"I am a dork" he thought, as he trudged back across the bridge from whence he slunk, having at least told the hot girl that she was; going home alone even though he was suited up for the first time ever with a lack of reason. "I know that a taller, slimmer, less sweaty man already danced with you, but I had to tell you that you are extremely hot. Now I can leave. Goodnight."
i was on the prowl, ya know? I'm like a shark with no teeth. Of course, this was after that one (straight) guy started dancing with me. I had just gotten back from the bathroom upstairs, when I was approached. "Just keep dancing" he said, as I looked about uncomfortably, humoring him, because, let's face it, I could always use some excitement, plus, I have been through these things before. "How much are your friends paying you?" I asked, knowingly.
"Forty dollars."
"I want a cut." We danced, us two straight men, for a couple of minutes.
"It's because you were alone," he mentioned, as if I needed reminding. I had just come from a different club, where I had been hanging out with some friends of mine until it got superlame. I had come to this here bar for the hour of free PBR and the 50s & 60s dance party. Hence the suiting up. The guy, his friends stiffed him. No money. Real friends would have bet him ten dollars and never welched on it.
I saw him on his cellphone as I left the club. "Nothing? Really? What's the matter," I yelled as I started walking onto the bridge, "did I not look uncomfortable enough??" Not only did I not impress the attractive woman, but I couldn't even make money being the butt of a joke. It was like high school all over again.
Of course, as I was crossing the bridge, my best friend calls me from Portland, Maine, telling me about how she just made out with a really hot girl. Not bad for someone who's been single for like ten minutes. I told her "I bet I'm the best-dressed guy who has ever walked over this bridge at 4am listening to Frog Eyes on his iPod." I'm gonna end this there because a) I don't want to get anyone else in trouble and b) I have some "pleading the 5th" of my own to do.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
This is the best photo of me, ever
Few people know of the Roren that lives under the stairs and steals away pizza in the night.
The caption is the best part.
Thank you Rob!
The caption is the best part.
Thank you Rob!
Monday, December 10, 2007
Two blogs for the price of one!!
So, this is two separate entries that I am forcing to coexist in the same space, because I think that the two, when presented back to back, clearly illustrate the dichotomy that is the true nature of my fucked-uppedness. Heartfelt apologies to the young lady who I sort of squashed in the process of coming to certain conclusions about myself, and especially for uttering the phrase “on paper” aloud, to you, the night I caused you to run out of the restaurant and subsequently delete me from your Myspace and write a blog or two about me and how your friends were kind enough to offer to TP my house, as if I were the Vice Principal at Belding High. So yeah, sorry about that. I’ll discuss that one soon. But this is about my feelings and not those of ones I’ve run roughshod upon, be it intentionally or accidentally.
12/3/07
I really wonder about myself sometimes. Is it that I am unwilling to make meaningful contact with other people (close friendships with anyone of either sex fall under this aegis), or am I just unable to actually connect with anyone who isn’t the person I’m concentrating on at the time (in a perhaps not-so-friendly way)?
I moved to the city because I felt alone and unhappy (I’m not a suburban guy, it’s just not in my nature. You can ask my uncle who lives in Chelsea about his hatred for Long Island as well, it just might stem from the same place, although maybe a little to the side), and now, like in a Dan Bern song, I’m in a city of millions, more connected than ever, and I’m still lonely.
I came to this show my friends (well, slightly more than acquaintances, but not exactly my close friends, but hugs abound when we hang out, which granted, has been a lot more infrequent since they left Long Island a few years ago)were playing, instead of going to my usual comedy show because I wanted to see familiar faces that once brought me a casual joy, to remind me of what it feels like when that human contact is made. But after the initial warmth, I’m not sure there’s anything real left there -- nothing presently, anyway. We left Long Island far behind, not just physically through all the miles we each of traveled across this great land, but emotionally and metaphysically -- the new lives, the significant others taken in and let out, new friends and jobs and the whatnot of modern existence. I used to be a part of these lives and vice versa, but now there’s this invisible wall where a common feeling once was...
12/9/07
(written the day after a wonderful night spent reconnecting with completely different friends from back on LI, some on purpose, some accidental, all leading up to my walking home practically skipping (and me a grown-ass man of 34 no less) with a shit-eating grin from ear to ear as Rosanne Cash belts out “Tennessee Flat-Top Box” on my iPod, followed, i shit you not, by Sly & The Family Stone singing “Hot Fun In The Summertime” in December as a chill wind takes the temperature down a notch from already cold -- well played, oh sardonic iPod, well played.)
Sitting in a corner café in my adopted home, sipping my mocha cappuccino and reading On The Road - The original Scroll, not focused on anything but, when the Chinese Bootleg DVD Guy (CBDG from here on out) asks me if I want to buy a movie. I absent-mindedly said “No” without consulting myself. That certainly would never happen at the Brown Dog Cafe, where all I ever saw was some group of middle-aged potential pinochle players pretending to be a book club of some sort. I know it was just a cover for them to get to know each other well enough to invite each other to clandestine swingers parties on Avenue K, on the other side of the tracks. Of course, the Brown Dog would also have delicious soup. Since this is but the first stop on my journey, I’ll make do without the soup.
It’s funny, reading this rough draft of On The Road since it’s been so long since I’ve read the published version. At least I can still hear Kerouac’s actual voice in my head as I read, from having listened to the many recordings I once owned, now lost to the Gods of the War of the Sexes, too kindly I gave these up, still wish I’d gone to Buffalo soonthereafter, broken in to take what was rightfully mine. Too much I gave up, none of it did she deserve -- in retrospect -- but so be it, may Jack’s estate benefit from my follies of youth. I wonder how Dr. Sax is these days, if Dr. Sax still is these days. That kitty cat adopted us, and I was sad to have to leave him, packing up that banana yellow volvo deathtrap for my new old life -- pressing a virtual reset button, living and working right where I had left off 4 years later.
But what I meant to say, reading this now, is that I feel like I am On The Road myself, even though I am in one place, but it’s still a foreign place, filled with secrets and mysteries to be discovered and uncovered, so much to see and do and be, I embrace it all -- so excited to just be new, or at least be the same old me in a new context. My wanderlust given room to roam, even though I have a home -- it all feels still like camping out, albeit with an urban feel, perhaps that is the wave of the future knave -- urban camping -- I am testing my mettle, seeking my limits -- how much can I afford to go out, financially and physically, before I become spent and useless, broke and toothless, traversing this vast concrete jungle that is infinite within its finite measurements, with a skip in my step and a song in my heart, so eager for the new, anticipating the old mixed in like the fruit in the bottom of the yogurt that they are now saying is bad for you because of all the sugar -- hate to say I told you so, Yo...plait dead!
12/3/07
I really wonder about myself sometimes. Is it that I am unwilling to make meaningful contact with other people (close friendships with anyone of either sex fall under this aegis), or am I just unable to actually connect with anyone who isn’t the person I’m concentrating on at the time (in a perhaps not-so-friendly way)?
I moved to the city because I felt alone and unhappy (I’m not a suburban guy, it’s just not in my nature. You can ask my uncle who lives in Chelsea about his hatred for Long Island as well, it just might stem from the same place, although maybe a little to the side), and now, like in a Dan Bern song, I’m in a city of millions, more connected than ever, and I’m still lonely.
I came to this show my friends (well, slightly more than acquaintances, but not exactly my close friends, but hugs abound when we hang out, which granted, has been a lot more infrequent since they left Long Island a few years ago)were playing, instead of going to my usual comedy show because I wanted to see familiar faces that once brought me a casual joy, to remind me of what it feels like when that human contact is made. But after the initial warmth, I’m not sure there’s anything real left there -- nothing presently, anyway. We left Long Island far behind, not just physically through all the miles we each of traveled across this great land, but emotionally and metaphysically -- the new lives, the significant others taken in and let out, new friends and jobs and the whatnot of modern existence. I used to be a part of these lives and vice versa, but now there’s this invisible wall where a common feeling once was...
12/9/07
(written the day after a wonderful night spent reconnecting with completely different friends from back on LI, some on purpose, some accidental, all leading up to my walking home practically skipping (and me a grown-ass man of 34 no less) with a shit-eating grin from ear to ear as Rosanne Cash belts out “Tennessee Flat-Top Box” on my iPod, followed, i shit you not, by Sly & The Family Stone singing “Hot Fun In The Summertime” in December as a chill wind takes the temperature down a notch from already cold -- well played, oh sardonic iPod, well played.)
Sitting in a corner café in my adopted home, sipping my mocha cappuccino and reading On The Road - The original Scroll, not focused on anything but, when the Chinese Bootleg DVD Guy (CBDG from here on out) asks me if I want to buy a movie. I absent-mindedly said “No” without consulting myself. That certainly would never happen at the Brown Dog Cafe, where all I ever saw was some group of middle-aged potential pinochle players pretending to be a book club of some sort. I know it was just a cover for them to get to know each other well enough to invite each other to clandestine swingers parties on Avenue K, on the other side of the tracks. Of course, the Brown Dog would also have delicious soup. Since this is but the first stop on my journey, I’ll make do without the soup.
It’s funny, reading this rough draft of On The Road since it’s been so long since I’ve read the published version. At least I can still hear Kerouac’s actual voice in my head as I read, from having listened to the many recordings I once owned, now lost to the Gods of the War of the Sexes, too kindly I gave these up, still wish I’d gone to Buffalo soonthereafter, broken in to take what was rightfully mine. Too much I gave up, none of it did she deserve -- in retrospect -- but so be it, may Jack’s estate benefit from my follies of youth. I wonder how Dr. Sax is these days, if Dr. Sax still is these days. That kitty cat adopted us, and I was sad to have to leave him, packing up that banana yellow volvo deathtrap for my new old life -- pressing a virtual reset button, living and working right where I had left off 4 years later.
But what I meant to say, reading this now, is that I feel like I am On The Road myself, even though I am in one place, but it’s still a foreign place, filled with secrets and mysteries to be discovered and uncovered, so much to see and do and be, I embrace it all -- so excited to just be new, or at least be the same old me in a new context. My wanderlust given room to roam, even though I have a home -- it all feels still like camping out, albeit with an urban feel, perhaps that is the wave of the future knave -- urban camping -- I am testing my mettle, seeking my limits -- how much can I afford to go out, financially and physically, before I become spent and useless, broke and toothless, traversing this vast concrete jungle that is infinite within its finite measurements, with a skip in my step and a song in my heart, so eager for the new, anticipating the old mixed in like the fruit in the bottom of the yogurt that they are now saying is bad for you because of all the sugar -- hate to say I told you so, Yo...plait dead!
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Thursday Morning 3AM
So, tonight was my first time checking out Kingdom of Heaven at The Creek & The Cave in Long Island City. I gotta say it was totally awesome. I got a little too drunk on Stoudt's Winter Ale (it was very stout-like), plus a free yeungling! I had birthday cake (thanks Melissa's parents!) and talked about Beowulf in 3-D sucking, kind of, while comedians played shuffleboard, just like my crazy grandfather used to (he refered to himself as "Wild Bill").
Anyways, I had some random thoughts that recovering from being drunk at 3am and feeling the need to share retarded non-sequiturs to get them out of my dreams (and into your car)....
Dear argyle socks that I bought at Target two months ago,
Why the fuck do you have a hole in the toe already. I've worn you maybe three times total. Douchesocks! Not only was it weird that my feet were sliding around inside my shoes because of you, but nobody even noticed I was wearing argyle socks. What's the fucking point if nobody sees them??
Dear Times Square Subway Tunnels (specifically, the part near the 7 Train),
You are freaking awesome! In a total of 12 steps (yes, that's a joke, but not far off the actual count), I received a flier for The Church of Scientology AND some kind of kooky apocalyptic Christian propaganda that I can't look at right now because I'll probably get nightmares (thanks, Grandma Flo). I collect all this crazy shit, so thank you! I also recently acquired a free Book of Mormon from a hotel in Reston Virginia! Who knew? So, not only do I have my Jew Bible (I have at least two mini-Torahs, a tiny Tanakah (not the breath spray, silly Gentiles!), two different Haggadahs, the New Union Prayer Book, the Jewish Book of Why (not the Jewish Book of Whine, though), AND the Book of J), but I also have a tiny New Testament that my college roommate Hoka gave me (complete with a dedication to read a certain line!), several Chick tracts, and a book on how Rudy Giuliani is a fascist dictator-type (or the devil himself, whichever..tomayto, tomahto). I have a lot of religious studies to catch up on. I think I'll finish Ulysses first, though.
Dear belt buckles (I knew a guy named John Buckles in Buffalo...any relation?),
Why the fuck do you keep itching my belly and making it red? Stop it, it's not nice!
And one more thing before I call it a night before waking up still drunk in four and a half hours for work...
Did you know you can microwave spaghetti squash? I didn't until the little sticker on the actual squash told me so. Yay, microwavable spaghetti squash - for the drunk and hungry asshole who can't wait 40 minutes to eat squash at 2am while watching an episode of "Smallville" from November 1st (spoiler alert - family reunions make me weepy, and this proved no exception. Finding out that Kira was the one who named Clark Kal-El and that her dad wanted to have sex with Helen Slater (well, can you blame him, she still looks good) was kinda awesome. But I digress).
Just be careful, though. It says to let stand for five minutes. Well, let me tell you something. I let it stand for maybe 7 minutes (I was dealing with some rogue asparagus), and it was still TOO HOT to hold, and I used to hold hot pieces of lead in my hands for work as a kid, so this was way too hot.
Oh and I lied. I just remembered a conversation I had with a co-worker this morning about Dunkin Donuts. He was saying how when your mom (or someone like a mom) makes doughnuts and bread and coffee, etc. that each item has it's own distinctive taste. Yet, he said, everything at Dunking Donuts tastes the same. The coffee, the donuts, the bagels, etc. He said that it's like they are all covered in the same coating (I suggested that it was really all coated in the soul of the "Time To Make The Donuts" guy now that he is dead. At least he can live on in your Bostom Creme! "Time to make the donuts. I AM the donuts!"
Anyways, I had some random thoughts that recovering from being drunk at 3am and feeling the need to share retarded non-sequiturs to get them out of my dreams (and into your car)....
Dear argyle socks that I bought at Target two months ago,
Why the fuck do you have a hole in the toe already. I've worn you maybe three times total. Douchesocks! Not only was it weird that my feet were sliding around inside my shoes because of you, but nobody even noticed I was wearing argyle socks. What's the fucking point if nobody sees them??
Dear Times Square Subway Tunnels (specifically, the part near the 7 Train),
You are freaking awesome! In a total of 12 steps (yes, that's a joke, but not far off the actual count), I received a flier for The Church of Scientology AND some kind of kooky apocalyptic Christian propaganda that I can't look at right now because I'll probably get nightmares (thanks, Grandma Flo). I collect all this crazy shit, so thank you! I also recently acquired a free Book of Mormon from a hotel in Reston Virginia! Who knew? So, not only do I have my Jew Bible (I have at least two mini-Torahs, a tiny Tanakah (not the breath spray, silly Gentiles!), two different Haggadahs, the New Union Prayer Book, the Jewish Book of Why (not the Jewish Book of Whine, though), AND the Book of J), but I also have a tiny New Testament that my college roommate Hoka gave me (complete with a dedication to read a certain line!), several Chick tracts, and a book on how Rudy Giuliani is a fascist dictator-type (or the devil himself, whichever..tomayto, tomahto). I have a lot of religious studies to catch up on. I think I'll finish Ulysses first, though.
Dear belt buckles (I knew a guy named John Buckles in Buffalo...any relation?),
Why the fuck do you keep itching my belly and making it red? Stop it, it's not nice!
And one more thing before I call it a night before waking up still drunk in four and a half hours for work...
Did you know you can microwave spaghetti squash? I didn't until the little sticker on the actual squash told me so. Yay, microwavable spaghetti squash - for the drunk and hungry asshole who can't wait 40 minutes to eat squash at 2am while watching an episode of "Smallville" from November 1st (spoiler alert - family reunions make me weepy, and this proved no exception. Finding out that Kira was the one who named Clark Kal-El and that her dad wanted to have sex with Helen Slater (well, can you blame him, she still looks good) was kinda awesome. But I digress).
Just be careful, though. It says to let stand for five minutes. Well, let me tell you something. I let it stand for maybe 7 minutes (I was dealing with some rogue asparagus), and it was still TOO HOT to hold, and I used to hold hot pieces of lead in my hands for work as a kid, so this was way too hot.
Oh and I lied. I just remembered a conversation I had with a co-worker this morning about Dunkin Donuts. He was saying how when your mom (or someone like a mom) makes doughnuts and bread and coffee, etc. that each item has it's own distinctive taste. Yet, he said, everything at Dunking Donuts tastes the same. The coffee, the donuts, the bagels, etc. He said that it's like they are all covered in the same coating (I suggested that it was really all coated in the soul of the "Time To Make The Donuts" guy now that he is dead. At least he can live on in your Bostom Creme! "Time to make the donuts. I AM the donuts!"
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Random Thoughts Before Bed - 11/26/07
I started writing a piece for a blog earlier today, but it isn't done yet. The four of you probably don't want to read an unfinished thought that spans 3/4 of a page. I mean, if you want, I can post it, but that only means I have to finish it soon so that I can post part two, which if you read the last blog that I didn't finish before posting, you know it doesn't work out so well.Enough about that. I'm going to sleep soon, but before I do, let me just say that I'm in the process of re-watching "Freaks and Geeks" on my roommate's DVDs (my brother used to have the deluxe super-cool version that came in the yearbook with two bonus discs, but someone fucking stole it), and I just have to say again how much I love this show. Yet more proof that people in charge of network TV hate everything I hold dear. It'll be great when I start writing for real. It'll be like Larry David's stint on SNL, where they only aired ONE of his sketches.
So, I was watching the Pilot episode, the one with the school dance. I thought about how I was always into the Lindsay Weir type girl -- smart and hot, but damaged and trying not to be smart. Sort of like the female version of how I viewed myself back then (although I didn't think I was hot...apparently, neither did the girls in my school). I'm pretty sure a cheerleader (and a senior at that!) did like me my junior year, and I know I liked her a lot, but I was too wrapped up in being an outcast listening to The Cure and The Smiths (before it was cool to like these bands outside of a John Hughes film). In particular, I remember a scene from the day we had a field trip to the Vanderbilt Planetarium. I may have even held her hand in the dark. All I remember is that while waiting for a ride home from the school, she looked at me longingly (I did not know what this meant back then) and I shit you not, she said "Why are you so far away?" probably not even realizing that she had just quoted my 7th favorite Cure song at that time ("Perfect Girl", "Pictures of You", "2 Late", "How Beautiful You Are" and "Charlotte Sometimes" outranked it, and "Like Cockatoos" fucking destroyed every other song on the planet to me at the time...O Robert Smith, wherefore art thou?).
I think that at the Planetarium, she and someone else had said that I should raise my hand and ask "Where's the Little Dipper?" or something at a weird moment. I probably could have made out with her if I had. Why was I such a stick in the mud? Did it have anything to do with being a "Mathlete?" Technically, it was called MESH (Math English Science History), and I was always more of a EH-xpert myself (math started eluding me in 7th grade, around the time the Space Shuttle blew up and I got a 49 on an algebra test. I thought my head was gonna explode after that). I never got to dance with her. Not like Sam danced with Cindy to "Come Sail Away." In fact, I'm pretty sure that any girl I tried to dance with turned her back to me as soon as I came near them.Wow, I have to be awake in 5 hours. Awesome!Oh, and in the one in 100, 000, 000 chance that you're reading this, Linda Cardellini, stop by and say hello.
So, I was watching the Pilot episode, the one with the school dance. I thought about how I was always into the Lindsay Weir type girl -- smart and hot, but damaged and trying not to be smart. Sort of like the female version of how I viewed myself back then (although I didn't think I was hot...apparently, neither did the girls in my school). I'm pretty sure a cheerleader (and a senior at that!) did like me my junior year, and I know I liked her a lot, but I was too wrapped up in being an outcast listening to The Cure and The Smiths (before it was cool to like these bands outside of a John Hughes film). In particular, I remember a scene from the day we had a field trip to the Vanderbilt Planetarium. I may have even held her hand in the dark. All I remember is that while waiting for a ride home from the school, she looked at me longingly (I did not know what this meant back then) and I shit you not, she said "Why are you so far away?" probably not even realizing that she had just quoted my 7th favorite Cure song at that time ("Perfect Girl", "Pictures of You", "2 Late", "How Beautiful You Are" and "Charlotte Sometimes" outranked it, and "Like Cockatoos" fucking destroyed every other song on the planet to me at the time...O Robert Smith, wherefore art thou?).
I think that at the Planetarium, she and someone else had said that I should raise my hand and ask "Where's the Little Dipper?" or something at a weird moment. I probably could have made out with her if I had. Why was I such a stick in the mud? Did it have anything to do with being a "Mathlete?" Technically, it was called MESH (Math English Science History), and I was always more of a EH-xpert myself (math started eluding me in 7th grade, around the time the Space Shuttle blew up and I got a 49 on an algebra test. I thought my head was gonna explode after that). I never got to dance with her. Not like Sam danced with Cindy to "Come Sail Away." In fact, I'm pretty sure that any girl I tried to dance with turned her back to me as soon as I came near them.Wow, I have to be awake in 5 hours. Awesome!Oh, and in the one in 100, 000, 000 chance that you're reading this, Linda Cardellini, stop by and say hello.
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