ooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh. the bastard is sooooooooooo loagy. we all went to earl's for susie kansas' second farewell lunch. you know how it is, so nice, you do it twice. now the lunch coma has kicked in and i feel like i've been hit with a brick. bricks are heavy and that's the way i feel.
this the the trappings of having your cube right by the board. what's the board you ask? well it's the special place at a magazine, usually right by the art department where they print out all of the magazine's pages so that they can see what the magazine looks like every month. making guns look sellable monthly (the bastard's magazine) has a wall adjacent to killing stuff monthly's. now the other side of this function is this is the place where the editors bring the salesmen to show them what's running so they can sell ad space properly. so every goddam day, the bastard has to listen to the editor of killing stuff run the same schtick.
fresh from the offices of killing stuff monthly, we have the finest product to suit your deer hunting kink. deer drag. for those nights when you want to get your big buck on. sexy stuff (i was going to make a big rack joke but, that just seemed to be the obvious route to go).
Better work today then ruin the three-day tour of my eyelids I got planned for this coming holiday weekend. Pa Dukes always used to lambaste me for sleeping late, saying, among other things, that you cannot make up sleep. I've always said he was wrong. After the three months I've had going back and forth to NYC and working every other day in between, I'm about to prove the ol' foagie wrong.well, it's that time of year again and the bastard now puts the call out to the mofo to report on hurricane season from the ninth concentric circle of hell. bring it mofo. BRING IT!
so last night was a blast. i went to CB's to see this band play with stevus christus. i'll do more on this later, CBGBs deserves a little more time than than 2 sentences. anyway, the bastard gets up at first alarm and i told left hand rob that if it was raining, i would be late and sure as hell, i came in late. someone had spilt coffee all over the floor of the E train. mmmmmmmmmmmm sticky. 
so i get to come in last monday and listen to someone talk about how they hung out with a friend of mine who's been blowing me off for like..um..two months or some crap. the bastard is good with it, people can choose whoever the hell they want to hang out and i ain't always pleasant. ask the nice lady. i wasn't pleasant for damn near 10 years. oh well. anyway, the bastard deems monday a total wash when i gets the call.
we meet up at a joint that chicago jerkface introduced me to called the chat 'n' chew. if you're ever in town, they make kick ass fried chicken. anyway, the accountant and i go over the events of the past month as well as the three year backlog of talk that we haven't had since she was last here. the waitress felt bad interrupting us with the silly things like, "would you like something to drink?", or "have you decided what you'd like to eat?", or any other thing that wait staff does. don't take it personal lady, we only haven't spoken in three years. after this we hit the old town bar. second oldest bar in nyc after mcsorleys. they have urinals the size of fucking cadillacs in the place. plenty of room to...well you get the idea. it was during this time in which the accountant and i were drinking like our family does that i realized that maybe her sister, who we could call palo alto might not be right about how the family will go it's separate ways when the house of usher comes down. we'll still talk, and we'll still drink, and we'll still have old times. just not with big ass urinals all the time because i can only go to that place so many times before i look like i don't know other bars on this rock.
i just got finished watching a little gem called the conversation which stars one of the industry's most interesting actors, gene hackman. hackman plays harry caul, a paranoid man who taps peoples phones for a living. in this film caul, tapes a conversation between two people for a client and becomes convince that the couple are in danger. this causes him to become more and more paranoid as the film progresses. 
this comes on the heels of watching another hackman vehicle called enemy of the state three times since i moved back into the the apartment. in this one hackman plays a paranoid retired NSA agent who helps will smith get his life back from the NSA. i first caught part of "the conversation" a year or two back and i knew i had to see it in its entirety so i bought it with my winnings from a skeet shooting contest that the publisher essentially won for us along with "the italian job" (michael caine version) and point blank. 
the ing i found most enjoyable about both films is not only how brilliant hackman is in both roles but how "enemy of the state" is a little homage to "the conversation". hackman rocks similar glasses in enemy from the conversation. one of the bad guys rocks harry cauls raincoat from conversation but, it's also the good old fashioned paranoia in both films that rounds out my enjoyment. yes, yes, both films also give strong commentay on the nature of surveillance in society which seems like a big hot button issue these days with the tapping of terrorist phone calls and conversation did come out not too long after watergate so it still stands strong on the topic these days as it did then but then again at the end of the day, films are just entertainment. is this mike on?
well as the mofo had pointed out, we had a death in the family. now i toyed with the idea of funeral blogging but, the bastard just thought it would be just too disrespectful of me to go through with it. the bastard trys not to get too out of sorts at funerals. they are always really surreal expreiences for me. ever since great grandpa's funeral when i was a child, i always found it surreal. you step outside of your body and put a suit on and you talk about how the only time you get to see your relatives is at weddings and funerals. and the sad thing is, it's true. the bastard's family is large. very large. and i don't see the lot of them most of the time. it's mostly my fault but i'll get to that later. i was talking about surrealism. not the magritte kind either. i never really felt like i was ever reall y present at a funeral. that was until the cop was murdered. cops name was paul. he was lah's uncle and he gets his name in here because a murder shouldn't be forgotten. he was murdered by a scumbag named patrick bannon. he gets in because, well you get the picture. anyway suddenly a man i knew, who i saw a week prior at a family party was dead and i never was not in my body at a funeral ever again. now i have to keep my shit together at these things.
the problem with being part of a large family is that they also fight. fight over stupid shit. and the stupid shit in question is this house. the family's house. the sight of many christmases and thanksgivings and easters and it was the sight of the beginning of the end of these kinds of gatherings when grandpa passed away in 2000. now the family's house will be sold and no doubt be bought by some yuppy schmuck who will hang bad art off of it and render it unrecognizable to the family that knew it and breathed life into it since 1978. it'll all be gone soon and with it i feared the family. we'd really become like those who only see each other at weddings and funerals. hell, i have cousins that don't even know me that look at me like a stranger because of my own introversion. i made a promise to myself on this dock. grandpa's dock. the dock that was hauled out every winter and hauled back in every spring (now granted i didn't do the hauling, the upside of introversion is you seem to get out of these things). anyway, knowing what seems like an inevitablity, i told myself that while i was an awful grandson, i would try to make it right. i would try to do better next time. while i'm seriously mulling going to vegas for thanksgiving, i'm going to try and do better than just weddings and funerals. i gotta. when all is said and done, all you have left is your family and while 45 weddings and 45 funerals might seem like alot of family gatherings, i don't want it to be like that.
so that bastard was in a foul one yesterday. i don't know if it was the subway trip, or the tired, or the media party i didn't go to because no one else was going but, it got me all antsy in the head. well i figured, it's time for a little escapism and the stock broker/marketing guy/zombie who was blasting his music so loud that it just sounded like syncopated tv snow neededto be hit in the face, so i plugged in and tuned out. it didn't really work that well until i got off the train when i lit up a smoke and "gimme shelter" came on. hadn't heard it since the last time i saw my favorite caper flick of the moment, (cause the silver k hasn't given me back my copy of sexy beast yet!!!!) layer cake. 
to that guy who got off the elevator on the 9th floor in the argyle tee shirt (yes, an argyle tee shirt)
please...send...help. coffee...not...working. bastard...sleeping...on...his...feet. i've seen things you people wouldn't believe. attack ships on fire off the shoulder of orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the tannhauser gate. all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
...had one of those days when it rains a little bit in the morning and even though it stops, the humidity that it leaves guarantees that there's no way on earth that you are ever going to feel dry ever again? yeah, me too. can't wait for the summer to end. maybe i'll feel dry again sometime in january.
"hey bastard, how's it going?"
cool dave sings for the band. cool dave owns a 1969 gto, which car buffs call the goat. strangely enough, dave kinda looks like a goat. perhaps, it's one of those you start to look like your pets things only he looks more like his car. actually since wes' dad was playing that night (yes, it's a fucking family affair, cool dave's brother's band was the third act), the king of wing showed up and he kind of looks like a goat. only he knows an awful lot about painting which is why the bastard talks to him all of the time. not tonight though, he's been twice divorced and i've had just about all of my fill of post marital advice for one month. i just want to drink some cold beers and hear some rockin' music.
now, the bastard comes down to these events for only one reason,because wes asked me to. now, granted i love meeting up with all of my oldest friends in my old neighborhood. it's kind of like opening a door to the past. the problem is, i get my whole past in one evening. and while my oldest friends come to see wes play, some of the people who didn't like me so much growing up come to see him play. also, some of the folks that come down and are part of the people we all hung around together but, i was never really well liked by them. it's the trappings of being an art major. you're too wordy to sound appealing so instead you sound weird. and since you're not into the mets or dance music, you appear weird and people are frightened by people they find weird. so i didn't bother speaking with them. i find that if you can't shake off the innocuous shit you suspected about people when you were growing up with them, and can't accept that they have changed for the better, then fuck em. the funny thing for me is that while the bastard doesn't make a crapload of money, his soul is satisfied with what he's doing and the people in question never aimed higher than what they aimed for and look unhappy for it. now granted, one of them became a lawyer and probably makes soem fat loot but, she never learned social skills. poor girl, she still looks so unhappy. too bad. so sad.
P.S. what's behind door number two: larry lah calls up the bastard to come over to his place which the top half of it is now owned by his brother. lah's sister was having a birthday party for her kid and the bastard could use some burgers. anyway, since it was a family party so his family was there and the vibe was very family like. lah's brother in law looked more like the firestarter than he did when he had all of his hair and his wife, lah's sister, looked tired. with last night's trip down memory lane still in mind i finish my evening speaking with with lee underbluff another from the cast of thousands i grew up with. he's a cop now. he has 4 kids. he's gotten big. really fucking big. while discussing various topics, mostly scouting, i ask him where he lives these days. 
once a long while ago when the bastard used to kayak. then again, i plan on kayaking again one day but anyway, i used to read up on surfing in new york city. i figured, it's pretty much illegal here for one reason or another. probably because the undertow out on rockaway is so fierce, they want to keep lifeguards handy. but when there's lifeguards, there's swimmers and surfers and swimmers wouldn't gel too good together for safety reason. well, what do you know. the bastard has probably answered his own query. anyway, i also read that due to certain tide related whatnot, surfing is best done during odd hours in the atalantic which is why i'm seeing this guy getting on the number 6 with me. most of these guys go surfing after 6:30pm after the lifeguards go home. but this character is on the east side which puts him far the hell away from the A train which is the only road into the rockaways by subway. maybe he's lost.what's with the gas face asshole? you don't know me. you don't read this. you don't even stoop down to walk to this side of the building unless you gotta take a crap (and not wash your hands after the fact mind you). so why you gotta be all giving the bastard the stinkeye for no good reason? now i know that corporate america is all cliquey and high school because thanks to wonderful institutions like fraternities and lax educational standards and cronyism continue to perpetuate that kind of environment here in the largest publishing company in america but, there's no reason for that shit. 
so the bastard comes in, and mind you, it's frikkin' beautiful out today, and my boss, the silver k rolls in. now the k has been struggling with a mysterious stomach malady that smacks of crohns disease. can't eat anything fatty. no more brown liquor (which kills him because he loves the jack daniels), and nothing spicy. anyway, he's been undergoing a series of blood tests and upper and lower g.i. exams and his doctor started looking for porphyria because his symptoms matched them. apparently, while his doctor cannot find said disease in his veins, his doctor informs him that alot of these symptoms are similar to the symptoms associated with lycanthropy in the middle ages. so apparently, my boss is a werewolf. now, i am wondering if it's only a matter of time before kate beckinsale comes into the office blow my bosses brains out. stupid secret undead wars, always encroaching into my day to day. dammit!dude, could you wash your hands before leaving the bathroom? you realize that now everyone who attempts to leave the mens room today will be handling whatever it is that's been on your junk for the rest of the day? you know, the cleaning crew isn't that thorough around here. therefore, your junk residuals might stay on the doorknob for weeks. just a thought for future reference, you dick.
mad mike: well i'm glad you came out tonight. zsolte, i always love when the bastard comes out to hang out. he's always got shit to say
...or on shit, piss, hell, damn, fuck, and why these kids today don't know about the jazz
