Holly Northrop Blog

Like all bad relationships that do not end in gunplay, eventually someone either leaves on their own, or walks away after being told to get the fuck out. I have been in a nasty staring contest for about six-months with the mothership and finally, they blinked. Of no real surprise to anyone, I was officially laid-off on Monday, I was asked to leave.

I have numerous mixed feelings about all of this but the foremost reaction I have is the desire to take a sauna everyday for about month so I can sweat the past two years of ugliness out of my pores.

Having worked there for over six years; the last two being one of the worst professional spans of my career, forced to watch well over 100 people leave either voluntary or involuntary; I am a little weirded out by the length of it all. It was the longest job I have ever had, so it will probably take me some time to get my bearings.

I guess the best way to gauge my state of mind is to review what I did upon leaving the building for the last time. I walked down Bowery, deep into Chinatown and shot two rolls of film. As I slowly wiggled my way back up to C-Lab to pick up a roll of color film, I stopped and had coffee at Starfucks, where I openly and aggressively applied Tiger Balm to my back while sucking down a tall coffee. Walking further up Broadway, I slid into Best Buy and bought the new Cat Power with a Christmas gift card that I had been carrying around with me. All extremely normal things.

I was hired at the Voice on my 39th birthday, one week after my unemployment had run out and three months after the Towers fell. The pit would continue to burn for another two months and every day on my way into work, out to lunch and on the way home, the air smelt like a combination of chemicals and wet earth that would get up in the sinuses and linger on the tongue.

How I got the job was a simple matter of having a friend who used to work there. He made a call for me and before I knew it, I was hired. The funny thing about my interview was, deep down in my gut I just knew I was going to work there. Before my interview, I sat over in Cooper Square Park smoking a cigarette, looking around I could just see myself there. The other funny thing is that for the past two years I haven't seen myself there at all. Long gone are the folks whom I respected and enjoyed working with, replaced with people who never wanted to have anything to do with me; an interesting environment to say the least.

Yes, my last day at the Voice ended quietly. After shooting for several hours, I made my way to Hoboken where I jumped on a train to meet Martha. I dived right into the post-apocalyptic nightmare that is known as The Road, which I am right in the middle of. Then something completely unheard of happened. I managed to have a whole three-seater to myself all the way to Suffern, New York.

Crazy Isn't Stupid, Stupid is Just Stupid
Moving on, spring is coming, I can tell even though we still have white snow and brown deer poop in the yard. We start this week out as week five of the siding people and with the exception of some kind a weather issue; they just might finish the job. No. Fucking. Way. I know, right?

Martha and I did what we always do when one of us is let go and our financial future is sent into a tailspin, we bought something pricey. We consider it the layoff gift, because we're that damn weird and being laid off isn't a big enough gift in and of it's self, we bought art. Excuse me we bought Photography, apparently, a dying art form, which complete strangers delight in telling me once they see a Holga around my neck. People are so damn strange.

I remember years ago when Martha bought me a digital camera for my 40th birthday. I fooled around with it for days, shooting in all different modes and all the different settings. Eventually I settled on a programmed setting of no flash, white balanced, ASA 400, no beep, no sound and one shot only. Basically over time I navigated as close to my 35mm as possible. I goofed around with the Black & White setting but the whole thing felt stupid. I shot hundreds and hundreds of digital images over the course of two and a half years. The very first version of my website was almost all digital. Roughly all the Voice work I shot was digital, except for a few features where I was able to use the Holga for that 'Holga Look'. On a side note, I find if very funny that the last thing I shot for the Voice was this, although, it is not the one I would have picked. I would have chosen this one, but I'm just a picky bitch.

Countless times when I am out shooting or just walking from one place to another in New York the soundtrack in my ears perfectly matches the visuals of my path. Some are obvious like walking down McDougal Street while listening to Dylan or walking in step to Marquee Moon, over by Bowery and Bleecker, even though all that exists down there are hi-rise apartments full of Upper East Side Blonde girls who suddenly want to live the 'Downtown Lifestyle'. Thank god for places like Avalon Bowery Place, (Studios starting at $2,895) that can make those dreams safely come true. For Martha and I to live there, it would cost us around $6,500 a month and I wouldn't be able to have a darkroom.

Anyway, despite New York's continual slide into wealth management, I am talking about the delightful musical surprises that happen. Things like listening to Elvis in the middle of Union Square, or the Pixies in SoHo. Weird little bits of musical chance that can make the most miserable event tolerable.

One such moment happened last week when I was on the 6 Train going uptown to what I thought was to be a routine dental visit, but more on that in a minute. I had to stand on the train, which normally I don't mind but when the train is crammed full of shithead foreign tourists coming fresh off a Ground Zero stop, I turn into one big cranky face.

Just when I decided that I hated everyone, through my ear buds the sounds of the Butthole Surfers, Leave Me Alone flowed faintly in the background. In the process of yanking my hand up to adjust the volume control, I smacked the ass of the girl in front of me.

She jumped up and around allowing me the full on force of her lunch choice involving buckets of garlic. I smiled, she didn't, I rolled my eyes and shifted my direction by precisely one inch to the left and turned up the music. Standing three inches from my face and mouth breathing garlic at me, she glared at me for exactly one whole subway stop, and then looked away once we passed 14th street, having taught me a harsh, harsh lesson. (Like that had any effect on me, honestly now, all you did was stare at me and make my eyes water.)

This particular 6 train was being driven by Mr. Fuck-You-I'm-in-the-Union-Driver. You know the guy. He doesn't give a fuck about any of it and pushes the train to go as fast as he can, stopping on a dime in every station, laughing to himself in his little booth at the sounds of bodies banging about each subway car. He's the guy that we've all seen get off his shift and slide out of the subway car like Superfly, saying "Hey Baby" while pointing to all the female Transit employees.

Riding with Youngblood, you know the drill, find a nook and ride the wave. While traveling between subway stations and well beyond 60 miles per hour on some of the long stretches, for a split second your feet can actually leave the ground. It's the slamming on of the brakes that you have to be ready for. Every stop, all the tourists went flying, yet oddly, they never stopped talking to each other. Hands on pole, legs in the air, yak, yak, yak. I know they are talking because I can see their mouths moving around, but thankfully, all I hear is Butthole.

Once we get to my stop, I birth myself out of the subway car and immediately moved into the salmon upstream sensation of 59th street at lunch hour. It doesn't matter what direction you are headed, it is always the opposite of the flow. It's like a blizzard, always in your face and way too bright.

I am late when I get to the dentist so within seconds I am in the chair with the little napkin thing around my neck. Things move along like normal when the hygienist notices something about my upper left molar. Great. Okay, well, let's see what it is.

Now my relationship with this particular dentist is long and strong. For years, she was the only professional of any kind that I was seeing. That means that she was my therapist, my doctor consult and a life coach. She went through Jasmine's cancer with me where I would go there for check ups, just lay in the chair, and cry. Sad but true.

All this drives Martha crazy because:
a: Dr B (as she is known) is out of network;
b: she's fucking crazy Park Avenue expensive; and
c: I simply will not consider anyone else.

I can guarantee that as Martha is reading this, her hands are sweating and she's getting a headache, combined with a little stomach upset.

Dr. B pokes around in my mouth and does not like what she sees. Three shots of Novocain and a laser procedure later, I am numb and slightly shaken. But it wasn't as bad (meaning I wasn't as bad) as it can be. In fact, Dr. B touched my shoulder and said, "I just want you to know that was the most normal I've ever seen you. You're almost like a normal patient."

Drugs and therapy baby, drugs and therapy.

So, good feeling gone when I go to check out. The total for the day came to $4,500. Upon hearing that, I just started to ball. Dr. B walked over to me and hugged me then told the billing clerk to cut the bill in half.

Half is still crazy but not $4,500 crazy as I pointed out to Martha later on that evening, when she about had a heart attack.

I may be unemployed but as Martha pointed out to me while lying in bed one morning, "Thank god you're on medication."

Is it wrong to want to buy a $400 brown leather messenger bag? Without the whole, rational of, Jesus Christ Holly it's $400 or Jesus Christ Holly it's leather; pushing all that aside is it wrong to want it? I most certainly don't think it is worth $400. I mean what is? I can't think of anything other than some kind of electrical appliance that would justify a $400 purchase of one item.

I can spend a great deal on $10-$20 purchases but balk at anything over $50, except the Sundance Ring Bag. From the catalog page, it spoke to me. It somehow convinced me that its 'big, bold and handcrafted rich, rugged brown leather' was going to make my life complete. It's 'vintage inspiration' would make me feel young again, comfort found in my 70's hippy heritage.

Never mind the loose knowledge that I have of what goes on in a tannery. I mean talk about a long, toxic and filthy process. No matter, that bag spoke to me.

Yes, that is right you have guessed it. Martha has been out of town for several days and I've been home alone with nothing more then my thoughts to keep me in stitches. And I have to say, coming straight off of the whole Martha/Jazz dynamic it has been welcome chunk of solitude. Sometimes, they are like two cats in a pillowcase.

I am such a crazy little bee when left alone. I worked on my site, cleaned the house, and watched those types of movies that would drive Martha crazy. I stayed up way, way past my bedtime listening to music at ungodly levels while finally putting all my vinyl records away. I had quite the stack going on, an odd mixture of Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Kramer's The Guilt Trip, which is just fantastic by the way.

One of the perks to living in a house I suppose, I can be squirrelly all night long and who's going to notice? One night I was up so late, fucking around with bulb exposures on my Holga and popping a handheld flash at various things around the house, that even the cats had gone to bed, sleeping on top of the covers waiting for me to settle down.

But now, the reality of life returns as soon as Monday afternoon when I will be in the dentist chair having the hole in my mouth filled. I just hope that after a visit to the dentist a $400 purse does not seem like a reasonable purchase when compared to the bill. Usually the price of my dental work skews almost everything else. I've had one-hour visits cost more then our monthly rent at the high-rise.

Ah yes, the high-rise. Probably the coolest apartment I've ever had. I miss the high-rise. I think we all do. The only thing wrong with that apartment was when the neighbors would cook this horrifically stinky food. The stench would ooze out of the cracks in the door jam and no amount of hi-test incense or air freshener could make it stop. I don't know what it was but my god it was retched. I think I compared it once to what cooking a yak in bleach might smell like.

But I can't have a darkroom in a two-bedroom apartment. I feel like I'm living my very own Green Acres but only in my own head. I am equally Eva Gabor and Eddie Albert, having a fondness for both Manhattan and a Hooterville way of life. When I'm in Manhattan I'm in my element but when I'm home, holed up in my house for days on end, I'm pretty happy too.

I suppose I have a lot of duality in my brain. I think that's part of the problem, or so I'm told.

Ah, yes there is nothing quite like Christmas time along 5th Avenue in Manhattan. Kind of makes ya crazy if you don't have some sort of distraction. So that is why I shot Christmas in Midtown while listening to Led Zeppelin; specifically, the live twenty-five minute version of Dazed and Confused from the 1972 show at the LA Forum. When that song was over I found myself still in the feverish pitch of an international Christmas blast and unable to tolerate the sounds of directionless tourists. I shuffled my Shuffle to the twenty-three minute version of Whole Lotta Love from the same 1972 show. I definitely had a Wizard of Oz and The Dark Side of the Moon thing happening. It was, simply put, fantastic and the only way to roll around up there this time of year. It doesn't have to be Zeppelin but my god I recommend blasting something in your ears.

More talk about Zeppelin, I know, I know but there is no denying them. This is a band who electrified the blues and once they get in your head, they stay. Zeppelin's first four albums were released within two and a half year period, (from 1969 to 1971) and that is a substantial amount of excellent music to be bombarded with. I am officially deep in the trenches of a Zeppelin problem and I am taking Martha with me. She even started humming songs and the other day, she watched Black Dog online without me even being in the room. What can I say? For her it's all about John Bonham, for me it's Jimmy Page. I've taken out all my old vinyl, (all ten albums) and Miss Jasmine is now Christmas shopping online for either this, this or this.

What I really want for Christmas is something like this, only with this lens but that is a whole other subject that is never going to be talked about. But hey, look what's back on the market. Now that and a stopwatch would be a fun birthday present.

While wondering around the mean streets of Midtown, I called Jasmine in Pennsylvania for directions to the Disney store. I'd wanted to go there to shoot a Barbie® window display but didn't have a clue as to where it was. For some reason I thought it was near Times Square but as I walked by the Sullivan Theater, it occurred to me that I really didn't know where it was and before I made the huge commitment to walk down into Times Square at the height of lunch hour, I'd better double check. I'd just assumed it was in Times Square, because it sounds like it should be there. Jasmine is my dialup internet when I'm out shooting. If I need the exact address or phone number for something in Manhattan, I call her. Even out of state, she's still my photo bitch.

Jasmine informed me that it was over on 5th Avenue near Central Park and she knows this from memory because why? Because she's been there, of her own free will. Not with me, that's for damn sure. While I was waiting to cross Broadway with fifty holiday shoppers with cameras, I said to Jasmine;

"Oh man they lit that god damn tree last night and everyone here is out of their fucking minds."

Jasmine laughed in my ear as the woman in front of me turned around and gave me a total look of abject horror. I mouthed a 'what?' and shrugged my good shoulder at her and she looked away. That's right, Merry Christmas and welcome to New York.

With the hoards of crap that the foreign tourists are snapping up, New York City's economy should be just fine. The rest of the country will be homeless, having foreclosed on their dreams, but Manhattan is cleaning up. Who could blame them? If I lived anywhere else, I'd suffer through a shitty international delayed flight just to hit America's bargain basement prices. It is as though the United States has become one big discount store. We are now nothing more then one giant Wal*Mart.

United*States
Save Money. Live Somewhere Else.

The Wet Side of the Darkroom
I've been glazing my back with Tiger Balm extra strength for about a week solid now and it really seems to be pulling me through a rough patch. I'd rather smell like grandma then wear the TENS unit. That thing just reminds me that I'm fucked up and honestly, do I really need yet another thing to remind me of that?

Tiger Balm, for whatever reason, doesn't have the same reaction. Probably because I can't really smell very well. Too bad for everyone else now that it is the holiday hugging season. Acupuncture is working well and so is therapy. Lots of talk about bad things seems to be releasing some of the tension that I have all jammed up in me.

My therapist shares a space with several other head doctors in the practice. I've been to therapy about five times now and every time I've been there I've noticed a round tan device about the size of a large nut can sitting outside of her office. Finally, the last time I was there I asked her what it was. She said it was a noise machine. I laughed and joked, "Oh to muffle the sobbing." Her response was total straight-faced silence. I guess that would be an unfunny yes.

XM Radio has a new channel called XM LED. It's an all Led Zeppelin station. Seeing how I only go into work one day a week now, the odds of me knowing about this station were pretty slim. I'm hardly ever in the car and it's not like Martha listens to things like guitar-driven heavy metal sludge, unless of course, I'm forcing her to.

So last Thursday, while waiting on Martha, who was in CVS buying a battery for her business calculator, I was in the car stumbling along through the XM radio offerings when I hit upon a channel that said XM LED on the top. They were playing Good Times Bad Times. 'I wonder if this is a Zeppelin channel?' I said aloud to no one but the Prius.

Another Zeppelin song came on and I clapped my hands together like the true idiotic fourteen-year-old girl that I am. Now I had to figure out how to convince Martha to let me play the station for a little while on the way home. She likes to listen to tinny talk radio so this might be a rough sell.

She comes out of CVS and opens the car door as I am blasting The Crunge.

"So check this out! It's an all Led Zeppelin station!" I had obviously decided to just go for it.
Martha turned the volume down just a tad and said nothing as she fidgeted with her coat, the seat and her knee pillow.

"How about we just listen to it for a little while and if they play Stairway we're out." I negotiated.
She smiled and said, "What ever you want, poo."
Translated means, I'm not happy but this makes you happy, however do not make me any unhappier. If I develop into unhappier, you're out.

Despite pulling straight out into gridlock traffic on the highway, once we got moving we ended up listening to it the whole way home. They never played Stairway to Heaven, (nor any bootleg stuff either, but that is my issue) and as I pointed out to Martha, Zeppelin is great driving music, especially on a cold and clear star filled night.

The next day at work, Martha and I were IM'ing each other when Martha wrote that she could go another twenty-years without hearing Zeppelin again. Well, I guess twenty-years is really only a nine-hour work day long because that night on the ride home, she called me from the road just to let me hear that she is blasting Celebration Day.

Whatever Gives You Hope
Martha and I will be making the seven-hour drive to Jasmine's hippy den for Thanksgiving. Hmm, I wonder if we can listen to a little Zeppelin along the way?

Anyway, Jasmine doesn't like turkey or ham so I have to make filet mignon. She's been this way for years and I blame her step-mom. It has to be that woman's dried out birds that made Jasmine revolt. The child always hoovered my turkey, stuffing, gravy, biscuits and beans but that all changed once she got a few holidays in her with the other family. I never made ham so the ham thing is totally coming from them. An odd note here is that she will eat ham sandwiches. At any rate, now she won't eat anything resembling holiday food so we usually have a nice filet, spinach soufflé, salad and homemade pumpkin pie. Pumpkin pie seems to have made it though the emotional wreckage of it all.

Another great email from Jasmine follows. They are pretty priceless, and I would go so far to say that they are her generations version of the pretty picture drawing. Totally refrigerator material. While this one is not as good as the "Can I have a $1,000 for my birthday?", that one is pure gold but the one below is still fun.

You know the drill, this is a cut and paste job here, so spelling, lack of punctuation and general sentence structure are all signature Jazz.

From: jasmine northrop
Date: Nov 15, 2007 2:25 AM
Subject: hi there
To: martha

so i was going over my check book and my account and things dont add up. i am going to need you to help me when you come. i think i figured it out, but i would still like to sit down with you and see what i am doing wrong.

second, i had to get gas today because i was sucking fumes. i had to dip into the reserve money, so i was wondering with this weekend trip to pgh, if you could put in $150 for me. i am getting paid this friday, but i have a hair appointment and with all of the bs with my bank account, all of the money i saved was eanten up. plus i had to get birth control and it was $35, which i didnt expect. with all of that, i am going to have no money for pgh or the up coming week. I wouldnt go to pgh, but weber's family invited me down to celebrate weber's bday with them. i wouldnt get my hair fixed, but it is in desperate need for something to happen to it. it would be greatly appreciated. i havent gotten that many more hours at work, but since it is the holidays, they are going to bump me up because everyone is going on vacation. so things will be better in a week or two.

i am in class from 1230 to 2pm, so if you want to yell at me, dont call then.

thank you soooooo much.
love you, jasmine

Yep. Well at least she's on birth control.

I'm not sure what the official snow total for Hudson was but in our driveway there was easily two-feet of it. Martha wouldn't let me shovel because of my neck and what happened the last time. The only problem was that she had left her snow boots at work and my feet are about two and a half sizes smaller then hers are. So with her feet wrapped in extra large freezer bags she punched through to the garage to get the shovel and then made a single shoveled line to the walkway. It was then that a nice neighbor named Jack took pity on us and with his massive snow blower saved the day. Without that happening, it would have taken Martha all weekend to dig us out. Her back would be broken.

Yep, this is crazy stuff. I've haven't seen so much snow since I lived in Meadville. I think it snowed more in Meadville because of the proximity to Lake Erie but also why I might think that it snowed more was because I was never more then four-feet tall when we lived there. If it snowed a foot well, twelve inches was a big deal back then.

I do remember the neighborhood kids sledding down the back nine of the Hailwood Golf Club that we lived next to. Right at the edge of the green was the woods, and if you got up enough speed, you could fly across the creek at the bottom. Some kids didn't make it across and they would get wet and have to go home. Only once did that happen to me. I got a shitload of creek water down my snow pants. It was cold and gross. Because I was a pussy little redheaded five-year-old, I cried all the way home. I was also the same child that would make so many snow angles in my back yard that from the dining room window the yard looked like Escher's Angels and Devils drawing.

I guess you could say my head is currently in a strange place. My dreams have been running on these three themes:

1. Being laid off and becoming embarrassed about it. (The embarrassment part has me puzzled.)
2. The roof leaking in the kitchen. (It's not but I guess I think it's going to, or this is a bigger thing having to do with water)
3. My dead parents. Now Glamour Magazine says:
A dream of your mother signifies happiness in love or personal affairs, and a dream of your father forecasts progress in business, professional or career matters.

But the folks over at Dream Moods have a totally different spin on the dead parent thing.
To see and talk with your dead father in your dream, signifies that you are about to enter into an unlucky transaction or rotten deal. Thoroughly think through your decisions before entering into them. To see your dead mother in your dream, signifies your wretched and mean-hearted nature towards others around you.

Nice.

So in keeping with my wretched and mean-hearted nature I made one of my fantastic chocolate cakes for Jack, the neighbor who shoveled us out. We tried to give it to him on Saturday. Martha and I put our winter coats on, slid into our shoes and walked next door with a big ole cake on a plate. Martha rang the bell, knocked on the door and... nothing. We went back home, ate dinner then put our winter coats on again, slid into our shoes and went back over. The lights were on so Martha rang that bell, knocked on the door. After a few minutes and very, very slowly, an elderly man pries open the front door but can't seem to unlock the storm windowed screen door. Martha and I stand there watching him fuck around with the small lock until finally, Martha gets his attention and tells him its okay, nevermind. But he can't really hear us through the door.

Is Jack here?
What?
Does a Jack live here?
Yes. He's my nephew.
He was nice enough to plow our driveway and Holly baked him a cake.
Who? What? Oh? Well, he's sleeping. You're going to have to come back tomorrow.

If he could just open the door, I could have given him the cake but that kind of deduction and the whole logistics of it all was impossible.

The next day right before we left to try to deliver it a third time Martha says, "Here me now, if they aren't home, we're coming back here and I'm having a big piece of cake. Okay? Okay."

They were home and they now have the cake.

Maybe He's Caught in the Legend
I have to admit that the whole Van Halen, R.E.M and Patti Smith thing is what had me hooked. Sad to say I spent my Saturday night watching the VH1 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2007 ceremony. Grandmaster Flash, R.E.M, The Ronettes, Patti Smith and Van Halen.

As far as Van Halen goes, I was always on the David side of that crazy train. Didn't matter one bit what a jackass David Lee Roth was, Sammy Hagar was and is a tool. I saw Van Halen in the summer of 1979, when Runnin' with the Devil was everywhere but this was one of my favorite songs and this lead in to You Really Got Me, (I was already a total Kinks nut to begin with) could be heard coming from my bedroom from half a mile away. No wonder my mother was just out of her mind with me. The only reason she never killed me in my sleep was because I was an insomniac and she was older. She was out by 10:30 on nights where I would go the distance and watch the sunrise.

Just a few short but jam pack years later, I was living in Denver, pregnant with Jasmine and totally nuts about REM. Pretty Persuasion; Talk about the Passion; Sitting Still and Perfect Circle.

Oh but Chronic Town was the total shit, 1,000,000; Stumble; Wolves, Lower; Gardening at Night and Carnival of Sorts, (Boxcars) which I actually think I put on a tape for someone just a few years ago, or I wanted to because I remember it being a really good fit. R.E.M was huge in my world but so was Camper Van Beethoven, X and Husker du. The Cramps and Sonic Youth rounded out tapes with Patti Smith on one side and Nova Mob on the other. And in thinking about this further, I was totally into Hot for Teacher at the same time that I could not stop listening to Little America.

So as REM took to the stage and Stipe started yakking, which always makes my eyes roll. I laughed to myself because years ago, he never made a lick of sense seeing how he was a mumbler, now he speaks clearly but he seems like such a big drag. As I tuned him out, I started thinking about what a huge disappointment they became after about four albums in.

The last time I saw them was at the Coliseum at Richfield in Cleveland. My best friend and I had waited out all night in the freezing cold so we could be one of the first in line to buy tickets. (What can I say, no one had a credit card and life was a little more fucked up then it is now.) By the time the show came around, it was warmer outside and I'd already heard the new album, (Green) and I only liked one song on it. Turn You Inside Out. That was it. That night the Coliseum was packed and the police were everywhere. I couldn't understand it. I wasn't allowed to move from my seat and no one was smoking ANYTHING. The show was horrible but the band looked totally into it. R.E.M. started to play Perfect Circle and I thought I was going to vomit. After thirty minutes, we left and drove back to Pittsburgh.

As I lay in bed the other night, watching them sing Begin the Begin, I started to feel a little better. Sounded good and I always did like that particular song and dammed if I'm not still totally swayed by that fuckers voice. But then they did Gardening at Night and not just phoning it either. The whole thing actually made me sit up, put the bowl down and listen. I haven't seen it done that nicely in decades. The whole performance made my eyes well up. Sad but true, good music does that to me sometimes. Sometimes, it makes me cry. Of course, I was already weepy from when Patti Smith was on talking about her dead husband, Fred. (Boy, is she really starting to look like Joey Romone or what?) She is sixty for god sake and she is still something to see. Strong woman. Even Jasmine is so moved by her. I can't wait for the new covers album. I saw her do Jimi Hendrix's Are you Experienced? at BAM last year and I about lost my shit right there in the 25th row. But as you can see, it doesn't take much for me to act like I'm fourteen.

Wednesday morning when I first arrived at work and loaded up my browser to check on some email and general nonsense; you know, what has blown up now and what note worthy person has died now, when the very first thing I saw was this article. I busted out laughing and read the whole thing right then. I hit a total and complete perfect 10 on this. Probably not the best thing in the world to hit a 10 on but at least I achieved perfection. Also, Number 9 is an N/A seeing how no one at work is succeeding at anything. Whoops, I will take that back. A few folks are not only succeeding but out-and-out excelling at driving the paper straight into the ground but I would hardly say I am jealous. Well, maybe a little, such obliteration is awe-inspiring if nothing else.

I heard a reggae version of a Bread song four days ago and I can't get the damn thing out of my head. No matter what I listen to. It's driving me nuts. Aside from time, how does one remove a Bread song from the brain? Maybe this can shake it out. I can't seem to stop listening to it. It's has to be all that fuzzed out, heavy and I mean heavy bottom end. So much fun to walk around New York City in this bitter fucking cold weather with something like a mash up between Justin Timberlake and Muse slamming around in old brain.

One night last week as we drove up to the dark part of our street where we live, we noticed that there was a massive crate sitting in our yard. It was like, "Oh my god what the hell is that? What the fuck did you order?" Then upon a few reflective seconds, we realized that it was the new roof shingles and all the supplies for a brand new roof. Cool. But oh shit, that means we have a huge chunk of change that we now have to come up with. No we are not that stupid it's just that things move a little different up here and half the fucking battle was getting on a roofers schedule. We started this whole process in September, (the month that all bullshit starts) and we are just now getting a new roof. Well, not just yet. Should be this week. Right now, the new roof is sitting in our front yard.

I'm not even bothered by the cold snap that has engulfed our area. Seven degrees seems like a perfect time to rip the forty-year-old shingles off a hundred and six year old house and slap down new ones. This house is so old and improperly insulated that I bet if I were to stand across the street at night wearing night goggles with heat seeking sensors that our house would glow a good eight feet out from the walls. It would probably be so bright that it would scar my retinas. I'm surprised all the woodland creatures aren't nesting up against the foundation. If I were a possum, that's where I'd be.

The warmest part of the house is the second floor but once they rip the top off, I suppose that won't be the case. Regardless, the whole process is supposed to take three days, and of those three days, I will be at work every single one of them. Only the cats will be here. And you know, to them it will literally sound like the sky is falling. We're going to come home to some stressed out felines. Oh Zoë, hang in there.

Coming up with the money is going to be funny. Not fun, but funny, odd you know, amusing. We were going to borrow half of the cost from Jazz but she's almost out of grandma money. That's right, I'm thirty-five thousand dollars in the hole for her student loan debt and not only is she not going to graduate on time but she has to go a whole extra year. Grandma's money will be gone by September, (of course) and I'll probably have to apply for another student loan for her fifth fall semester because we will have reached the 10k cap on my dad's trust for the year. At this stage in my little mini rant, I would so like to point out here that her father, my ex-husband, has not paid one dime for college. His dead parents have but not him.

Ahhhhhh. Okay, I'm done. We'll get a new roof and we'll just charge it. Whatever.

Super Boring but Important
Last weekend Martha had an insurance guy come over to the house to talk Term Life Insurance for me. We have a few things in place but almost all of those are in the unlikely event of something happening to Martha before something happens to me. The good money bet is on me but you never know. So this is why we thought we might do a little term on me. You know, estimate out how long we think I might live. What do you think, maybe to seventy ish? It's a good guess. Seventy-five is pushing it and well, eighty is out of the question. Yes, yes it's all very morbid and strange, but the REALITY is that I have maybe twenty good years, (the emphasis on good), left before it becomes an interesting game of Last Dances.

If I die before Martha, what the fuck is she supposed to do? And Jasmine, she'll NEVER be able to get any personal kind of insurance so really, I'm up. All I need to do is pass a drug test. Yep, that's right. So next Saturday morning at 8 am a nurse is coming to the house to take blood and urine. Fantastic and wish me luck, a half a million dollars should make things a little easier for Martha to deal with, right? Of course neither one of them would have to put up with my bullshit once I'm dead so it seems like win-win. It's the least I can do. Shut the fuck up and have someone give them a bucket of cash.

Martha and I saw John Doe at Joe's pub the other night. In a nutshell, fucking fantastic. I am a sucker for just a man and his guitar. His voice is so alluring and velvety; it just makes me feel good to listen to him. The only issue, (because there is always one, right?) was a cockroach that kept crawling back and forth on the railing in front of us for about half the show. It was a baby and if I could have hoisted my boot up there without drawing unnecessary attention towards myself, right in the middle of John Doe performing an extra sweet cover of Sugar Mountain, then I would have. It was smaller than a basic beetle, another fine, fine, skin crawling bug in its own right.

The cockroaches at work are the real deal. Big American Cockroaches, or as old school New Yorkers call them "Water Bugs"; the size of a large Bic lighter and not the least bit afraid of humans. When I come around a corner on the fourth floor at work and see one of those things lingering near the bathroom, well I almost want to pull the fire alarm and evacuate the building. One of the super-sized ones fell from the ceiling and landed in a co-workers hair while she was talking on the phone. What are the odds of that? All that exposed loft piping sure is pretty to look at but it's just a superhighway in bug world. The poor woman was almost hit by a car when she ran screaming from the building and jumped across Cooper Square to the little island right before Bowery Street. She stood there hyperventilating with traffic whizzing by until her boyfriend came out and talked her down. She took the rest of the week off and it was like a Tuesday. That was three years ago and while she no longer works there, I ran into her on the street about six months ago and she still can't laugh about it.

Anyway, this little baby bug was more of an annoyance to me and a total freak out to Martha. It took her a few minutes to realize that we weren't leaving and all I was going to do was move all of our shit away from the railing. She took several deep breaths and dealt. She's such a trooper.

DIRTY ROADS TO HOME
Jasmine has returned to college and life goes on. Her test results are back and she is fine. Like fine, fine. If anything, she needs to loose a few pounds. Don't we all? I asked her to cut me a break and to try to cut back on the hypochondriac behavior. I simply can't handle it right now. I've got my own shit to try and pump up and feel good about. Mommy is a tad depressed, so cut it out. God, it is so fucking hard to love someone their entire life. From the cradle to the grave, I mean really, who has the stamina or patience for all of that? Think about it, the WHOLE life span? All of it. Christ, there were times when I wanted to throw Jasmine out the window and not even waste the time opening it first. Oh sure, when they are little and cute, that's easy. Unless you get a brat right out of the gate, then life is, very, very long isn't it? But pre-teen, teenager and then the twenty-something self-absorption of it all is pretty damn exhausting and (God willing) you aren't even halfway through it. I figure it'll take another ten years for the balance to slowly start to dip in my favor. Whatever that might mean.

So now, the focus for the Jasmine is this summer's trip to Europe. That's right Miss Jazz is going to study/shop/get drunk in England. She has signed up for a summer writing program at Oxford. Yep, that Oxford. Pretty great stuff and I am so excited for her. I wish we could go. Actually, we can. Something about parents can go and stay in a double dorm room (eww!). Maybe we should look into it. I'll probably be unemployed by then so what the fuck, we've got passports.

MOVE ALONG, NOTHING TO SEE HERE
There is nothing worse than feeling like a paycheck drain on the corporate tit. Just a tad frustrated with the new régime but honestly what does it matter? Why am I letting any of this bother me? Move on and get another job.

It's just a little painful to watch them destroy, with such middle-American, franchise momentum, something that the department has worked so hard for. Maybe, it is because I have worked there for four years and it is the longest job I've ever had; the sad fact about being a working creative, no long-term devotion on either side of the fence. Maybe, it is because I have a great deal of respect for the people in my department. I hate to see all of us discarded in such a self-righteous way. Maybe I am just being melancholy and I need to get over it.

But there is something so infuriating about being thought of as a waste. Because there is no web initiative, I am useless to them. This type of thinking makes me nuts. Who cares if we have increased our revenue stream by 50% in the past year? Our model is the model to follow, not the other way around. Oh yeah and by the way, this whole napkin thing is about as dumb and embarrassing as anything that has ever come up out of eighth-grade social politics.

Ah well, who cares, we just passed a $2.8 trillion budget so par-tay as they say. Let it burn baby, let it burn.

All of this nonsense reminds me of the time I worked for a small design firm that was bought out by a much larger consultancy. Say what you will about those Cambridge boys the one thing they do have is big, BIG ideas. Anyway, after the very friendly merger, (unlike now) the company was poised to go public. Because of a few screwy factors and my allotted shares, I was sitting on a potential 40-50k goldmine. In white-trash world, 40-50K IS a goldmine. Now, you can't make this shit up, (unless you are a young, stupid and a cheap rock writer), on the very day that this company was to go public the stock market crashed. It was known as the Dot-com crash or how I prefer to remember it as, my mother's 77th birthday.

Um, yeah, no one made any money and in fact, the whole thing was pulled from going public at the last minute. And while I was able to be transferred to New York City via that job, I was eventually laid-off, (along with 900 other employees) shortly before they closed their doors a year and a half later.

I often walk by my old building on my way to work these days. I remember that I never felt unnecessary when I worked for them. Not even when I knew I was going to be laid-off. It was just a simple matter of the business dissolving. It is what happens. But now, this whole thing is very, very different. Different in a nasty kind of way.

Seeing how last weeks road trip was, for the most part, unplanned, Martha and I found ourselves cash poor and completely embracing the oblivious nature of capitalism based on credit. We charged almost everything. We had to and we hate that.

I spent all day Friday in waiting rooms. The first one was for Jazz's appointment with the eye doctor. This was the second opinion doctor and more of a specialist then the cute eye guy at the local mall. Jasmine's primary care doctor here wanted a real doctor to look at her optic nerve before racing ahead with a spinal tap.

Martha and I sat in the no-man's-land of a sterile, white-walled waiting room filled with elderly folks. Classic D-List rock gently drifted around the room as I shifted my bony ass around on a hard green chair in a vain attempt to find comfort. The only thing to read was the new People magazine (the one where Britney talks). Twenty minutes into the glossy goodness of People, I could feel the stupid slithering over my grey matter.

We waited for well over an hour and a half before Jazz came back to us from behind the brown door and said, "Yup, I need a spinal tap. I'm borderline but they need to check my pressure."

Okay Miss Borderline, set it up.

Speaking of pressure, Martha's back had turned into one big spasm. Probably from all the night driving, endless sitting, cash stress and well, Jasmine in general, I suppose. After the optometrist, we headed on over to the local 'Day Spa' where Martha and Jazz both got massages. Why not? It was cheap and everybody hurt. I seized the opportunity to walk around the back alleys of a small town and shoot strange black and white photos until the sun went down and my fingers were cryogenically frozen to the Lubitel. At that point, I was forced inside to yet another waiting room with yet more brain-draining magazines and local gossip. There was a little more staff interaction at the Day Spa when the local homosexual hairdresser tried to get me to put a green hat on my head because with my curly red hair, 'that color is just dreamy'.

Saturday was all about goofy fun and loads of laughter. First, we went to the thrift store were Martha found an 8 x 10 Last Supper painting, ("What kind of place is that to have a dinner?") and a lacquered three-frame depiction of Mary, Jesus and a couple of Saints. Jasmine, not to be left out of the blasphemy, bought a Pope plate commemorating the death of Pope John XXIII in 1963.

From there, we headed on over to a real music store, the kind with pianos, guitars and drums. The beautiful thing about three women walking into a music shop is that to the staff, we were invisible. Martha screwed around over by the guitars while Jazz and I set up camp in the piano room. Jasmine is quite good considering she has never had a piano lesson. (She took trumpet for a few painful years.) I remembered basic stuff and kind of sucked considering I had five years of keyboard. But she and I did have a moment, Jazz on one organ and I on another, where dare I say, it was angelic. I'm a sucker for those B minor, E minor, and F sharp combos.

But all that fun was just a diversion to the real mission of the obligatory trip to the dreaded Wal-Mart empire.

THE MAPLE SYRUP BAKED RIGHT IN
A visit to Jasmine always means that at some point, there will be a trip to Wal-Mart but on this trip, I noticed something different. Back in the far left corner of the store, and deep within the bowels of the demon, was proof that Wal-Mart is horrible to its very core. Way past the frozen Perogies and extra wide isles of soda, sat a McDonalds. Like a worm inside a rotting apple or cheese inside the pizza dough, or even like the McDonald's McGriddles® Breakfast Sandwiches themselves! So completely unnecessary, disgusting and of no nutritional value what so ever.

As I stood in front of the cart parking area for McDonalds, it occurred to me what was missing. They need to put a Disneyland inside a Wal-Mart. They could put the rollercoaster on the roof. If it's happening in Vegas why not at a Wal-Mart? I'm thinking something along the lines of a Splash Mountain theme with cartoon characters. Wal-Mart could come up with a series of loveable cartoon characters that would walk the store, greeting customers and entertaining the kids. Think of the Polaroid moments! Employees could not only have the opportunity to make a shit wage selling shit product, they could now do it from inside a suffocating 60 lbs Furrie suit.

Ah yes Wal-Mart, where I can buy not only non-descript beef patties, but also enough ephedrine to start my own personal little Meth Lab and a double sided axe for all my chopping needs. Trust me, I have chopping dreams, er, I mean needs. Yes, needs.

DOUBLE BUMMER SAVED US
I shot way too much film of local farms, abandon business signs and an old drive-in. All the little things that make up the dead towns that pepper the Pennsylvanian landscape. Martha said that everywhere out there, (as in 'not in here'), is weird and she blames me. She said that after 14 years with me she can no longer function properly in Middle America. Middle America is like a bad acid trip. I don't think I can take complete responsibility for just how much like brown acid the middle of PA is but I will bow my head to the idea that I do have a tendency to point shit like that out.

But why fight it? I stand out no matter what happens and sometimes the strange just finds me. Maybe because I just might happen to be standing in the middle of a Sheetz parking lot just outside of Punxsutawney, pointing a Polaroid up towards the sky.

"What the heck are you taking a picture of?" a local hayseed asked me.
"The colors." I replied with a smile on my face, not even trying to blend in at all.

The ride home was fucked up, and it sucked to be in the car with me. After a night of sleeping in a room that was located directly under a whole floor full of Christian, pre-teen, wrestling team boys, (no shit) I woke up sneezing and coughing all over everything. I didn't stop until some ten hours later. I even took two (2) Benadryls and one (1) of Martha's Allegras. Nothing helped, although I did pass out for an hour. But when I woke up I'd start sneezing all over again until I'd loose my breath and almost swallow my tongue. It was great and technically Martha was right, I can't swallow my tongue unless I chop it off and THEN eat it.

After a few days of negotiations, I managed to convince Martha to let me open one of my Christmas presents early. I already knew what it was, the surprise element wiped away by a steady email stream between the two of us about various brands, woofers, tweeters and pricing. I was getting new speakers and Martha was organizing a deal with a guy she used to work with. Once we decided on a pair, they arrived rather quickly. I came home from work and there, behind the doorman, were two 4-foot tall boxes. Taped to one box and in plain view of about two-hundred people was a packing list with Martha's complete credit card number (including expiration date) flapping in the breeze.

After we got the boxes in the apartment, and called the credit card company to place the exposed credit card on hold, I had to make the case as to why we should take the speakers out of the box—for space reasons, of course. And if we went so far as to hook them up, well then, we could remove the nasty boxes AND the enormous Harmon Kardons that the new speakers were replacing.

Speaking of the Harmons, I have had those speakers since Jasmine was two. I even remember the day Jim brought them home. Originally, they cost about as much as our rent, which at that time was around six hundred dollars a month. Jim got a deal because they were the floor models at the stereo store in the same mall where he worked at a photo lab. Much like Hyde.

We were living well beyond our means in a two-bedroom one-bath condo in a condominium village called Southglen Commons just on the inside of Littleton Colorado. We were living in Littleton specifically because it had the best pre-school in the Denver area. Yes, that's right, it was all just down the street from Columbine. If I had been a completely different person, not gay or a vagabond then Jazz probably would have been a sophomore at that school, instead of a disgruntled one in Pittsburgh in 1999.

While we were not the lowest form of white trash to live in Southglenn Commons, we did live above them. The two guys who shared the two-bedroom below us were perfect in so many ways but to me their main function was to keep the gaze of the neighbors off of us. They were young, loud and drunk most of the time. They listened to heavy metal and I'm almost positive they sold drugs. To live below us during those years had to have been ridiculously loud and only someone who was louder, and more fucked up would have been able to stand it. Jasmine was two, three and four while we were there. All she did was scream her head off while running from one end of the apartment to the other. She would scream just for the pure joy of screaming. It was great. Between Husker du and Jasmine, the only neighbors we could have had were young drunk fuck-ups. Any other normal hardworking asshole would have constantly complained and probably called the cops. All things I totally understood then and now. I knew how lucky Jim and I were to have such crackhead neighbors. They never fucked with us for two obvious reasons. We looked like dirty poor hippies and we had a kid. This was back in the day when there was still honor among thieves.

One night I woke up to red and blue flashing lights swirling around on the bedroom ceiling. I screamed at Jim to hide EVERYTHING and ran from our mattress on the floor to the big living room window just in time to see the Denver police dragging both shirtless boys from their apartment and through the snow towards the flashing police cars. As I watched the cops shove each boy into a police cruiser, it made me sad to think that they were gone. Thankfully, that apartment stayed vacant for the rest of our time there.

Before the Harmon Kardons, I had a pair of Panasonics that drove my mother to attempt murder on several occasions. They made it to college and beyond, a feat that should not go unnoted. After all, they survived nine crucial years, (1977-1986) before being regulated to 'second pair' and spent their twilight years hooked up to the TV blasting The Smurfs and My Little Pony commercials. Jim and I never threw anything out because we started out with nothing. We bought other folks yard sale crap and kept it all until it disintegrated. The bright yellow dresser that Jasmine grew up with was 'found' on the curb a block away from our apartment in Pittsburgh. I was alone and on foot so I pulled it down the alley, the asphalt slowly shaving the veneer off the bottom. When I got about three houses away, Jim came out only because he had heard this god-awful sound coming from out back. He had looked out the window and noticed my red head over the fence tops, slowly bobbing up and down to the rhythm of a loud scraping noise.

Ah, yeah... so, um... right. As my neighbor's can tell you, I have new speakers and deep down I am only thirteen. It takes every bit of my adult fiber to keep the sound at a reasonable level. All I did Saturday was sit at bottom point of the perfect sound triangle in the living room, listening to music. They are great and I hope to get a good twenty years out of them. Sometime around 2025 I should be bugging Martha for a new pair.

I don't know about all of you but I am not really into the idea of winter this year. It moves me not one bit to see the white fluffy stuff all over everything. Usually, at the very least, I find inspiration in the clean white covering and have an overwhelming desire to shoot black and white film. But not this year, or at least not yet. Christ, I'm not even ready to admit that it's Christmas time. It all happens to fast. We just had Thanksgiving and the anniversary of my mother's death and now we have my birthday, Jasmine's homecoming, Christmas and then New Years—all within a four-week period. All that up, down and all around makes me a dizzy mess. Plus, there is such a huge let down on the backside. This probably explains why I've been getting so lost in music, to the point where I can't seem to pay attention to much else.

I've started going to the record store and buying Christmas presents for myself and bringing them home for Martha to wrap and place under our invisible tree. She's doing it too and it's kind of fun. I don't get to play with the CD's I've bought but I know what to take off my big list. Despite the extensive use of internet shopping for actual gifts for others, I still have to go to the fucking mall.

On Tuesday after work, I will be at above-mentioned mall, either wanting to kill someone or begging to be killed. Ah, yes, the ying and yang of the hollydaze brings out the murder/suicide tendencies in me. I should just get it over with and quit stalling because if I wait—to go to the mall—it will only be worse. Each passing week, consumer frenzy expands, doubling in size, until it finally it all explodes on December 26, when stores practically give all their unsold crap away. If I go now and take care of a few things, I might not end up with such a massive headache.

I am either sick again or allergic to every single thing around me, no matter where I go. I sneezed all weekend long, the crazy, rapid-fire kind. The kind where you can't even take a breath in, so after about the 3rd or 4th sneeze you begin to pass out from lack of oxygen. In a panicked attempt to breathe, you start choking and sneezing at the same time while your eyes tear up and you think to yourself, 'Oh Jesus Christ, if this doesn't stop, I'm gonna swallow my tongue!' I did this several times over the past few days and not just for the benefit of my family and pets. I did it on the subway, (always a crowd pleaser) and I did it in grocery store, where no one seemed to notice. I started to get gooey at Macy's but managed to pull it together before it got crazy in the shoe department.

Oh yes, speaking of shoes, I now have winter boots. Mother Nature forced my hand and off we went to the death star mall. It snowed and I needed boots, period. So China wins while political principles takes a backseat to actually cash on the barrelhead. Funny, seeing how my vote doesn't count anymore, the only thing, the only real power I have is with my cash. Consumerism is politics. The theory is that if I don't like a company's policies in, say Indonesia, then I'm not going to buy their products. Unless of course they are the only game in town and I need what they are selling. Then I have to chomp on it and vow to do better.

Remember when you were a kid and the new Christmas Toy catalog from Sears would come to the house and you would spend the day pouring over each page with a pen and paper in hand, writing down your list for Santa? Those were great days weren't they? Well before you realized that Santa was a cranky senior vice-president and trust officer who held a grudge like a two-thousand-year-old Japanese curse.

Well, last week all 416 pages of the new B&H Home & Portable Entertainment catalog found its way to our mailbox and after quickly drooling over all the goodies inside, I've made a dream list. Knowing full well that Santa, is poor I kept it pretty simple.

On page 13 is the Kenwood Sirius Digital Satellite Tuner. While I'm a at work I've been listen to WFMU on internet radio and I would love to check out Satellite Radio at home. WFMU reminds me of what college radio used to be all about. Satellite radio is like the Wild West, all new and full of possibilities. This would be the 'fun, learn something new toy'.

I need new speakers. Now, this has been an issue for years. The woofers on my Harman Kardons have started to biodegrade right there in the living room. This is bad and I know it. Speakers are expensive, well at least the kind that are going to last for 20 years, like my harmans.

So, without the aid of a sound room and strictly by the written page I have eyeballed two. For purely ascetic reasons I would like to 'hear' the Bose 901 Direct/Reflecting floor standing speakers that are on page 182. I am a sucker for design and these look fun. The JBL Northridge E90 3-Way Dual 8" Floor standing speakers on page 203 are what I am leaning towards, sight unheard.

Headphones with me are a big deal. My hair is a snake nest and anything put up there needs to be able to withstand constant tugging. I hate when shit pulls my hair. I have been using earbuds but would be open to a pair of the Sony Studio Monitor Headphones that are on page 81. I see them as a necessity for work in order to push all those around me into the great mid-day 3:00 void of get the fuck away from me.

Ah but yes, right there on page 127 is what I think would be so much fun to have. A Sony Hi-Fi Component CD/Player/recorder. Hook that puppy right on up to the main stereo and I could burn vinyl and god only knows what else. Why they are so expensive and cumbersome I'm never know. This technology should be standard on ANY CD player.

It's good to dream.

PUSHING PRODUCT
I made a 2006 Holga Wall Calendar through Lulu and I must say I am very proud of it. Lulu does nice work (and so do I), in fact much nicer than Café Press. I compared the two and it was easily no contest. It's printed on a 80lb linen paper and it just looks gorgeous. Buy one, they make great gifts!

MORE MUSIC & WHITE NOISE
Martha's new iBook came and I must say it is really cute even if it is white. She's organizing the bazillion photos of the cats and figuring out how she wants to work with the new system.

I would like to try to strip her old Dell down and network it to my Dell, put it on the floor next to me in the office and turn it into an MP3 server for my own personal amusement. It's only 40 GB but that would at least hold all my Dylan and maybe a few other albums worth of stuff. Could be fun or a nightmare depending on my talent for understanding XP Networking abilities. Yeah, I know, I am a little scared, so this week is back-up and burn baby, back up and burn.

SUPER STUPID
Last Thursday night at 2:00 in the morning, Jasmine saw a kid get hit by a car. She was with her normal group of party friends and they had been out being bad kitties when she saw a wasted kid whom she did not know walking down the street. A car came up beside him and turned into him, rolling him either up over the car, or up over the hood. I could not really get that straight; Jazz was all excited and talking way too fast for me to follow along. The kid is alive and probably what saved him was the fact that he was so wasted.

I am surprised that Jasmine is the first one of us to witness a person being hit by a car. I can't believe that after living here for over 5 years now I haven't seen complete carnage. All the elements are here, speeding cabdrivers, oblivious and obnoxious pedestrians, confusing street signs, drunken tourists, multitasking NY drivers and of course, Jersey drivers. I am surprised that I don't see a hit and run or at least a hit every damn day.

CAN I SHOW YOU MY SLIDESHOW?
With my nose to the monitor and a month after we got back, I have finally finished the Topsail Island vacation photos. Now this section was built basically for three people, Martha, Sheri and myself. Well, Jazz too if she wants to look but she's a little bitter about not going so maybe, not so much. Some of the photos are beautiful, if I may say so. The black and white beach stuff is particularly stunning but they are still vacation photos. The only thing modern about the presentation is that the viewer can chose not to go there instead of being stuck in the neighbors' family room. Two of them made it on to the 2006 Holga Wall Calendar, so there. Enjoy.

Well this week my head is filled with nothing but the Vacation Beach Crazies. I don't see how I can possibly concentrate on one damn thing except the weather reports off the coast of North Carolina.

I fear that my Dylan problem is about to reach epic proportions. Undoubtedly, it will follow me to the beach in seeing as how we leave this Saturday and I see no end in sight. I am actually contemplating only bringing Dylan with me but that means that I would be subjecting Martha and Sheri to excruciatingly long car rides. But after watching No Direction Home forget it. I can't stop playing all the different versions of Visions of Johanna and Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues that I have. The soundtrack is so good that I'm almost unable to do anything else while I'm listening to it, except think about walking on the beach and getting lost in the rhythm of the ocean waves rolling up on the shore.

HIGHER EDUCATION
Jasmine called me last week for a variety of reasons but the big one, Monday morning right out of the gate, was that she'd lost her cell phone somewhere on the way to class and she was totally freaked out about it. I called Martha who, after bitching at me for about a minute, called At&T, cancelled Jasmine's phone and ordered a new, free upgrade. Six hours later Jazz called me from Patrick's phone to let me know that someone had found her phone. Even though it had been outside in the rain all day, it appeared to still work. "Too bad" I sighed, "Martha has already ordered you a new one. You should have it by Friday." I told her not to waste Patrick's minutes and only call me in an emergency. "Just go to a payphone and call my cell if there is a crisis." I said.

Four days later, she called me from Patrick's phone to ask if I knew how to fix a crack in a glass bong.

DAYDREAMING IN BROOKLYN
The differences between the Bronx and Boerum Hill are many but the real bottom line is that I can afford to live in the Bronx but Boerum Hill would require Martha and me to earn at least double a year more so we could both feel like yuppies and loath what we are feeling. Sure is nice to have money, eh? Ah yes, Boerum Hill, where the only tension in the air on a Sunday afternoon was when I got cranky after Martha walked into a shot.

As we floated down Atlantic Avenue shooting various snaps of Antique stores and gallery spaces, the talk turned to puppies and a better, gay friendly lifestyle. What the hell, we can dream. And we do. We even have names for the dog(s) we want to get. Little Bamboo for the Chihuahua and Fettuccini for a yet to be determined small dog.

A friend of ours is going to have to put down her 19-year-old cat soon and we were discussing how god-awful it is to do just that. The memory of Mona is very near and this Halloween it will be two years since we had to put her to sleep. Anyway, we started talking about how fucked up it would be to put down a dog, 'cause they are like a little person, and we started getting teary-eyed. Actual tears about putting to sleep a dog that we don't even have yet. As if having names already isn't wacky enough. God, we are pathetic.

We finished up the neighborhood shoot at a snotty French restaurant eating Eggs Benedict with a side of freedom fries, coffee and for desert; half a Xanax and some kind of sugar explosion involving pastry, ice-cream and a warm chocolate drizzle.

SCREW ON HEAD
While cleaning up my office the other day, I found some old lists that I made from when I was on blood pressure medicine. That shit used to make me forget just about everything, so I had to write down stuff that I wanted to do or stuff that I needed to do within the day. I still have the post-it note that Jazz stuck on the dial to the oven reminding me to "Please TURN ME OFF". While shuffling through tiny pieces of paper one list made me laugh.

-Bring Camera (I actually had to write this down?)
-Call Dr. Witt/pick up pre cert.
-Baby Oil
-Drano
-Nose Spray
-rethink the ovarian cancer thing (Nice, what the hell does THAT mean?)
-Blood Work

Last Thursday, while I was riding with my eyes closed on an overcrowded 6 train to my dentist, a older man stood in front of me and started talking. The only reason I noticed him at all was because I felt a slight warm breeze on my face that smelt like garlic. The nose curling stench immediately made my eyes pop open and bam! There he was, his lips moving around a slightly disturbing smile. I could not understand a damn thing he was saying because I had my headphones on. I pulled the left ear pod out of my ear and said, "Pardon me?"

His smile grew bigger at the thought of a conversation with me and he said, "You so old school with the cassette tape. What you listen to... REO Speedwagon?"

The second he smiled, I tried to move back away from him but I stepped on a small Hispanic woman who had climbed up my ass at some point during the trip uptown. She proceeded to bitch at me, in Spanish, and then pulled my hair, which had managed to weave itself inside her backpack. My head jerked back towards her even further as she screamed at me, "What'd a gotta move for! Stand still. Chica blanca estúpida"

As she glared at me, I yank my hair out of the zipper on her backpack and attempt to adjust myself back on the pole. But another woman had moved into the tiny space I had been blissfully in seconds before. I was left with nothing to hold onto as the 6 train came flying into 42nd street, Grand Central Station. I couldn't even ride it like a skateboard because there was no room for me to spread my feet apart and balance my ass. I was angled all wrong.

I just stood there laughing as I bounced from passenger to passenger like the silver ball in a pinball machine. No one else thought it was funny, but I thought it was perfect. It was either laugh or start punching people as I fell into them and they pushed me off. The only reason I didn't fall to the ground was because there was no room for me to fall to the ground. We came to aggressive stop and as the majority of the car exited at 42nd street, I was kicked around a few more times before I found refuge on a folding seat in the corner. It was there that I adjusted myself, smoothed down my frizzed out hair, and fixed the flat that someone had given my right shoe. I then stopped and rewound my tape to the Dylan song that had started this whole thing, thank you very much.

COMING SOON: STARBUCKS
I had to shoot the South Bronx for the Neighborhoods column and I swear to god I will never do anything thing like that again. Mott Haven is no place for me to be strolling around with a head full of red hair and a camera. The sad but tired fact of having white people wonder about in a predominantly black/Hispanic neighborhood means that gentrification cannot be far behind. Why the hell else would they have sent me up there? Other then secretly hoping I would be killed, but my editor is one of the few folks who happen to like me, so I doubt it. Supposedly, the South Bronx has a few urban pioneers hold up in a loft or two, although Martha and I didn't see a one, but for the most part me, my camera and my girlfriend were not welcome sights and it showed.

White folks go up there to either buy drugs or buy property. Neither of which are well received. One keeps the neighborhood in a depressed state and the other drives up property values that will ultimately force generations of families to move from whatever cluster fuck of a community they have managed to carve out for themselves. It pushes or pulls in all the wrong directions and why yes, I do hate what I represent. I still don't want to be shot on a Sunday afternoon in the South Bronx. I mean Christ, I haven't even seen The Lion King yet.

A GUN AS LONG AS MY ARM
I have been listening to Dylan for two weeks solid in a massive ramp up for Martin Scorsese documentary, No Direction Home: Bob Dylan on PBS American Masters Monday and Tuesday. I can't wait. Martha even let me play the soundtrack, Bootleg Series Vol. 7, in the car on the way up to the Sharp Company picnic somewhere in the woods of New York. That's right, I went to a creamy, dreamy 24th Annual Family Day Picnic. There were all the normal white bread things that corporate picnics bring, kids, beer, prizes, clowns and bees. We stayed long enough to not win any door prizes and for Martha to shoot a gun. Watching her shoot a rifle at the sky is, in my book, a most excellent reason to leave the house.