this shit ain't easy yo

whoever said that you'll never get poor buying real estate in manhattan has never lived in this economy.

open houses are my weekly opportunity to go get breakfast elsewhere and dream of greener pastures.

oh well.

—the bastard

guess what i saw

now the bastard will get to a proper christmas post later but,

i came across this on the old crystal set recently and it made me think of my brother's recent post about the biz and how he never got his due even though he was such a crucial figure in hip hop.



that said, the biz gets some beer money thrown to him by the fine folks at radio shack. nobody beats the biz.

—the bastard

...on baby snatching

i came across this really good piece in new york magazine about the rec room in the bronx and how kool herc (the george washington of hiphop or perhaps the robert johnson because he never got paid) was one of the driving forces behind trying to save this building that was essentially the birthplace of hiphop.

it made the bastard feel bad because this guy got so screwed by the industry:

"These days, Herc won’t talk to journalists without being paid for his time. “Herc is not bitter, he’s just tired,” explains Cindy. Sitting in a garment-district coffee shop downstairs from her office, she sipped steaming tea. “He doesn’t know if you’re going to take his story and write a book about it or maybe make a movie".

“Hip-hop was Herc’s baby. But imagine that all of a sudden somebody snatched your baby from you and killed it. That’s how Herc feels sometimes.”

it's just messed up. now go read it.

—the bastard

...on the year of the flood

so truth to tell, the bastard doesn't always spend the night at home. sometimes he stays out after hours and materializes at work the next morning fresh for the new day.

the downside is this.

FLASHBACK: the bastard is riding the train back to craptastic queens and he notices that while there wasn't alot of rain in manhattan, alot of women are wearing those stupid ass rubber boots with the goofy patterns on them to fool us all into thinking that they look less like a wellington boot.

FLASH FORWARD: so i come home to this.

yay. it's just like the last flood, only worser.

so i do what comes to mind first. i go to the bathroom. i mean hell, i had to go.

then i called the landlord.

"hi missah lanlord, we had ourselves a flood again. can you come over in 5 minutes to survey the damage"

"sh-sh-sh-sh-would you prefer if if if if if if i came over tomorrow?"

"no actually, i'd prefer if you saw the place before i cleaned the place up. the floor is soaked and there's plaster all over the place"

so missah lanlord came over and looked at the grief and told me shit that i wanted to hear and we'll see what happens. i showed him some of the other damage from rainstorms that predate my divorce and my meds for my breathing problems as a result of all of this crap. we'll see what happens. i ain't holding out hope on this shit. the plan is.

do the job.

take the money.

put it away.

get the fuck out.

find a new place to wreck.

i'll let you know how that shit works out. can't wait for the creatures to start coming out tonight as a result of this shit.

—the bastard

...on the fall of the house of usher 5

a couple of weeks ago, my father had informed me that the house was finally closing. not my childhood home but the family's house. the house where we all congregated for the holidays. the house where afterwards i would get headaches from the smoke of being stuck in traffic and listening to the doo wop shop with don k. reid. the house that the chairman started his career in after he moved back from the wilds of connecticut and decided that there had to be more to life than a workaday job and a fucking pension. the house where uncle acid played sgt peppers by the beatles on 8 track until the damn thing exploded.

no.

wait.

that was on vinyl. we destroyed magical mystery tour somewhere in the middle of blue jay way. anyway this was the house where alot happened and now it belongs to some chucklehead from arizona i understand.

i hope that now that it's over, shit can be put aside. one can't go back in time but, a bastard can hope for shit can't he? i also hope that the new owner finds my goddam star wars figures. we buried them in the sand on the beach like 30 some odd years ago and we never saw them again. also, open letter to the new owner. dear sir, treat the damn place with respect. someone's family grew up there.

—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