life in these long island cities...

so this happened tonight...

and as a result this is what the front of my building looks like...

if you look real hard to the right and over, and squint, you'll see my car under 5 feet of water.

but i'm actually out west visiting the boy and we ironically came across this sign

it's kind of sad now. i have a waterlogged car...

possibly 10 pounds of spoiled elk in my freezer...

but i have my family and my health don't i?

—the bastard

…aftermath

…and the bastard isn't speaking of the rolling stones album.





at the end of Borden avenue.

three blocks west of my apartment is the sole evidence of any of the mayors warnings about last night's storm.

I could jab and jest about mayor mike's crap command of the Spanish language and talk about how this was most hyped storm of century but I won't.

jersey took the hit for us kids.

as they so often do.

and yes, the promise of a hurricane always fills this empty month of news cycles which has pretty much been preoccupied with president barry's vacation.

shit like this is a godsend for a politician on the ropes.

but I digress.

here I am

drinking a beer on my balcony,

which has been swept clean by a big assed rain storm,

blown dry by 25 mph winds.

and I'm still grateful that this is all here as I sit in my beach chair watching the east river go by.

—the bastard

ice station zebra

from the railroad this is the view of the frozen tundra that us Hollis queens.

moms cookin chicken and collared greens



getting off by the rents in qv last night was like getting off at a suburban queens hood only if it was on the moon

the snow was still there.

hard packed from this guy my parents have been telling me about who has been piling it up on the corners.




which creates it's own host of trouble.

the frozen rain had done it's work

creating a glass landscape that was like a currier and ives card gone horribly wrong.

the bastard had to walk past the rents until he could find a driveway to cross the street.

I hope my leg won't break

walking on the moon.

—the bastard

big dig…

now the bastard hates alot of things.

sex and the city,

most kinds of seafood,,

fair-weather friends,

your mother.

but one thing I've never developed disdain for has been the snow.

mostly because it's never pissed me off much.

a lot of that gas been built around the notion that there wasn't too many hard winters before leaving home and when I did, it was the landlord's job.

I've only had to dig the car out and that in the worst snow is no great shakes if you don't care about getting anywhere.

but I have to get the blue roller-skate out of the garage and I expect some fresh hell when I get there.

so today might be the day.

but I'll no doubt blame it on the asshole lawyer who rents the garage next to me and the snow will get a free pass.

i'm magnanimous that way.

—the bastard

this just in...

...special obvious edition

it

frikkin'

came

down

hahd, last night.

—the bastard

...on the wait

there's a storm coming.

not in the metaphorical sense.

but an actual storm.

hurricane my uncle is coming tomorrow.

gonna be a hell of a Saturday.

or not.

—the bastard

...on the weather

snowing out today.

and me without the right footwear.

i usually wear my moto boots as they are made of leather and goretex.

but they still smell like gasoline.

i hope it lets up before the end of the day.

—the bastard

...on the frigid

you see, the bastard is in a transitional phase in his life.

i'm moving across the river soon.

so i haven't been spending much of my time in queens. pretty much just to feed ivan and pack stuff.

so it was much to the bastard's surprise that on the coldest night of the season thus far, the heat goes out.

had to sleep in a wool hat and a fleece last night.

had to turn on the oven this morning to heat up the kitchen.

because i can be ghetto too. the bastard is so cold. better luck tonite.

-the bastard

...on the tundra

yesterday was the first big snow to hit here this year.

they closed a bunch of schools in weschester and it made the bastard think about this editor he used to work with from buffalo who found out snow days laughable considering he drove his cherokee through 6 feet of snow to get to the airport the night before.

it ain't much but it's ours.

and the bastard doesn't have to shovel it. oh well.

-the bastard

... on frostbite

walk back to the car.

brought my gear just in case.

but it's frikkin cold.

40 mph winds.

yeah, the bastard goes out.

and sure as hell is cold.

thought my fingers would never thaw out.

-the bastard

wind 1, bastard 0

the bastard spent the bulk of this weekend, working on the whole "nesting" thing.

yeah. nesting.

it's like this, i've gotten engaged to my ladyfriend and we're slowly working towards moving into her place. so we've been spending our weekends making an alcove studio apartment in manhattan roomy enough for the two of us. space has always been an issue for the bastard.

so it's been runs to ikea and putting stuff together and remembering to bring the means to put this crap together over. by the by jon, i still have your ryobi drill. it's fucking handy. let em know when you need it back.

this week has been an extensive week in the office, so i haven't been able to ride the bike all week. and tonight was the night.

decided to run a few errands.

ran out of gas.

popped the reserve and got some more and headed east.

and the wind toosed the bastard all oever the highway like a rag doll.

it was good times.

i feel like hell now. lots to do. lots changing.

—the bastard

the bastard has to axe you

have you her had one of those days,

where you get to work,

and because you're heading out on vacation, there's NO way you can get out early.

only to find out the practically everything you own has gotten rained on?

yeah, me too.

-the bastard

bad day on black rock...again

so it's pissing out right now.

and it's going to be this way for the day.

then i get a message from my landlord.

"uh uh uh uh (he stutters, okay?) i have to go up on your roof because it's flooding in the basement"

which means it's flooding in my apartment.

the bastard is NOT happy.

i call him back and ask him if my luggage and my laptop are still dry. he says yes but not before telling me that he's cleaning up the mess and garbage can in the same sentence.

i have a flight to take tomorrow to go see my boy and i have to go buy a de-humidifier tonight to make sure i don't come home to little black fuzz all over my home. fuck!

could any hell be more real or now. i don't think so.

—the bastard

...on the grate outdoors

so, the bastard is back from camping.

it was a short trip, when i look at it in the long view.

it started out with my drive to long island city to get the mofo, where i became the paragon of road rage. not since the great altoids tin throwing of 1997, has the bastard ever lost his shit at such a high degree while behind the wheel. i actually leaned out the window on northern boulevard to yell "you suck at life" at some poor woman who apparently REALLY sucked at life.

the bastard however, will stick by this story.

by the time we got up to the woods, there fire was starting, and the thrilla boys were already taking care of the business of camping.

it was a good first day. and sometimes, that's all you need is one good day in the woods and then your shit is correct.

upon waking up at 6 am on saturday, it looked like the makings of an overcast day.

by 7 am, it was starting to drizzle.

by 8am, it was drizzling sideways with the makings of sideways precipitation. so the mofo and i started breaking down our racks in anticipation of an early bug out.

following this course of action, discussions about breakfast ensued.

this spirited discussion went on to become much more elaborate array of talking points that touched on the nature of wilderness survival, needs in the wilderness, and the ethics of taking credit for one's work in the wilderness community.

as well as walking the walk and perhaps the shelving of rhymes.

so while we finished up the breaking up camp, the wind picked up and the drizzle became rain which prompted the mofo to address the earlier point as to why we were breaking camp by asking if everyone would have preferred to break camp now that it was raining catd and dogs. agreeing with his point, the bastard got breakfast at the bottom of the mountain and all was good.

—the bastard

...on hats

... and the grate outdoorz

so here the bastard sits at his desk.

waiting to finish his crap to do.

i wear many hats.

the mag hat.

the spam hat.

the other mag hat i keep on the side for other print projects.

but let's focus on the first hat. the mag hat. it is a many hatted hydra that has the bastard playing art director, photo editor, and production manager. not to mention, the part where i also wear this hat to be an industry professional both in the magazine and the firearms industry. this is the hat that makes me feel like i move forward 3 feet and move back 1.

learned the new system of shipping color. it's great actually but, i had so much to do when i got done learning it. and i'm just starting to wind it up now. and i'm so tired. which brings me to my next point.


i'm going camping this weekend.

i've already been through several rounds of mail with the mofo and dean thrilla and k love and zsolte about it and we already know that it's gonna piss out this weekend.

i don't care.

im going.

i HAVE to go. i NEED to go. i need to get the dirt (read: MUD) under my feet regardless of how shitty it's going to be out. i need to break with society for a couple days and i'll be fine. regardless on what falls on top of the bastard. i sometimes get a signal out there in the sticks so if anything noteworthy happens, i'm going to put it on the bastard feed and perhaps opine on it later. but if i die out there, then you get nothin'. straight up nothin'.

—the bastard

...on the scram

lately, the bastard has been wasting his time and energy in such a way that he hasn't really been viewing as a waste of his time and energy.

motorcycles are something i've been into since i first sat on uncle acid's honda and someone took a polaroid of it. i think there is a second pic floating around of the mofo sitting on the back of it. he might be wearing plaid pants. the bastard forgets. there were alot of plaid pants in the bastard's childhood.

but that has nothing to do with bikes.

but in the last couple of days, the scrambler i've been riding has had starting difficulties which i am struggling to overcome.

the good news is, the bastard has gotten better at kick starting a 30 year old motorcycle.

the bad news is, the bastard HAS to kickstart a 30 year old motorcycle.

but i won't be doing that this weekend. family party. gonna try and be all civilized for a change. perhaps i can parlay this into some kind of opportunity to hook the bike's battery up to a charger.

besides.

it's fucking raining out, i'm not exactly jonesing to go out with the road like that yet.

—the bastard

hoo boy, it ain't lookin so good

there's been a lot of inconvenient weather lately.

and by inconvenient, the bastard mean humid.

and by inconvient, the bastard also means that he has to go to the bike garage on odd days because it pissed out all weekend and it's going to piss out today and it's going to do so again this weekend. so instead, i couldn't get a ride to the ass end of brooklyn. couldn't get a cab (honestly, waiting an hour for a car service that's down the block from me), so it was the bus for me. and while it didn't take forever it sure did feel like it. and people sure do like to talk on the bus. but alls well that ends well.

first off, the bastard has to give big ups to the peeps in williamsburg. when i got off the L train (yes, there was a train involved) and didn't have my bearings, passers by were all good with the directions. it was mighty nice of them. a whole lot of traveling to get from one side of metropolitan avenue to the other. 20 minutes according to google maps takes over an hour by mass transit.

takes 30 minutes going back. whatcha want? tales of my tearing ass down a chewed up strectch of new york street after i hadn't been on a bike in over a year? no kids. all the bastard did was show the two guys fixing their lights in front of the garage how fucking awful i am at riding one of these things after a year.

long story short, i made it home. one piece. easy peezy. it's surprising how easily one remembers how to ride a motorcycle (just like riding a bike :-P). and metro isn't as chewed up as it looks. but then again, i'm sure the folks i was sharinf the road with didn't appreciate me doing 35 all the way back to queens. oh well. what doesn't kill you..........

looks like it's gonna rain. oh. wait, it is raining. thunder goes boom.

—the bastard

PS: and just so you know, the bastard is frikking trucked from the whole experience. adrenaline rush+zipping between two buses really takes it out of you.

rain's stopped

now if only the bastard can get rid of that sinking feeling as well.

or

maybe he should get some frikkin dinner.

what a concept.

have you ever had the reoccuring feeling that you are both the hero and the villain in this tragedy?

yeah, me too.

—the bastard

...on werewolves

...or walking the streets of soho in the rain


on sunday we were invited out to have lunch with my ladyfriend's sister in law (or rather he sister's sister in law i guess but, you get the picture) and she just moved to a tiny room in soho.

her brother in law, said to me at one time during the day that we were just like the europeans today.

"tourists in our own city", he elaborated, "eating and shopping"

it struck me funny. because we had all collectively not been down to this part of town for quite some time. and it's different. my ladyfriend used to live here a long time ago when there was a bodega downstairs from her. now it's a french restaurant. you can also walk two blocks over and shop at dolce e gabbana. it's cleaned up alot. safer. better place to take your kids. more expensive, like everything else in this city.

i saw this valiant in my travels and the overpriced sportscar couldn't have been better timed. it made the photo really. tragic or magic? i completely understand why all those crusty old fucks in the lower east side are complaining about the rich but not enough to get on board. there is a fine line between dissent and cliche these days.

later on in the afternoon, it started raining and we mulled the bourgeois notion of grabbing a cab, or buying a 15 dollar umbrella but, we just booked it to the subway and headed back to her place to get my gear.

—the bastard

the devil went down to...jersey? again?

so the bastard and his ladyfriend took a little trip to jersey last night to see a certain band that jersey really loves. yeah...that one. what can i say? i like to do nice things for my girlfriend. the bastard is a saint that way. then again by wrote of last phrase, how can a bastard BE a saint? hell, i'm trying for sainthood. go to hell.

anyway, we get a little sidetracked en route. wait let me back up:

FLASHBACK (re: the office): "this is fucking confusing?"

"what is?"

"the transit in jersey. you know lobster, i fucking hate your state sometimes"

(cue dirty look)"excuse me"

"sorry, i mean the state you live in." (lobster johnson is a native pennsylvanian and don't you forget it shiteyes)

"well it is what it is" ok back to real rime

CUE PRESENT: so the ladyfriend and i get a little sidetracked on the way to the prudential center to see that band and we ended up getting off at the wrong stop to transfer.

"we should ask someone", she suggests.

"i wish we had a map to refer to", i reply.

taking the initiative, she asks an african american gentleman if we could pick up the connecting train to newark. he suggested that we should have stayed on the train we were on, shaking his head.

"i was watching you you guys. you shoulda stayed on that train. you wanna get to newark, just follow all the white people"

just follow all the white people? that's classic, squire. fucking classic.

—the bastard