More photographs in your future. But not many here, nor the verbal assault. For that, look for me Elsewhere. I still write, and more than ever.



Above: Ween.



Above: Ween, naturally lighted.



Above: Ween.

As promised, this blog has slowed. I am Elsewhere, but I haven't forgotten those of you who check in here now and then.

Last weekend, I went to the wedding of an old neighbor. Inherent in my enjoyment of the afternoon and evening was Tara. Those photos, if they're viewable from your seat, are just a few relaxed shots. There are more, but none of them show the depth of intelligence and warmth she possesses. She is something.

I am sick. I cough like anything. I'm stuffed up. My voice went away and then came back. I haven't gone to the doctor; I trust the crappy items from the drug store. I am stupid like that.

Angelina, who was vacationing in Delaware for two weeks (thanks to a long game of hide and seek), is back in Hoboken, and she's a bit sweeter for it. Some believe otherwise, but I can see it in her. She's glad that I'm alive, I think. I can't ask for much more from her. She's something else.

I have to use the restroom.

Short-lived, but quite true to life 20 minutes into the future. Am I the only one who remembers?

Bought one. With more ink. And a neat, bendable miniature black tripod. And papers. Now, if I had an online thumbnail section of my photographs, you could support me with more than donations of fellatio.

It's sleepy, and I'm late.

I haven't done one yet. I've been invited to a bunch of tryouts for MTV shows, and few have grabbed me. It's nothing exclusive -- you, too, can be added to the list of people who receive garbled messages through e-mail, which come replete with misused variations of "your" and other such difficult English terms. Lately, they've been pleading for people to try out for their new "Becoming: Wannabe's" series. Yeah. You sing the most poppy of pop songs, which, of course, are selected by the rebellious bad-asses at eMpTy tV. I mean, if you want to do this, you're more or less getting the gig. They'll put a live band behind you, add stage effects, and you sing a song before a live audience. It sounds great, but the latest pleas are for people to Wannabe the Backstreet Boys and InSink. (No notes, please. I'm aware of that last word.) Besides that, there are the usual MTV blowjob givers: Fred Durst. Britney Spears. Eminem. Jay-Z. Jennifer Lopez (I'm not going to call her by that lazy-ass shorthand name anymore. What a joke.). In other words, the music they're asking you to sing sucks. It's played out, and they want it played out more by people who have no experience ruining songs. So it's a copy of a copy of shit.

But to the point, now. A girl I know is a v.j. on MTV2. I've met her once, but she's friends with another girl I know quite well. She sent out word that there'll be an outdoor barbeque/boozefest/party this Thursday at noon at Chelsea Piers. It'll be taped and will air on MTV2 on Memorial Day, which, for those of you who are as oblivious as I am to the calendar of the outside world, is Monday.

Details for you:
| Thursday. Be there by 11:30 a.m.
| Chelsea Piers (around 23rd & the West Side Highway).
| The dock at the Frying Pan.
| Food and drink will be served.
| Dress -- and this is straight from the broad's message -- dress casual. More cleavage means more airtime. (Girls, you, too, may consider showing cleavage.)

Me? I probably won't go. Eleven-thirty is early for me. But if you're in the area, even if I don't know you, let me know that you want to drop in for an hour or less or more. We'll go. Might as well. Get on television. Be a moo-cow. Oh! Music Television is so with the now! It's in the know! Hey! What of that Carson Daly! What a smart fellow, yes? Ho!

Seriously, this chick Abby -- she does some countdown once a week, and it gets replayed e v e r y a f t e r n o o n -- she's a cutie. Sort of like Ms. Lopez, except a bit trimmer. Yes, good now. Let's say goodnight.

I want to be 15. I want to go back and be who I wasn't. I want to not listen. I want to not waste. I want to fucking qualify as a genious at something, and it seems the only way to do that is to have started bucking long ago. I took too long. I'm 24, and I'm an old man. I want to be Tony Alva.



I've been wanting to see this movie for a while. It's not a movie, really. It's a documentary. "Dogtown and Z-Boys." Went to the Angelika Film Center on Houston Street for an afternoon show. Sean Penn narrates, which is fitting. Jeff Spicoli, his character in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," would have fit right in with the Zephyr skate team.

This thing is like a jagged, intelligent, true music video. Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix and Ted Nugent and Black Sabbath and and just buy the fucking soundtrack already. The cinematography is just livid. It's a collection of scarred vintage footage and photographs from the early 1970s, and still it manages to zig and zag and open and close and swim and jump and yell and f l o a t away into the Neveragain. It was created by members of the original crew, and that makes me flip. So many talents.

I'm thinking about buying a skateboard. The one I have at home -- well, there are two, but my first board was this little rubbery-plastic blue getup that wasn't much of anything -- is old and white and has a drab design. Still has the thin plastic guard rails alongside the left and right of its belly. They're horribly intact. I wasn't much of a skater. I couldn't even master the ollie.

Now I find myself playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 on my roommate's PlayStation 2, and I'm fixed. It's incredibly vivid. But I want to drag my fingertips along the asphalt as I squat like a bent rubber stem above my liquid feet. I want to drain a swimming pool and get some other kids and sli i i ide up the side and off the lip and into the air, and just for an instant, and then maybe fall and crash and scrape the skin off my knees and tear my shorts and watch the sounds of my board skidding to the shallow end with its wheels whirring in the air.

Where'd it go, man? Where that youth? Where that body? Where that attitude. I'll tell you where that attitude. I've grown it now. I made it sometime recently. Maybe it's still growing. I know it is. And if I had it back then, back when I was a kid, maybe I'd have done some things I should've done. Which is to say, maybe I'd have done some things I shouldn't have done. Which is to say, maybe I'd be stronger.

||| .on another note. |||
"The X-Files" ended six minutes ago. I am at work. My mom taped it for me. Two hours of resolutions, but I doubt it. Movies in the future. Cris Carter says so. I remember first flipping the channel to watch what I thought was supposed to be an "Unsolved Mysteries" sort of program. Instead, I got invisible elephants clamoring stompily down a long road, pulverizing cars and the people inside them. I fell in love. And then I invented the word stompily.

||| .warning. |||
I have taken residence Elsewhere. My posts dwindle here. Write me, and maybe I'll send you the address. Also, maybe not. Just know that I've opted for an approach that favors the less civilized part of my personality. It's often raw, which does not mean it's poorly written. Just means it's raw. If you take offense, take the next train.

Addendum to previous entry: After lunch at the Gramercy Park Cafe, we went to Fifth Avenue to look at some stores. Outside Express, a man was selling handbags that he had made and on which he had painted. Tara was smitten. He also was selling sketches and paintings. I asked him about the process of selling such items on the street. Told me all I needed to do was to get a tax form at 41st and Broadway. (Or was it 41st and Sixth?) Just keep track of the income for tax purposes. No license. No permit. Any sidewalk. Store tells you to move? Don't have to. Legal. But smart to have a rapport with folks inside.

So I'm thinking this: Come September, once I leave this job, I'm spending a month or two selling my photographs and words and paintings in SoHo or the Village. What the hell. Guy said you can make a good amount. Shit. Think: $75 for a framed, medium-sized print. Sell one in an hour. Stay outside for 10 hours. $750. Not a bad day. Don't think people scoop that up? It's New York, kid. Money is only paper here.

I might mix things up. Some disjointed words coupled with an image. Put it together as a piece. Sell that shit. I'm Davey fuckin Crockett.

Planning to visit Triple 5 Soul tomorrow. Have an urge to shop for hip and for retro. Partly thank my red Chucks hightops for this frame of mind. Partly the documentary movie "Dogtown and Z-Boys," which I hope to see tomorrow or soon thereafter. Would like to see it with roommates, perhaps? It's about the early days of skateboarding in Venice, Calif. Yeah. Drained backyard swimming pools. Surfing on vertical pavement. Sean Penn narrates. Crisp choice by the filmmakers. Want to buy "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" on DVD.

|||

Went to Gramercy Park today with Tara. Actually, went to just outside Gramercy Park. Seems a person can't get inside the gated park without a key. Some lady was watching a kid and had a gate open. We raced to enter. She asked if we had a key. No, we said. You'd need a key to get out, she said. That's why I'm not letting you in. This was moments after she'd let out a few people. What a bitch. It was like that episode of "Seinfeld" when Jerry wouldn't let his neighbor into the building. I hope an awkward situation finds its way to that woman at the park. She's a dope.