Survival of the Dead and Where I Can't Go :(

George A. Romero is doing a Q&A at BAM, and I wish I could go. I hate that things like this are so far away from me these days. I'm really kind of heart broken that I can't go to this. I would trade in all the concerts I've ever been to to go to this.

Kendra Malone's Month of April

When I was last in New York, I met a very nice and quirky little woman named Kendra Malone. She just published a portion of her journals, calling them "long and lurid." I read them and like them. I wrote a little post about this, but all of my compliments sound mean today. It may be because it is gray and cold outside. It may be because I am a big fat jerk. I deleted my post about Kendra and her work. But I like Kendra, and I like what she's written here. You should drink wine and read it, pretty little pigs.

back

This photo reminds me of Star Trek except the women on Star Trek looked more human.

It took me a very long time to get home. I rode in six different types of vehicles to get here. It is 4:20 AM in New York, which only means that I am hungry. I should be sleeping, but I sleep according to clocks and not according to my body telling me when I should. My body and my brain don't talk enough.

The only reason I am blogging right now is because I am curious about a reading that is taking place tomorrow at Pegasus Books. I know nothing about it, but I am going to it. I hope it's good. You should join me.

Bed-Stuy

Tonight is my last night in Brooklyn.

I stayed in four different neighborhoods in Brooklyn, and I think I know it pretty well now.  I stayed in some good neighborhoods and some bad ones, some young and some old, some safe and some you don't want to be in after dark.

The place I'm in right now is called Bed-Stuy.  It's kind of famous for some things you wouldn't want to be famous for if you were a neighborhood.  But there are awesome international restaurants, mostly Halal and West Indian and some African and Ethiopian, and there's a Muslim prayer announced from speakers some place from time to time.  I am the only white person wherever I go here.

I walked down Fulton St. Black people looked at me when I walked by.  A lot of them looked at my shoes for some reason.  I'm glad my shoes look old and scuffed and have a hole in their soles.

I went into a pizza place, and an older black man said there were no seats for him.  So I offered him the free seat at my table. The man ignored me. The owner of the shop said to the man he could sit with me.  And the man said, "I would rather sit alone than sit with a white---."  I am not sure what the last word was.

Down the other side of Fulton, there was a shop that said "save slave theater."  Slave Theater was next door, and it appeared to have been closed a long time.  The storefront had a television that played anti-white speeches to the street.  It said that blacks shouldn't buy things in white neighborhoods or watch white movies or read white books or have anything to do with integration.  It was weird to hear something saying that separate was better.

Up Bedford is a notoriously  horrible men's shelter that used to be an armory.  It looks like a castle and is nicknamed Grayskull.  There's a police van outside to take men to the police station where the cops will pay homeless men ten dollars to stand in a lineup.

All the buildings in Bed-Stuy are ancient, and many of them are beautiful.  I kind of like being the only white person on the street.  I think I would like to live here if I were to move to New York.

Last Hoorah

Last night I went to my last party in New York.

It was Tao and Justin's flat, filled with artists and writers.

Someone built a fort out of mostly a baby grand piano, a hat rack, and a large sheet.  Being a large individual, I am usually left out of such things because I take up too much space and ruin everyone's fun, so I didn't go in the fort for the sake of others despite really wanting to.

Anyway, really cool people were there, and I had a good night.

New York parties are the best.  I even got a present, the Agriculture Reader, and I've been reading it and adoring it. Such a great journal!

This afternoon, I am going to see Mark Wallace at the Bowery Poetry Club.  I can't believe that they do readings at 4:00 PM on Saturdays.  Doesn't seem realistic.  Will people actually show up?  I half expect to be alone in the audience.

From now on, I will be staying in a nineteenth century brownstone in Brooklyn.  I've been looking forward to this part of the trip.  I've said goodbye to everyone as if I am leaving tonight, and then I will live, more or less like a local in this brownstone.

Ferry Tales of New York

I took the ferry to Fraunce's Tavern today.  It's where the Sons of Liberty decided to throw a little tea party in Boston.  It's where George Washington said his final farewell to his generals.  Herman Melville hung out there.

The museum upstairs had a lock of Washington's hair.

It was the one expensive meal I promised myself in New York, and it was worth it, I do say.  To eat a fancy meal in New York's oldest standing building is enough, really, but the food was delicious, and the service was great.  Attached via a hallway, the tavern had all sorts of beer on tap, and the crowd was lively, and the bartenders were friendly.  One of them bought me a beer.  It's all wood and brick in there with old engravings of times that have faded from living memory.  There are engravings for where locals once sat, and there is are engravings of revolutionary poems.  The place was filled, this being Friday's happy hour near Wall St., but every place is packed around there at that time.

I walked down Stone St. and imagined Melville a little more, and then I walked to Ground Zero.  I circumambulated the are where the World Trade Center once stood.  After reading so many accounts of the events that took place at Fraunce's, I feel wholly inadequate to describe the spot where last I stood stood two interminable towers only seven short years ago.  It was february 2001 when I was last in New York at the bottom of the World Trade Center, and I felt something akin to the first time I saw the Grand Canyon.  Now it is a hole filled with toil and grief.

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If you want to see other pictures of my Ferry trip.  They don't make it easy to take the ferry, only taking cash with no ATMs near the terminal, and it's still quite cold out, but the ferry was fun.  It took me from 34th St. to Pier 11, which is a quick cruise.  Loved it.

Last Night in Williamsburg

Firstly, I am staying at an apartment that is quite luxury.  The shower actually is big enough for me to stand inside, and the head is high enough for me to get my hair wet without sitting down.

I went into a bar that might have actually been in Greenpoint and not Williamsburg, but who cares, right?  It was called Soft Spot Bar, and I was writing a poem about it because I thought it would be a good idea to write a poem about every bar I went into last night.  I didn't write one for the first bar, which was a great little dive with an extremely nice bartender who gave me a high five and wore many interesting tattoos.  Writing a poem about a bar is a little lame maybe, but there I was doing it when a woman walked in and sat next to me.  I wouldn't have noticed her but she took out a small spiral book and started writing what appeared to be poetry.  I looked at her face and realized that she was one of those seldom true beauties in life.

And I never talk to women at bars, and as a rule I don't talk to people who are writing, but I said to her, "you're not writing poetry, are you?"

It turns out that she is a singer-songwriter.  She asked me if I review music, and I told her I tell people what I like through my blog.  So she gave me her CD, to which I am now listening.  I will review it soon.  Jeannine Hebb and I had a nice conversation, but she had to go to a show that I wish I had followed her to, but instead I went to another bar and ate and walked around.  I met a Mexican guy and we spoke Spanish.  My Spanish is rusty, but it works late at night quite well.

I am kind of a sucker for women who can play piano and sing.  Especially when they are charming.

She has a myspace.  If you want to check her out.

I am in Williamsburg now, staying with a new friend, Myriah. I am so happy that there are people out there who look on poets and writers kindly. She has a beautiful apartment. I like it here.

What Would a Week Be Without Drama?

I travel a lot. Or, I have traveled a lot. I've thought a lot about the word travel. It comes from travail, and for a while it meant the same thing as travail, that is to laboriously overcome. Sometimes when you travail, there are people along the way who help you. Sometimes the way beset with people who are bent toward your destruction. Sometimes the people who you'd never expect to come to your rescue appear to save the day. Sometimes the people you always thought you could count on are the ones who put out their cigarettes in your palms while you're sleeping.

The cliché is that those are the breaks, and it is a cliché because it's true.

I decided to escape a situation with dignity. I walked out on a person I thought was a friend. I walked out on a person I thought was different and honest and things like that. But I was wrong.

Someone once told me that my poetry was like I was opening my ribcage for everyone. I don't know if that's true. But I feel like I pretty much put everything out there to be scrutinized by even the most anti-Jack-Morgan knaves. And I take a lot hits. I take a lot of hits.
But there are a few people who can really mess with me, who can really twist the knife, and one of those is the person who threw me under the bus this time round.

I'll be staying in Brooklyn awhile. I've found a little place in a nineteenth century brownstone where I will stay. Then, other friends are looking out for me, finding a place to put me.

In fact,
just now I got a call from Myriah, who is Sharon Zetter's friend, who is my friend, who use to live in New York but lives in California now. Whew. Everything is getting better. It's still raining, and I have a long walk, but hey; that's not too bad. I love being a writer sometimes. Writers seem to look out for each other when the chips are really down.

Really, though, a week without drama would be a weak in the life of someone else. I love my drama more than macaroni. It makes me remember a lot of things that are important.

Lose a friend, make a friend I guess. I am sad. And my heart is broken in more than one place. But those are the breaks.

I have to go quickly. I will blog later happier.

New York is like, so full of poetry, they are puking poetry, and no one cleans the streets, so there is a ton of poetry in the gutters.

It's a dark photo, but I love it, and I have no time to retouch it. It's ugly Jack Morgan and the lovely Connie Coady while she was still healthy. Jack Morgan is never healthy.

Last night, I went to the KGB Bar at which Dorothea Lasky and Bill Rasmovicz read. When Lasky was in Berkeley, I missed her because I was in Macbeth, and I was devastated because I saw her kitchen reading at youtube, and it was awesome in a way that I thought must be super cool in person. And you know what? I was right! I love it when I am right. After the reading, someone asked Dorothea why she reads the way she does, and she said something along the lines that she wants the reading to be devoid of affectation, and she thinks that volume does that. I think I buy that, but nonetheless I love the way she reads regardless of the intended effect.

I wanted to buy a book from Mobile Libris because I think they are extremely wonderful, but I already have Lasky's book.

I had to go to the reading alone because Connie Coady is very sick. We had one good day together and then she got pukey. But, luckily, I have new poetry friends in New York, and Justin Taylor was there. So we went for dinner and drinks afterward at a pub. He bugged out early, and I went to a bar called Dempseys, where I was greeted by an Irish bartender and encountered by a group of young German men, who asked me about roadtripping in America. I liked Dempsey's very much.

Most bartenders in New York like buying me drinks. The bartenders in New York seem to take their profession a bit more seriously. It's a trade, after all, so they should. New York bartenders are much better at their jobs than most Californian bartenders.

Been Busy in Brooklyn

So, I've been having an incredible time being Jack Morgan in Brooklyn.
I went to a reading in a loft in Brooklyn with Tao Lin, Mike Young, Justin Taylor, and a woman named Kendra whose last name I think started with a G, but I'm not sure. The loft belonged to a beautiful and charming little nymph of a woman named Coco Karol, who danced to Cocorosie songs when the readings were at an end and was a good reader and poet, I thought. Justin Taylor read, and I found out that he is also quite a brilliant reader.

Coco and Justin were the highlights, and there was only one person's work that I really didn't like. If you're going to write meta-fiction, do something interesting with it, please. Meta-fiction is not interesting just because it's meta. The form is actually, like all forms, boring if the only thing that you enjoy about it is your ability to point to it and say what it was, congratulating yourself for having labeled it appropriately.

The next night, we all went to a reading at Small Anchor Press, minus Tao unfortunately. The first reader was Mathias Svalina, who gave everyone little elephants and lizards before the reading began. He was awesome. He's the guy from Octopus Books, and I was hoping to love his poetry as much as I love the books he puts out, and I did. Small Anchor Press was promoting two of their newest chapbooks, one by Lonely Christopher and another by Joshua Cohen. Lonely Christopher's work was pretty juvenile in its form and content, and seemed to be purposely wasting my time, which was not appreciated. Joshua Cohen's book is extremely interesting, and his writing ability is enviable; I can't wait for a second look.

Last night, I got to see one of my best friends on the planet, Connie Coady, from whose flat I now blog. We went on an adventure with her father, but that's a Manhattan story.

Day 1 Continued

Earth Matters Cafe

Yesterday I went to this place called Earth Matters. It was a pretty good all-organic food place that had internet access, which is harder to come by than it should be her in New York. It's everywhere in California. Is the rest of America in the stone age when it comes to Wi-Fi? I don't see why a cafe would even bother opening without internet access.

Then I wandered around Manhattan. I walked through the projects and around the bridges where all the seedy stuff is supposed to happen. I didn't see much seediness. The city is much cleaner than it was the last time I was here. And I haven't been here since the Trade Center was destroyed, and I must say that it is much more difficult to figure out where the hell you are. I always thought New York was a hard place to get lost in. Now it's easier. There isn't a giant landmark in the middle of town letting you know where you are at all times. For someone like me who prefers to walk everywhere over taking the subway, landmarks are important.

But I wandered around and kind of got lost a few times, but with no place to go, who cares? I half-way was looking for Herman Melville's house and half -way was looking for Tannen's magic shop. I found the former behind the 69th Regiment building, which I had always wanted to see, too. Melville's house was pretty exciting for me for some reason despite it not really being there anymore. Just weird picturing big-bearded Melville hanging out around town I guess, and there are still tons of old things that he would have seen and taken for granted.

Then I went back to Brooklyn where I saw a horrible production of Macbeth with Captain Picard in it. Captain Picard wasn't really horrible, but he couldn't save it no way no how. Brooklyn Academy of Music has a great theater that I wish I could have taken pictures of. I loved the inside of that theater. It reminded me of Vanya on 42nd St. or the catacombs at the end of Phantom of the Opera. But the charm of the theater couldn't save the play either. The curse of Macbeth lives on.

Day 1

Last night, I showed my friend Tao Lin my new tattoo because he has a new tattoo on his forearm of fish that he drew. It's a good tattoo. I don't think that I will ever be brave enough to get a tattoo on my forearm. There's something about the forearm that makes me think twice, and I don't think it's about getting a job or anything. In California, we have to wear short-sleeved shirts quit a lot, and that means that you will never be able to hide your forearm tattoo if you get one. That means that you'll always have to be talking about your tattoo and answering questions about it and looking at it yourself. I don't think I would be able to manage. Ever since I've been growing out my hair, I haven't been able to stand it. I think about it too much or something.

I am not sure what I am going to do today. I haven't made any concrete plans about the week aside from my seeing Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra. I think it would be magical to go to Tannen's if it still exists.