Incidentally, that picture below is of the Hotel Seville (29th & Mad) before it became the Carlton-Meridian. I lived in the Seville in 1985-86 when it was still a welfare hotel, and had several self-imposed near-death experiences within its walls. Sid Vicious tried to commit suicide there. My friend Christ lived there too. He and I also moved to LA at the same time... I made out of LA alive, he didn't. He was shot in the back of the head by his girlfriend's brother.

i'm in love with something that i can't see

i just took the qualifying test for Jeopardy! it was harder than i thought it wood bee.

now i'm having conversations with dead people: physically dead, spiritually, or just "dead to me".

those are always fun

told christ wetzel that the hotel sevillle is now a Carlton/Meridian

where millionaires sleep with the ghosts of dead crack whores.

and you can't get a loosie for a dime anymore at the bodega on the corner

because it's gone, the family retired happily to queens

with the buyout money from Crunch.

told my dad i'm doing ok, still landing on my feet

and i still think about him on his birthday.

told my high school girlfriend that i had dinner with

a transboi on thursday.

told a passing lady that love allows for all things good

and never hides

and always looks you in the eye.

xoxoxoxo xoxoxoxo
oxoxoxo oxoxoxo
xoxoxo xoxoxo
oxoxo oxoxo
xoxo xoxo
oxo oxo
xo xo
o o
x

Spring Cleaning

I didn't even realize that it officially turned spring on Monday. So much junk has built up, even in just the past half-a-year. Junk I didn't even know was junk... something found, that I thought I loved for a minute so I brought it home and put it in the corner...but it didn't belong in the corner. Or anywhere. It was junk, and belonged in the trash. But throwing away anything that you even thought you could love, hurts to a degree relative to the amount of time you loved, or thought you could love, that thing. love things trash junk. Or there's a sweater that you find on the floor of the closet. There was a day that you loved that sweater more than anything - the moment you decided to buy it, that sweater was everything. Now the cat's peed on it, and the pee has dried up. Your once favorite sweater is crusty with old cat pee. You hold it up to the light, and see the holes for the first time... new holes or ones that were there w/out you noticing.. it doesn't matter. Holes are holes (insert bisexual joke here). By the end of the day you have 3 contractor bags full of holy sweaters, expired vitamins, vhs tapes, a stray square of christmas wrapping paper, half-filled notebooks, and dirt. I need 2 trips to get them to the street. After the second, wiping my hands on my jeans out on the sidewalk, I look up and meet familiar eyes - a friend I used to love, passing on the sidewalk. Eyes quickly away and down, and I smile in a way that hurts. Back inside, everything feels bigger.

what the fuck happened?

Holy shit, I'm home! How did I get here? I love when my day starts like that. Went with Rev to Sidewalk to see Milk Kan (actually, it was just Simon, aka "Scrappy Hood", solo). We were joined by Lopi, Dodge, Brer, Kat, Monica & Humphrey, Prichard, Mike Amato and Michele Carlo. We took up about 3 tables in the showroom, where we camped out through a few opening acts of varying levels of goodness and drank. And drank. And got shusshed a lot. And whiled our time chatting with Simon and sending text messages back and forth between tables. Simon went on at about 11ish (they are remarkably punctual at Sidewalk) and did a short set, maybe 30 minutes or so.... after which most of us staggered over to Dodge's. Somehow Rev, Simon and I got seperated from the others and decided we should stop in at a bodega for beer, since we didn't know if the others would be buying some (No, it never occured to any of us to use our cell phones to call the other group). We walked out with a keg of Heineken, which we lugged up to the Dodge-Mahal, where the others were waiting. After that.... uhh... I remember there was a fair amount of drinking beer out of jars, there may have been some dancing, I smoked a cigarette or 2. And then I was home, and it was Saturday! Like magic! and...oooff... food calls. As does the gym. laterz.

North Six

I can barely move today due to late night cavorting amongst metal heads in bburg last night. Rev's next article for Nerve is about trying to be a groupie and to that end she asked me if I'd call my friend (and Matador Records prez) Chris to see if he could help her hook up with a band. I'd barely gotten her request past my lips, when Chris said "I've got the perfect band for her, but she'll have to act fast." The band, Early Man, is an extreme metal outfit from Columbus, Ohio who have one of the best bios of any band we'd ever seen. They'd be playing at North Six in Wmsbg that same night, and out in Hoboken the next (tonight). Since neither one of us wanted to go to Hoboken, and we both had planned to go to Prichard's birthday party on Sat, she had to make the move quickly.

At about 9:30, Rev, Dodge and I piled into a cab and headed over the bridge. I made a call to get a 20 on Chris, but he clearly had already begun drinking and I couldn't really make out where he was, except that he was already in the burg somewheres. We pulled up to North Six to a gaggle of metal hipsters hanging on the sidewalk, asking if we had the hookup on extra tix. After being carded and bag-searched, we were fed into the outer lobby just in time to see the 6'6" bouncer "escorting" an unruly metal head out to the street, via some kind of choke-hold I'd never seen before. I called Chris again, and all he was able to get out this time was "Berry and North Six. Drink."

"What's the name of the bar?"

"I unno. Berry and North Six"

So the three of us headed to Berry and N. 6 and met up with Chris, his wife, and a fellow named (Andrew?) who was quiet and mysterious. They were just standing out on the sidewalk, and I think someone must have suggested a bar, because Chris staggered off in a direction and seemed to know where he was going. I think we were looking for Greenpoint Tavern, but never did find it. On the way, Chris ran into the Early Man drummer and the guitarist for the opening band, Priestess, and they all engaged in some kind of shop talk, while Rev, Dodge and I hung back. I told them that if they were gonna do this groupie thing, they'd better get in there and introduce themselves, so we stepped up but let Chris do the introductions. He didn't mention that Rev's goal was mind-bending sex with one of them by the end of the night, which is probably just as well. After not-finding our destination, we just went into some random bar and I got my beer on, while Chris ordered a bourbon straight-up. He'd mentioned on the phone earlier that he'd been keeping sober lately, and planned on just "dipping his toe off the wagon" but not until next weekend. As we waited at the bar, I said "I thought you weren't dipping off the wagon til next week", to which he replied "The minute I heard your voice on the phone, I knew I wouldn't be staying sober tonight." I was flattered that I could have such an effect on someone.

11:00 PM: We make it back to NorthSix in time to catch the end of Priestess's set which they rocked to a sea of headbangers, many of whom were waving the obligitory devil-horn fingers in the air. We'd hoped that Priestess would be an all-girl metal band so that I could get in on the groupie action too, but alas they were all dudes. I lost Dodge and Rev in the crowd, but when Priestess finished up, they found me and began waving their own devil-horns and screaming about how Priestess rules the world! They asked if I could get Chris to let them downstairs so they could start mauling the band members. I disappeared to find him, and when I did he said "This isn't really a Matador show, so I can't really start sneaking them around. Besides, Rev Jen is going to have to do some of this groupie work on her own. I told her earlier that the key to being a groupie was patience, and she'll just have to have some." I felt like I was being given a lecture on self-restraint by Keith Moon. I got another drink and headed back to break the bad news, but the pair were, once again, nowhere to be found.

As it turns out, NorthSix isn't too tough a place to sneak around in. Rev and Dodge had done just fine getting backstage without Chris's help and apparently they were able to meet and socialize with many of the band members all on their own. Chris would be proud, I thought. However, Rev made the cardinal error of telling the dudes she was a journalist ("I never should have done that!" she said this morning) which made them all take a big giant step away. Apparently, musicians don't like their "gee-eff's" knowing about their groupie activity, much less reading about it on urban hipster websites like Nerve. By the time the 2 of them came back up to get me, Early Man had already taken the stage and the heads were banging once again. We strolled right by the "security" guy and went back downstairs to an empty green room to do some more drinking. Dodge, by this point, had fallen in love with Vince, a member of Priestess and was lamenting that he had given them the brush. "Maybe that's his jacket," I said, pointing to the brown leather fur-collared bomber laying on the chair. I felt through the pockets to see if there were any identifying objects, and sure enough, there was a wallet in the inside pocket. It should be mentioned that Priestess are from Canada, and apparently are not too hip on the do's and don'ts of the big bad apple, the first of which is DON'T leave your wallet alone in a room by itself. Lucky for Vince I'm not a thief, but I did pull his driver's licence for Dodge, who swooned when she saw it. "Look! It's got his address!", she gasped, and immediately wrote it down. I also found his cell phone, and tried calling my own number from his phone in order to get Dodge some digits to go with the Montreal residence info, but we couldn't get a signal in the basement.

We remained downstairs until Early Man got offstage and Chris came down with the band for a little late night metal schmoozefest. I was already about 7 or 8 pints in at this point, so here is where the old memory starts to crackle out. I know that we were downstairs for a while (although I don't remember who I talked to, if anyone) and then left, Dodge went home, and Rev and I went with Chis and the band to some other bar where we drank big giant beers out of styrofoam. "Is this Greenpoint Tavern, Rev? Did we finally find it?" I remember asking. "No," she said "We're somewhere else that also has beer in styrofoam." I was confused. I was very drunk. It was very late. I went outside and got in a cab and went home. Rev never did get laid, but hopefully she got something to write about.


The green room


This dude is wringing the sweat out of his shirt.


Hangin' with Early Man