging backside of Brooklyn and Queens, the oversized head

of the Bronx, and Staten Island….well, some things you just got to learn to love.

It is more New Yorker than American, more Brooklyn than city, more block than borough.

It is a place where tragedies leave beauty marks, where hunger just gives us

another mouth to feed a bite from this big, dirty apple, a heart pumping

blood, this city inside us, so when we die, you can bury the rest,

but you can never whittle this core from our chests.

2007-07-10T18:44:00.000-04:00

The Intimacy of Bullets

You could take a census of my hometown

using the lists of the names of the kids I hoped to kill at 13

headless chicken scratch scribbled in furious broken tipped pencil—

I know why kids kill:

In sixth grade

I scraped skin from my knuckles

without knowing why I did it.

I grew a garden of scabs

that bloomed into scars.

In eighth grade

I didn’t want guilt

gilded onto my gravestone

so I carved swastikas onto my arms,

because if I could only convince

my Jewish father not to love me

it wouldn’t hurt so much to leave.

In tenth grade I burned a key onto my wrist

to remind me that some doors shouldn’t be opened.

I wear a watch over this scar as a reminder

that time can cover a wound, but it can never erase it.

At 18

I had bleached blond dreadlocks

and cheeks so sunken into my jawline

I could chew on them.

They always tasted better than my thoughts.

I’m writing this for kids who play on playgrounds

drawing their own chalk outlines

who savor the taste of the word Columbine, swishing

it around in their mouths like a fine wine, refusing

to swallow, who dream of it like a first burgundy kiss.

Connoisseurs who would give anything to

cleanse this taste from their palate—

if only they could.

I know why kids kill:

acned and pockmarked with desperation on their breath

so awkward even their shadows run for cover

alone at the lunch table

the last kid picked for the team

struggling to read along

stuck in the closet

too dark, too light

too fucked up and terrified

to even leave the house,

who will themselves into ghosts

and disappear from rooms at will.

For those who have accepted this most tragic of gifts.

I know why kids kill:

because they are the blemish on the face of a society

that loathes its imperfections, concealed behind mountains

of lipstick, cover-up, mascara, and rouge,

pentagrams, fishnets, Doc Martens and trench coats,

Mohawks, mullets, and Marilyn Manson T-Shirts.

Because being hated for your fashion sense

is always better than the incomprehensibility

of just being hated.

being feared, better

than being ridiculed.

Because mommy and daddy’s hatred of Ahmed

isn’t all that different from Billy’s hatred

for the Goth kid in his English class.

Because too often laughter is the language of the soul

who had nothing good to say to you.

Because the most popular thing in the world

is a cheerleader’s sneer,

the words faggot thrown

from a quarterback’s lips.

Because Paris Hilton. Because Britney Spears.

Because the ordinary, the invisible,

the ones who find themselves

minor underwritten characters

in their own autobiographies,

and sometimes we all want to be stars,

but on a stage that has already made it abundantly clear

that it has no place for us—

and then we wonder why, for some,

infamy can be life’s consolation prize.

I know why kids kill:

Because they are too busy writing suicide notes

to do their homework, and most go quietly, sentencing

themselves guilty for crimes they never committed.

I know why kids kill:

Because murder is a dying dream in the eye of an aspiring suicide

who knows they haven’t even experienced enough to want to give up—

even in desperation the red taste of justice caught in the back of your throat.

I know why kids kill:

Because like any kid, sometimes you just want to be held,

and when arms fail you there’s nothing more intimate than a bullet,

the word crazy,

the post-mortem straightjacket we wrap around the explanation

pat on the back claiming this wasn’t preventable, we couldn’t

have known, reason isn’t something that stopped making sense

to these kids a long time ago, so everything is okay, nothing

needs to change, cruel and unusual punishments aren’t

handed out like homework, caskets and body bags

are just school supplies, and riding the horns

of the day’s scapegoat down to the ground

will somehow make a difference.

That it isn’t us, it’s them.

I know why kids kill:

Because this generation’s after school specials are R-Rated.

Because at 13 you don’t know

that your entire life is ahead of you.

that somewhere out there, there is a place for you.

Because you haven’t yet learned that not everyone

is as cruel as a 13 year old, that the best revenge

is living, middle fingers in the air, waving

like wings in the receding faces

of people so far away

from you that they look

like ants

and you

like a star

in a sky

that they will never

be able to touch.

2007-06-27T17:42:00.000-04:00

Rock The Bells... So I got tickets for Kristen and I to go to Rock The Bells on July 29th on Randall's Island. This lineup is sick: Rage Against The Machine, The Wu-Tang Clan, Nas*, Cypress Hill, The Roots, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Erykah Badu*, Rakim*, EPMD, MF Doom*, Pharoahe Monch, FELT *, Sage Francis, Hieroglyphics*, Immortal Technique, Living Legends*, Blackalicious*, The Coup*, Murs*, Jedi Mind Tricks, Brother Ali*, Cage*, Mr. Lif*, Grouch & Eligh*, Hangar 18*, Blueprint* and Lucky I AM*, plus very special guests Public Enemy who celebrate their monumental 20-year anniversary. DJs on all dates are Mike Realm, C-Minus, Icy Ice and Rocky Rock. The ROCK THE BELLS festivals will be hosted by Supernatural, Rahzel and Hi-Tek. (*Performing select cities.) Challa at ya boy if you're going.

2007-06-25T19:46:00.001-04:00

Funniest Thing Ever.

I was watching the Colbert Report the other night and he talked about this drug called Alli. I've always loved all those drugs where the side effects are a million times worse than what they claim to treat. I've heard of lots of them, but this one takes the cake. The side effects for Alli include (I kid you not:

gas with oily spotting
loose stools
more frequent stools that may be hard to control

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh my God that shit is funny!!!! But it gets better. As you read on it tells you the following:

You may feel an urgent need to go to the bathroom. Until you have a sense of any treatment effects, it's probably a smart idea to wear dark pants, and bring a change of clothes with you to work.

What?!?!!?!?! Really?!?!?!

And the best part is that, were this drug for treating cancer, I could understand it, but it's a frickin' weight loss supplement.

"Hi, I could never lose weight and keep it off until I started taking Alli. While the drug itself isn't all that effective, the fact that I constantly smell like gas and perpetually shit myself has left me so depressed that I can't eat anymore. My life is a hollow shell of what it once was, I see no hope is continuing to live, and I think I just shit myself......but I look great!!!! Thank you Alli!!!

Here's the link to the page: http://myalli.com/howdoesitwork/treatmenteffects.aspx

As someone who loves absurdity, I can't think of a better time to be alive. I am truly blessed.

2007-06-05T17:59:00.000-04:00

Bulletpoints...

1. I've been relocated from Franklin Avenue to Kingston Avenue while my building undergoes renovations. I feel like I'm single-handedly embarking on a top secret mission for Project Snowflake.

2. Gentrification is everywhere these days, and for anyone who deals with this issue on a personal level, and not just as an abstract, intellectualized concept, it's a difficult issue to work through. To simply displace people from where they live is unconscionable. But living amidst crime, harassment, and urine soaked everything isn't exactly a picnic either, and none of the other solutions seem to be taking care of that. Is it that the city no longer cares about the way that people in poorer sections of the city behave, as long as they "stay where they belong"? Is it that children of the system are being raised by children of the system, where those competing senses of entitlement and having nothing lead to an utter lack of respect for your community and those you share it with? Is it simply rage and hopelessness? Culture? A plot by the powers that be to undermine upward social mobility? I have my ideas, but I keep struggling with these questions, and most of the answers that myself and those who I live around come up with are somewhat disconcerting, to say the least...

3. Unless you have lived in the hood, worked in the hood, and know something of it outside of books you have read, you don't know anything about it. Good intentions, liberal ideals, and a tendency to romanticize the experience of poverty can complete blind people to the reality of the situation....and to the fact that there are plenty of good, hard-working people struggling to get by alongside people who make gentrification seem like an attractive option....and plenty of them would just as soon see their rents increase if it meant that they could live in a nice, clean, and safe place.

4. The entire issue comes down to reasonably priced housing, and the extent to which the city is committed to maintaining a working class population in this city....or is it the case that "the help" (anyone making less than six figures annually) will be expected to commute into the city to serve our corporate masters and overseers...a domestic immigrant worker program....second class citizens...hell, it's obvious that those of us who aren't wealthy are considered second class citizens, why not formalize it? No....that would be too honest. People might get upset, stop watching television, buying things. We can't have that.

5. Yeah....enough of that. Damn. Christopher, Bobby, and Sylvio are dead.....on the Sopranos. now, if they would have had as much action in the last TWO SEASONS as they had on Sunday, Kristen wouldn't have resorted to renaming "The Sopranos" as "Sitting".

6. I think that she did that in response to me calling Grey's Anatomy "Feelings." I'm a McDick.

7. I managed to pick up some windfall books, since Oscar and Juan both abandoned them. Well, technically there's still a lot of stuff laying there on the apartment floor, but Oscar said that he has already taken all the stuff he needed, and Juan went AWOL. So yeah, I'm reaping the profits of having mah trusty Latinhoes in da Snackbox!!! That's right Oscar, I've got your books!!! Bring it beeyotch!!! Jack McCarthy sucka, and you ain't never gettin' it back!!!!....LOL!!!!!!

8. Kristen is the most adorable creature to ever exist. It's hard to talk about it, since we inhabit our own world, completely separate and distinct from everyday reality--and since most people I know would be either disgusted or terrified if I went into details. We have named over 50 inanimate objects in the apartment, including everything from blankets and pillows to our own anatomy. We have devised systems and classificatory schemes within the realm of this mutual universe. It is completely bizarre, alternately brilliant and infantile, and makes each day that much more of a pleasure to live. No matter how horrible of a day I'm having she always makes it better. She's the most giving, nurturing, patient person I've ever met, and one of the very few who knows how to deal with me. She's a diminutive little Asian package of happiness incarnate and I'd be lost without her.

9. And part of me feels horrible for it....because being so contented takes what little bit of sociability of demolishes it. Sociability for me has always been about trying to distract myself from having to think about things, and with her around, I don't particularly need distraction, or intoxication. Going out has always been incredibly difficult for me, and the only thing that has compelled me to continue going out has been, alternately, a sense of loyalty to people who have been there for me--and in the past--an overwhelming sense of loneliness and despair, which I knew would never go away living in a self-contained vacuum. And while one part of me feels horribly guilty for not going out more, and for allowing myself to simply take respite in this happiness, another part of me is completely relieved to not have to go out every night for no other reason than that the routine of going out was the only thing keeping me from simply packing it in and giving up. It's immensely difficult for me to go out and simply "be" with other people. I can do it at work because there's a reason for me to be there. But to simply hang out and "be" with other people is so horribly nerve-wracking that honestly can't go out without drinking--and part of me doesn't want to have to drink every day for the sake of having a social life. So yeah, in summation, I'm a McDick.

10. I signed up for a TIAA-CREF SRA. I feel old.

11. I strained my hamstring in my sleep the other night. I feel REALLY old.

12. I've had to starting watching my calories, since my metabolism apparently killed itself at some point over the last year or two. Did I mention that I feel old?

13. When I was in the process of moving I tried on some of my old jeans....and by old I mean, early twenties. I couldn't fit into them without inadvertently performing what has to be some antiquated version of liposuction, involving my stomach and a zipper, BUT, I COULD fit my entire body into one of the legs. Move over Methuselah, here I come!!!!

14. I didn't end of going on vacation in Buffalo, since the Buffalo Curse struck again and my Sabres found a way to choke in the end. And no, I didn't feel like going to Buffalo after a heartbreaking loss...which, by definition, is the only way Western New York could possibly be any more depressing (I know....I'm a hater....you know I love you deep down inside boo). That brief glimmer of hope only makes the crash that much more bleak--like having a really hot girl come onto you, only to have here steal your kidney.

14. I need to go on a trip somewhere. Where should I go?

15. This blog post is over.

16. Fin.

2007-06-02T13:35:00.000-04:00

Pushed from the Page

When I die,

tie my toe-tag around my tongue,

close my mouth, and scatter me

with the ashes from a pyre of poems,

scatter me with all that I loved.

Say he knew we are the ocean’s backwash

a wet, salty kiss pressed to pangea’s feet,

knew that he got sloppy six billionths.

that he lived his life in scribble, that his next life will be the edits

that he’s a never-ending poem written in disappearing ink, the blank sheet

and the final draft. I want the final draft burned and pushed from the page.

Say he had a thing for words,

paid conjugal visits to his dictionary

hoped to bust open the locks on his tongue

read the cracked scripture that floats

below the surface like a dead sea scroll

His family tree passed down on pages of looseleaf

so many children he owed Bic child support

a garbage can filled with a garden of abortions.

Say that he loved every person willing to forgive him

for having a voice that sounded like a dial tone

for the constant gurgle of Erie that echoed in his veins.

that he was born in a place where they cracked shivers open

and scraped them for nourishment, shucked open their insides

and gave themselves to each other, the sweet, almost too ripe fruit

bruised like sky, under clouds that blistered like welts, majored in escape,

minored in cartography, threshed the tainted meat of their brains harvesting flashbacks

a small town hunger that stripped everything raw, leaving behind only dream and bone.

Say that when it came to women, he had a glass jaw

and a desert between his teeth, a window in his throat,

a wet dream in his veins, a blue light special in his eyes

a peep show in his heart, but dripping neon the color of a stop sign

a kiss like a wrecking ball at the door, but inside a heart like an abandoned building.

Say that he loved every woman

who blinded him with her beauty

whose body language he read like Braille

who left him speechless, deaf and mute

fingers ringing.

That he burned at both ends

in a city that never slept, but always gave him a place to lay his head

to turn to ash, the glass never half empty or full, the glass was packed

and on his good days he had a smile that lit up like a quarter pound.

I want to be eulogized by beggars who call me a brother,

to be missed by loners who welcomed me

into their lonely rooms and offices.

To fall asleep with a mouth ready to rest, having tasted better days.

Say that on multiple occasions

he tested positive for life,

knew that it was a terminal condition.

He was being treated with a regimen

of sunrises and sunsets. He is currently in remission.

2007-05-05T19:39:00.000-04:00

Please!!!....I Could Play That With A Toothpick and And Some Dental Floss!

2007-05-02T17:20:00.000-04:00

1. My name is Matthew and I have a problem. I am hopelessly addicted to watching bad reality TV shows. And the worst part is that I have descended into that horrible place where you are watching spin-offs of spin-offs: The Surreal Life begat Flavor of Love begat twin I Love New York and Charm School spin-offs...and I watch all of them. This is my brain's raging sense of resentment. All of these shows are great in a watching a horrible car wreck before your eyes kind of way. Example (for anyone who watched the show)---that guy "Romance" on I Love New York. I have no words.

2. RIP Kurt Vonnegut. Thinking back, he was probably the reason I ever started to write in the first place, and reading him always reminds me why I need to, even when I feel like nothing more than giving up. He would have hated sappy eulogies, and would have definitely hated anyone intimating that he was anywhere but dead and gone. We'll miss you Kurt....and no, we won't see you soon ;-)

3. I'm horribly attracted to Avril Lavigne and I hate myself for it. There is no excuse for this.

4. Heroes is the best new show on television, and might be the best show period. That show is flat out sick. Probably the only show I'd put in the same class as 24. Entourage ain't far off either.

5. And then there's "Feelings", which is what I call Grey's Anatomy (in a really cheesy Nicholas Cage-esque voice--see: City of Angels), which I've been suckered into watching. Apparently no relationship can be without that one show that you get sucked into watching because your girl watches it. First there was 90210, then Dawson's Creek, and now Grey's Anatomy. I feel tainted....

6. I got Yankees tickets for Kristen and I this season--eight games throughout the season. Hopefully they can get their shit together before the next series against the Sox, because there's nothing worse than losing to the Sox at Yankee Stadium in front of Sox fans with the audacity to come to Yankee Stadium. Matty gonna cut a bitch!

7. I'm moving soon...not sure exactly when yet, while the snackbox undergoes renovations. I'm having a couple people over for the De La Hoya-Mayweather fight this weekend, and then my lil bro is coming down. I'll probably be moving shortly thereafter.

8. I can barely write lately. This blog isn't helping. It feels like a chore, and I have next to nothing to say. Whatever. I tried. Maybe I'll post again soon. Maybe not.

Hope all ya'll are well out there.

Peace.

2007-04-12T23:09:00.000-04:00

The Man

In the dilapidated ruin of America’s worst nightmare, the woman upstairs

is manifest content incarnate. When the war on poverty takes off

all its pretty makeup you will uncover the blight of her face, cringe

at a uterus paper-cut from the paychecks it has birthed, count

her babies daddies on her stretch marks like you can count years on the rings

of the tree. Love thy neighbor is a commandment dictated by a God who knew nothing

of chicken wing bones and used tampons in the hallways of a pantheon. I am

out of cheeks to turn and she is armed for a war, crouched behind a barricade

of OE bottles, discarded babies, and empty backpacks, blaring mind-numbing bass

at 3:00 in the morning.

It’s hard to sleep living underneath a stereotype that blares as loudly as this.

The psychological warfare of her reveille waking me up to a battle fought

on all the wrong fronts, swinging back at a moving target and I keep getting in the way,

while I pay for her to sit around shell shocked, funding her war instead of the one that kills

people who’ve done far less to me than she has, the kind of alcoholic war vet that makes children born under war torn skies safer. The people of Baghdad would give her the key to the city

if she promised not give copies to three-dozen of her friends. She is the reason being

serenaded by gunshots is only the second worst part of living in my building.

I didn’t hate her: the first six times she flooded my apartment, the first three times she stole my cable, when pleas for sleep were answered with decibels, when dirty looks littered the hallways

of the building, when I was christened “cracker-ass white boy” thinking that I smell like a pocket full of moldy cash, and her the hand that gropes in my pocket. I didn’t hate her, because to hate her was to take a fuzzy picture of a rumored monster and bring it screaming into focus, to become Dr. Frankenstein in taking the picture, to lend my name to that monster. I felt an immense need

to hide her from the Pat Buchanans of the world, like Anne Frank of Crown Heights only not nearly as sympathetic a character, like the information gathered from torturing me would break the New Deal’s withered body in two.

Like what stands in the vast expanse between myself and a burning cross, a white hood

and a MOVE bombing, between Emmett Till and a date with the Tallahatchie River

is a pale, desperate, twisting knowledge that I could never wade in those waters,

but I can never get far enough away from the terrifying water’s edge,

and I wonder how easy it is to slip on that muddy, bloodstained bank.

I wrote a novel, tracing the noose of her lifeline tried

to lift it into a halo, or at least a crown of thorns,

but at 800 convoluted pages, it’s a story even she

wouldn’t buy. I used to think that

one day she just cracked, like the soundtrack

of an antebellum nightmare, but sequels start to sound the same

the more you see them, and the blood on my hands disappears

faster than I clean them, and her blood smells nothing like

what I’m used to eating, and I can’t stomach this taste.

The only thing that I have ever been afraid to hate is the blinding light of her skin,

The terrible reflection of this ugly mirror I want to shatter, reflecting so much

over my shoulder, but to hate her is not to hate her skin, or the mirror, it is only to hate

her.

This is my crime—

It is a bloodless crime, with a bloody confession. Some

are the opposite of victimless, crimes without

a criminal, a rap sheet without an owner. When you fit

a description, skin alone becomes an indictment.

The Norman Rockwell caricature of my face

a walking wanted poster for The Man.

How will I recognize his face in my own

if I have never looked in that mirror?

recognize his words in my mouth

without hearing my own confession?

know if his crime is my crime

if I have never asked these questions?

--looked at the evidence against me

and tried my hardest to prove it.

2007-03-25T20:56:00.000-04:00

Checkpoint

Today a pregnant Iraqi woman

was shot to death

at a U.S. military checkpoint.

Call it a pre-emptive strike.

Two birds

a stone

a glass house

ground into sand.

The U.S. military releases a statement

like nerve gas,

calls this regrettable,

which is like calling an immoral war

poorly executed.

A nation aimlessly flips through channels,

falls asleep watching a rerun.

Its citizens caught mid-pose

in a sitcom style smile and shrug.

A moon executes the sun

and calls darkness a new beginning.

A monarchy’s second set of fangs

cut through the skin.

Its shitty diaper.

Its terrible two-hundreds.

A war criminal in soiled big boy pants

talks about justice.

When he speaks of war and death

there is a glint in his eye, a child

with a magnifying glass hovering

over an anthill, too dull to know

the damage he inflicts.

Somewhere a bomb drops from the sky

like overly ripe fruit gone bad

falling from a tree.

A seed

is planted

in the sand.

A hungry mouth

is grown with a windblown desert

between its teeth,

gargling on the world’s backwash.

An oasis goes catatonic

and forgets its name.

A nation’s geography

reshaped by a sandstorm

into a bruise.

A democratic color by numbers

chokes back amnesia.

The world’s womb

stomachs

an unwanted abortion.

A miscarriage misnamed revolution.

An apocalypse of blown candles.

An empty cradle.

A wrong turn.

A misread legend.

And a bullet to guide

like a star in a sky as black

as a hangman’s innocent hood.

2007-02-22T23:49:00.000-05:00

For Virginia--A New Poem

because the Mexican man said “why

the fuck is this monkey talking to me?”

because without saying a word the woman

at the churro stand handed her a tissue

to stem the stream of tears now forming in

her eyes, because the Puerto Rican boys

always told him that Mexicans are basura,

because the white boys always called

the Puerto Ricans dirty Mexicans,

because the words “hey white boy” always

preceded the first punch, because The Man

fired daddy and he wore rings and he was so

much bigger than me, because spic liked to

linger on his daddy’s drunken breath, because

the man behind the counter of the Mexican

restaurant always seemed so kind, because

kind is easy, because easy is what

we like to pound until the hardness goes

away, because he couldn’t leave the house,

because the world doesn’t wait, because those

black fists disfigured his face so bad his

children couldn’t recognize their father,

because he couldn’t feed his family,

because by the time that basura fell

from his mouth the churro stand was all he

had, because the woman standing in front

of him was kind, because she was easy,

because the white boy, because the spic,

because the monkey, because an eye for

an eye, because the 500 year long

tear sliding down her face, because you know

how it tastes, because her cheek was turned,

because like a fire it burns, because we

are the ones who feed it.

2007-02-10T22:27:00.000-05:00

Poem for the Classmates.com Advertisement that says “She Married Him? And They Have Seven Kids?”

If those children were not evidence of their love

then they would not seem so miraculous. But she

is all beak and lens and he is all teeth and gel.

There is no aesthetic justice in this.

We want the head cheerleader and the quarterback

to end up together, prom kings and queens to fulfill

their clichéd birthright—even if it is only so we that

can hate them. We want class reunions where nerds

bring back millions and laugh in the faces

of gold digging divas well past their prime,

the fat kid to come back with a six pack

and a tummy tuck. The kid that no one

remembers to come back a star.

But ugly and beautiful are not supposed to mix. Beauty is

only skin deep, but to not get the kind of gorgeous

that makes you want to gouge out your eyes,

there’s got a be a damned good reason.

We think that she has wrecked the curve, that he

has underachieved, that there has to be some kind

of remarkable explanation. So we click this link with

morbid fascination, thinking she nursed him

through a tragic car accident, or that the

molded plastic of her face caught his eye

in just the right way a spent life savings later.

Something about whips and chains and ping pong balls.

But real life is not nearly so interesting. Beauty is a threat

that holds love at gunpoint, and eventually we tire of standoffs.

We cultivate rap sheets that pose as personal ads, consummate

conjugal visits masquerading as marriages, build relationships

that end in shoot-outs. We fall prey to the basic con, thinking

that love itself is too trite to fall for.

But he will not hear this, knows that in an age of celebrities

who bear luxury children to wear them like diamond studded

accessories, his story is as hackneyed as they come—

that sometimes clichés can be beautiful.

So he ignores the stares. Cares more about the way his children

weather storms of snickers wherever they go. They are his children,

and they have learned his lessons. They know that love is not something

to be traded for the fleeting promise of flesh, and that unless they fall prey

to a logic that pimps providence one mouse-click at a time they will be okay.

And he knows that he could never have asked for anything more.

That his class was right all those years ago

when they voted him most likely to succeed.

That he loves the withering ruin

Of his wife’s aging face, each

of his seven beautiful children.

That what he loves most of all

is the way that each of them

looks exactly like their mother.

2007-01-21T19:48:00.000-05:00

How Lucky Can You Get?...

The New England Patriots are, hands down, the luckiest team in the history of the NFL (I won't even go into seasons past). You fumble to ball on fourth down, the ball rolls into a pile of three Colts, and then manages to squirt into the End zone for a N.E. TD?!?!

Or how about last week when San Diego (Marlon McCree) intercepts a ball on fourth down and then manages to fumble the ball back to New England who get a new set of downs. All the guy had to do was knock the ball to the ground or take a knee and the game's pretty much over. OR, how about the time the New England got stopped on fourth down and dumbass Drayton Florence gets hit with an unnecessary roughness penalty after the play, giving New England another first down.

Bill Bellichek has clearly sold his soul to the devil...

And Peyton Manning needs to start thinking about doing the same thing...

2007-01-18T20:55:00.001-05:00

You scored as Bragi.

Bragi

80%

Njord

70%

Loki

70%

Balder

60%

Freya

60%

Tyr

60%

Hel

50%

Odin

40%

Freyr

40%

Frigg

40%

Sif

40%

Thor

40%

Heimdall

30%

Skadi

30%

Which Norse God or Goddess are you most like?
created with QuizFarm.com

2007-01-16T18:07:00.000-05:00

In Honor Of The Rejects....

I seriously can't bear to watch American Idol.....once they've narrowed it down to decent singers. But the auditions themselves are absolutely priceless. Aside from trying to figure out whether someone is actually going to be able to back up their talk, the best part of the show comes in the form of the rejects. In honor of a new season of rejects, I present my all time favorite American Idol Rejects!!!

And Honorable Mention for this gem...

2007-01-09T18:38:00.000-05:00

Random Shit....

1. I went to Buffalo for the Holidays. Found several ungodly uses for a Kiwi (Don't try to understand. It won't make any sense). Went to a Sabres game. And I went to Build-A-Bear. To be clear, I had no fucking clue what Build-A-Bear was until I got there and there was some woman in an elf suit telling me to put my foot on a pedal so she could pump stuffing into my stuffed animal (and no, that is not the euphemism that some of you may be thinking it is). The rest of the conversation went like this:

Her: Why don't you grab one of those little hearts out of that basket and give it a kiss for me!
Me: Ummm...no.
Her: C'mon, you know you want to! Just a little kiss!
Me: Yeah.....No.
Her: C'mon J....!!!!
Me: OKAY!!! HERE!!! (I grab a heart and kiss it)
Her: There you go!!! You're all set! Now you need to get in the next line for your birth certificate!!! Then you get into that line and you can clothe and accessorize your penguin!!! And after that you can get into our hugging circle!!!
Me: Your What??? Ummm....can I just leave now?
Her: (Sensing that I think she's out of her mind) Stuffed animals need kisses and hugs!!
Me: (Thinking, Lady you're like 38 and I'm clearly not a kid....and realizing that trying to talk sense to this clearly deranged and morally depraved woman is useless....Also wondering how a person can manage to insert three exclamation points at the end of every sentence with the inflection of her voice...) And occasionally some good old fashioned sodomy!!!

Okay, I didn't really say that, but if that woman could have tuned into my internal monologue, I'm thinking that my picture would be appearing on a Wanted/Banned poster in every Build-A-Bear in this hemisphere. That place is pure unadulterated evil. Evil!!!

2. Bought my Yankees ticket package for this season. May 22. Yankees-Red Sox....awwww yeah!!!

3. Why does every TV show have a Logan on it. Seriously, who names their kid Logan?!?! I mean, I'm sure that tons of douche bags are naming their kids Logan as we speak, but who was naming their kid Logan back in the seventies. Has anyone ever named their kid Logan, or is it one of those names reserved for TV characters.

4. http://www.1980-games.com/us/
This is the best website ever. I spent two hours playing Mike Tyson's Punchout. The crazy part is that I still remember that the code to Mike Tyson is 007 373 5963. Seriously, try it. It works....I'm not sure whether to be proud of myself or feel really, really lame...

5. I voted for the NHL All-Star team, and while that alone isn't interesting, what is interesting is that when you submit your ballot, you're automatically entered into a drawing to get free tickets to the All-Star Game. The Bizarre part is that in the fine print on the ballot it stipulates that Canadian fans have to pass a math test in order to win. A MATH TEST?!?! TO GO TO A HOCKEY GAME?!?! For fuck's sake, even our president doesn't have to take a math test, and if he did, imagine how different would be the world in which we live.....sigh....

6. Every time I see the commercial for the movie "Black Christmas", I can't help but laugh. The movie's a horror movie, so everything's all ominous in the commercial, and all I can picture is a black family sitting down on Christmas morning and some kid sittin' under a Christmas Tree yelling, "yo son, I got some new Tims!!!"......Dear Lord I'm Stupid!!!

7. I've been thinking about chaos theory, and it's occurred to me that this whole theory is giving butterflies a horrible rep. You know the whole "a butterfly flaps it's wings in Kansas and....etc..."
Yeah. All I can keep thinking of is some butterfly flying around the Neverland Ranch saying, "seriously, I don't care how hard I flap my wings, I have nothing to do with this!!!".....

8. New reality TV show....Wombmates (actually the term is Kristen's...being a twin and all). You take a tiny camera and throw it in a woman's womb and watch as hilarious hijinx ensues. Find out what happens when embryos stop being polite and start getting all fetus! I thought of this after seeing a video of a child in the womb and thinking, "either this woman had incredibly compelling reasons for having a camera inserted into her cooter, or she's just entirely oblivious....I'm looking at you Britney Spears!!!

Good times....Good times.....