the smell gets around you

"snif snif."

"you know rob, sometimes this city smells like shit."

"you know, sometimes shit smells like this city."

"really." (not stated as a question but as a retort. keep up, will you)

"yeah sometimes i'll find something floating in the bowl and sniff and think, hmmmmmmm, 43rd street."

"nice."

so yeah. it didn't smell so good last night as the lobster and i headed west towards 6th. it's one of those phenomena that is nothing like the maple syrup smell that perplexed us all in october of 2005. it was more of the late season humidity comes home to make everything smell like crap.

or raw sewage.

or corpses.

or...well...you get the idea.

anyway it followed me all the way back to the thorough borough and all the way to the airport (both times mind you). you'd think the dog days of summer were gone because it's cooler out but it just cooler out. the dog is still out there, making the bastard sweat. and he don't like it. bad dog. BAD DOG!

—the bastard

array

so with this new office arrangement, we saw the end killing stuff monthly's african wing which doubled as our lunch room which puts us in a bit of a bind when it comes to dining options. no more can we sit in a room and talk shit about , well, anything. it would screw up the work dynamic of others and now that we're all packed together like sardines, the bastard has to be, well, less loud. (well, i ain't trying that hard mind you).

so instead we go out. and first off, justice wants to sit outside. but not everyone wants to be in the sun. but all of the umbrellas become occupied and then suddenly, none of the umbrellas are occupied which dleads our undocumented staff to construct this little umbrella array in which we can dine under.

FLASH FORWARD: the bastard is 2 sips into his soda, when chuckles, the water guy decides to aid me in wearing my drink on my pants. he apologizes and goes to fetch me some napkins, only he comes out with one and hands it to me.

"are you kidding?"

"excuse me"

"are you kidding me." i'm stating this, not asking at this point

"excuse me?"

"i can't dry this off with one napkin. i'm going to need a few"

"excuse me?"

at this point justice points out that his english might not be so good. so i did what any other ugly american would do, i asked him for more napkins. loudly and slowly. he was very apologetic in his way but, i think he was either pissed at me or afraid of me. either way would have made sense to me as i WAS shouting at this point. either way, after lunch (which was pretty damn good despite the wet pants), i hightailed it down to macys to get some new pants. nothing the bastard likes more than an expensive lunch.

—the bastard

...on treading

has the bastard ever told you the one about the guy who was sleeping in his bed during a torrential rainstorm?

well anyway there's this guy.

and he wakes up at about...say...6:30 in the morning to sound of heavy rain. so he rolls over

about 10 minutes later, it's raining like the hammers of hell and the guy rolls over again and remarks to himself, "damn, it sure is raining"

then it occurs to him that it's in fact raining in his living room. GET IT? it was raining in his living room. jeeze, you have no sense of humor.

so, the bastard has been bailing out his living room and the word comes out over the crystal set to stay home, or at least delay my commute a little while. now the bastard isn't one for listening to city officials but, i want some unwind time. at least for a couple minutes. this is gonna be a long day.

—the bastard

...on awards

...or was it on masturbation?

so today is the deadline for a contest that selling bullets 7 times a year magazine has been entering for the last couple of years and boy am i trucked. you see last year i only had to submit three copies of an issue. well six actually because best overall magazine requires that you submit 2 issues. in triplicate. this year, since we didn't win anything last year, the bastard scaled it down a bit. submitting best feature and cover. who knows, we might get lucky. but it makes me wonder if it all isn't just masturbatory. i mean, you enter the contest. shell out a fuck ton of money and it's all subjective really. in essence desingers are subject to the tastes of a select few tastemakers who really define what is cool design anyway. also, since corporate culture has inherently become an cliquey extension of high school, what's to say it doesn't bleed into contests as well? hell, i know this one art director who won't speak to anyone at a function unless they are important. ida know. i just keep submitting and hope that this year is the year that the bastard is ahead of the bell curve on this crap.

either way, my hands (which i managed to not slice open multiple times with an exacto blade) hurt from cutting illustration board on a cutting matte that was left over from the khrushev administration. my knuckles ache. it's so god damned humid out that i haven't felt dry since i left my apartment. even in an air conditioned office building. even though it's been below 85 all day. oh poor, poor bastard, you'd cry with a loaf of bread under each arm. hey screw you, jerkpiece, if i had a loaf of bread under each arm, it would soak up the damned sweat.

hmmmmmmmmmmmm

ummmmmmmmm

yeah i think that was kind of unnecessary of me. kind of really over illustrates my difficulty with the humidity. i think i'm going to back off now and maybe drink a cold beverage now.

—the bastard