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Tag: living in new york

Keep Moving On

October 3, 2012

I wrote the song “Keep Moving On” (from the SLEEP WITH YOU album) under the most heartbreaking circumstances. It was and still is one of my favorites. Some songs are like that. You just get lucky. Or better put, if you write enough songs, there are bound to be some that come out ‘just a bit better’ than the rest. Of course they’re all your favorite when you’re first writing them. Only time passing can tell you if one day they are bound to truly be one of your favorites or not. Besides having a melody that you can really sink your teeth into, one that appeals to me might be a better way of looking at it, it also had the unique ability to truly inspire me and lift me up whenever we would listen to it or perform it. It is just about the most honest song I have ever written. Nothing was held back, in terms of letting it all out, being vulnerable, laying it all out there.

So now whenever I am in one of those special situations where you don’t have much choice but to ‘keep moving on’, this special little song still tends to pop into my head, and lend comfort to my heart. And so it is with this upcoming move from our beloved apartment here in New York. I have been in this apartment for over five years. I have been in Manhattan for just under eight years. But it was time. Not only do i personally despise the neighborhood we live in here, for it is everything that living in New York should not be like, dealing with the landlord has never been easy. In fact it has always been downright degrading. Something I am not used to. And for those that know me well, you know that I have always operated from the viewpoint that one should never volunteer to keep one’s self bound in degrading situations. Some of the time that decision is ours. And if at all possible, I believe we should do everything in our power to pull ourselves up and out of these places.

There is also the issue of time and money. Princess Little Tree and I have been attempting to maintain two homes on opposite coasts for more than two years now. It is not an easy task to take on. It’s fun. But it is also very taxing on your health and energy. The constant packing and unpacking, flying back and forth, 12 hours door to door from house to the other. And then usually back again a few days or weeks later. It’s been grueling. And financially taxing. The constant pressure to meet all the monthly expenses and then some. When given the opportunity to renew our lease here for another year, something just clicked in me and I intuitively felt that as much as I love living in New York, we had reached that time when we would do better to pare down and hunker into one home only for a spell.

It won’t be easy. New York is home to me. It always has been since the moment I stepped off that plane and my feet hit the New York city pavement for the very first time. I had never felt “home” before that. Not in any town or city I had ever lived. Not in any town or city I had ever lived in to attend college. I always felt like I was visiting. Like an outsider. But not in New York. That first cab ride from the airport, over fifteen years ago, all I could do was stare out the windows with my mouth gaping open looking all around me as if for the very first time I was returning home. And yet I had never even been to New York city prior to that first time 18 years ago. Yet there she was, New York City, in all of her dirt, noise and glory. A spectacular site and smell and feel. Some say they “can only visit but never live in New York City”. For me it has always been the opposite. I can only visit other places, but New York City is where I live. [speaking strictly about the United States here… truth be told I feel even more at home in Italy. Just about anywhere in Italy does the trick. When there in fact, I actually feel it’s “homeness” underneath my skin. It’s cellular. It’s genetic. It’s deeper than even here in New York. But we’re talking about America here, and American cities.]

The decision was not as difficult as I thought it would be. Once begun. The process has been a different matter. More than difficult. Princess Little Tree and I put our life’s blood into renovating and fixing up this grand palace of metropolitan luxury. And it’s been a real shame watching it slowly unravel into just another empty New York apartment. One by one the furniture goes, as happy young couples who’ve just moved to The City stop by to pick up a piece or two. It’s an odd feeling, watching someone drool over something that you thought of as yours not two seconds before as they carry it out your front door. And yet, when it comes to Manhattan living, that’s how it has to be. Storage here is economically prohibitive. And a move cross country… well it is obviously in our best interest to keep the quantity of items we move to a bare minimum.

So all those special little items, you know the one, that piece you picked up together on your last weekend up in Woodstock that would go just perfect in the guest bath, become commodities once again. Something to be priced and then reduced and eventually sold and bought by another. Watching the local handyman take down our light fixtures — something we spent so much time on, in choosing, matching color and style, and installing — was the action that so far, up until this point, hit me the hardest. They have been purchased, by someone fortuitously who will enjoy them just as much as we did, and replaced by inexpensive and generic light fixtures that don’t manage to catch the eye even if you tried. And the same goes for so much more that was once an ocular delicacy here.

One of the many things that a move like this does to the system is reminds one of how transient our lives are here. How utterly impermanent everything is. When you’re younger it doesn’t really hit you. Moving. We move from town to town, even home to home within the same town, and it never manages to affect us much in any way. But when you take roots when you are older… when you begin associating your home with family and friends, with community, then it becomes something altogether different. Palpable loss. And palpable excitement over the potential for newness too. Still in the throes of it. So I will leave it at that. I am sure we will come back to the subject before too long. It’s inevitable.

Last Sceening: The Sound of My Voice — Great idea for a movie. Poorly executed. I am always surprised, still, when I see movies that appear as if the producers have barely put a thought into the story by the time the film ends. It’s as if they get an idea and then get so amped up about making the movie that the story gets left behind; abandoned in place of more concern for making the movie itself. A really good film does not have to be always be Apocalypse Now or The Departed. But they should feel “complete”. Whatever that means to each of us. This film was small. In every way. And simply not finished well enough to be of any concern to anyone other than the film makers themselves.

Which brings us to another one, that was quite the opposite. A movie by the name of People Like Us. Fully fleshed out and complete. Big and yet culminating in quite a small film by the time it reaches it’s denumoi. You’re sucked in emotionally the whole time, and having some fun and being moved along the way. Worth the watch.

 



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Uncategorized how transient our lives are, living in new york, maintain two homes on opposite coasts

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June 24, 2005
Killer ear ache the last few days. this is my second one in six months. I know what its from. its because I don’t have a housekeeper now and I take baths. I have always taken baths. My new image consultant or image coach more like it, what did we call him again? JB? Yeah, JB I think. he’s always trying to get me to discover more of my quirks because he says it makes great press. Of course you need great press if you are a somebody, but I’ve made a career of being a not-somebody so I have no idea why we are worrying about great press. But in any case, JB tells me, there’s another quirk for you. I have always taken baths. There was a brief time in high school when I thought it was cool and grownup to take showers so I did it for a while because it was all about discovering the inner-man within and bagging the babes, but by college I was back in the tub every morning.

So did that freak any of my girlfriends out through the years? yeah I think it did. a grown man jumping out of bed to go sit in the bathtub for an hour every morning. but now everyone is used to it because well I’m an adult now and I think everyone has just pretty much assumed ‘yeah, well Fishy takes baths. He just does. He’s always done that.’ when at home for the holidays mom always wakes me up early so I don’t make everyone late because of the bath factor. Classic.

[I just heard a girl on the street say what the fuck. I hate when girls curse. I know. totally sexist. But I can’t help it. I’m old fashioned. if I hear a girl curse I just totally lose my interest in them. if a girl says fuck because she’s really mad that’s one thing, as long as its cute.. you know. like “honey you just said fuck.” And then she apologizes. But if you’re at dinner with a girl and she says fuck matter of factly… Forget about it. I’m looking at her wondering how I ever managed to be at a dinner table with her. I’m not saying I wouldn’t sleep with them. but I just wouldn’t go out with them. you know, girls should offer you that girl thing. and saying fuck is not just not that girl thing. speaking of girls, today some girl comes into my office and slaps all these naked photos of her in all these erotic poses on my desk and walks away. I’ll tell you, ever since I decided to stop being player and hold out for number one the girls are just coming out of the woodwork. Its nuts. I think girls can feel when you’re not playing anymore. They try to get through that maybe because they see as a challenge. Or maybe just because you aren’t putting out that I’m a player vibe anymore. Who knows. but this is crazy. now when I finally decide to get serious and look for Mrs. Number one… now they’re just everywhere. and the naked pix didn’t even turn me on. which could mean that I’m gay I guess. Holy shit that reminds me last night I walked to this local newsstand on second avenue to get a smoke and there was this GAY XXX magazine on the counter so I opened it up and looked inside. And holy shit. it was filled with naked men with huge erect rods doing each other. I mean they were like really doing each other in the poop shoots. I had never seen that before. I mean, we hear about it, but to see it like that in full color. Wow. that was some crazy stuff. so that’s what they do for real then huh. Crazy. hey, whatever floats your boat.]

so where were we. O.k. so no housekeeper and the apartment is really gross. I mean we are back to the college days at this point. Seriously disgusting at this point. But that’s because I’m working around the clock and frankly even if I weren’t who wants to clean their own house? so I just let it go because well its fun and I’m lazy and probably too much of a snob at this point for my own good. but the bath tub is so gross! I’m talking gross and I still take these baths everyday in it like that character from the old MTV show the young ones. And I don’t really mind because I’m really enjoying the old dirty college days vibe. I don’t know why exactly but I’m actually enjoying it. I think I secretly look at it like my last blast. I mean, lets face it, once you settle down with a girl you can’t just let the house go and live like a pig so I’m just really getting a lot out of it and making the most of it. there is garbage everywhere and when I walk I just kick it around the room. Now bear in mind that I’m pretty high right now from all this pain medication from this effing ear ache so don’t count on me to admit this tomorrow.

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Uncategorized cursing, ear infection, earache, guys apartment, image consultant, Labels: baths, living in new york, new york, transcendence diaries, women who curse

Killer ear ache the last few days

June 24, 2005

Killer ear ache the last few days. this is my second one in six months. I know what its from. its because I don’t have a housekeeper now and I take baths. I have always taken baths. My new image consultant or image coach more like it, what did we call him again? JB? Yeah, JB I think. he’s always trying to get me to discover more of my quirks because he says it makes great press. Of course you need great press if you are a somebody, but I’ve made a career of being a not-somebody so I have no idea why we are worrying about great press. But in any case, JB tells me, there’s another quirk for you. I have always taken baths. There was a brief time in high school when I thought it was cool and grownup to take showers so I did it for a while because it was all about discovering the inner-man within and bagging the babes, but by college I was back in the tub every morning.

So did that freak any of my girlfriends out through the years? yeah I think it did. a grown man jumping out of bed to go sit in the bathtub for an hour every morning. but now everyone is used to it because well I’m an adult now and I think everyone has just pretty much assumed ‘yeah, well Fishy takes baths. He just does. He’s always done that.’ when at home for the holidays mom always wakes me up early so I don’t make everyone late because of the bath factor. Classic.

[I just heard a girl on the street say what the fuck. I hate when girls curse. I know. totally sexist. But I can’t help it. I’m old fashioned. if I hear a girl curse I just totally lose my interest in them. if a girl says fuck because she’s really mad that’s one thing, as long as its cute.. you know. like “honey you just said fuck.” And then she apologizes. But if you’re at dinner with a girl and she says fuck matter of factly… Forget about it. I’m looking at her wondering how I ever managed to be at a dinner table with her. I’m not saying I wouldn’t sleep with them. but I just wouldn’t go out with them. you know, girls should offer you that girl thing. and saying fuck is not just not that girl thing. speaking of girls, today some girl comes into my office and slaps all these naked photos of her in all these erotic poses on my desk and walks away. I’ll tell you, ever since I decided to stop being player and hold out for number one the girls are just coming out of the woodwork. Its nuts. I think girls can feel when you’re not playing anymore. They try to get through that maybe because they see as a challenge. Or maybe just because you aren’t putting out that I’m a player vibe anymore. Who knows. but this is crazy. now when I finally decide to get serious and look for Mrs. Number one… now they’re just everywhere. and the naked pix didn’t even turn me on. which could mean that I’m gay I guess. Holy shit that reminds me last night I walked to this local newsstand on second avenue to get a smoke and there was this GAY XXX magazine on the counter so I opened it up and looked inside. And holy shit. it was filled with naked men with huge erect rods doing each other. I mean they were like really doing each other in the poop shoots. I had never seen that before. I mean, we hear about it, but to see it like that in full color. Wow. that was some crazy stuff. so that’s what they do for real then huh. Crazy. hey, whatever floats your boat.]

so where were we. O.k. so no housekeeper and the apartment is really gross. I mean we are back to the college days at this point. Seriously disgusting at this point. But that’s because I’m working around the clock and frankly even if I weren’t who wants to clean their own house? so I just let it go because well its fun and I’m lazy and probably too much of a snob at this point for my own good. but the bath tub is so gross! I’m talking gross and I still take these baths everyday in it like that character from the old MTV show the young ones. And I don’t really mind because I’m really enjoying the old dirty college days vibe. I don’t know why exactly but I’m actually enjoying it. I think I secretly look at it like my last blast. I mean, lets face it, once you settle down with a girl you can’t just let the house go and live like a pig so I’m just really getting a lot out of it and making the most of it. there is garbage everywhere and when I walk I just kick it around the room. Now bear in mind that I’m pretty high right now from all this pain medication from this effing ear ache so don’t count on me to admit this tomorrow.


but yeah I think the dirty tub water is giving me these crazy ear infections. From dunking my head under the water. But that’s not the point. Frankly, I’m quite saddened by the whole thing because the doctor told me I had to take showers for a while or I could end up in the hospital. He said that if I didn’t get in his office today I would have ended up in the hospital by Sunday because he had never seen an infection so bad. He asked how I was dealing with the pain. I told him I was popping like twenty Advil a day at this point and I finally only came in because I lost my hearing in that ear and it sucked because I couldn’t talk on the phone in my left ear and type anymore.

So he had to drain it and then place this long cotton wick with medicine on it way down deep into my ear canal. Talk about pain! holy shit. excruciating! With an earache he’s shoving this long needle down my ear canal with this tube of medicine. He says ear aches are right up there with child birth and kidney stones as far as pain goes. I would agree, except I’ve never had a kidney stone.

So The doctor cost me $440. not kidding. So that’s what life without health insurance is like. and the prescriptions were $521. you read that right. I’m not even kidding. Five hundred bucks for three bottles of medicine. Leave it to me to get so sick from taking baths that I have to spend a thousand dollars on an ear ache. Fucking a I thought when I was in the drug store. No wonder people are complaining about health care costs in this fucking twisted country. a billion dollars an hour we are spending of our tax dollars on bush’s destruction of Iraq and we can’t afford health care for Americans. I never knew it was so expensive. For the life of me I cannot figure out why all these congressmen work for us still. I mean, I never had to pay for healthcare before so I had no clue, but all these poor old saps in line in front of me and behind me. all these old people. no wonder they are so freaked out. but still, they don’t do anything about it. what a bunch of fucking idiots. If I had any idea I would have been freaking even more than I have been. And these congress people are supposed to be working for us. but I just don’t think Americans put two and two together. I just don’t think they realize, really understand, that they work for us. they are supposed to serve us.  and our needs and then you have all these schools that can’t afford auditoriums and after school programs and all that. and yet every week we spend a billion dollars on this war with our money. and everyone is still just going about their business. why? what a bunch of crazy fools we are here. I will just never get it.

I am so in love with New York. so in love with my neighborhood. Very lucky. right in the heart of things here. of course I hate New York as well. I hate it just about as much as I love it actually. I abhor the subway rides. And then those long ass walks after the subway ride. accomplishing things here if you aren’t completely loaded and have someone else doing everything for you is really fucking hard. Two of my fav guitars have been at the repair shop for a month now and I just don’t feel like going to get them. because you guessed it. no car. so it’s a cab thing. I don’t know. not having a car really just makes things more frustrating and annoying and seem more difficult. But New York is so beautiful. what a wonderful crazy crowded friendly place it is. what an honor and privilege it is to live here.

Last screening: bewitched. Boo boo made me see it. hadn’t seen her in months so I was up for anything just to spend time with her.

Current spin: autechre. This is sound and nothing more. like Nabukazu takemura my favorite. Art for arts sake. I LOVE this style of music. also Akufen. Same style. Such good stuff. if you like that style. They are calling it glitch music now. I am calling it brilliant.



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Uncategorized baths, cursing, ear infection, earache, guys apartment, image consultant, living in new york

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February 24, 2005
New York is snowing now. We have a blizzard here. it has not stopped snowing since 4pm. It is now 10pm. Everywhere you look it is covered in white…. it is quite beautiful. I am sitting in the window box of my bedroom as I do every night with the window open, smoking a cigar and typing and the snowflakes are flying in and landing all over me and my trusty old laptop. It is quite magical. Of course my fingers are freezing… but there is a real joy in the air.

Dasher and I talk about it tonight over a few drinks and a few hits of the water bongs at this underground Moroccan club after a movie. I share with him that people in the rest of the country always wish me a short and warm winter when we are speaking… but I tell them that I would like one or two more blistering blizzardly weeks covered in white. There is something about it that I like very much. Without it, the year does not feel complete… one or two just wouldn’t do. and one can perceive that most people in the city agree by the level of joy and exuberance you feel in the air from everyone all around you in the street and in the stores and on the subways. Remember, that the population here is a whopping 27,000 people per square mile. By far the most dense city in America. And People here are very happy when it snows. Its cold. And I keep slipping on the slippery sidewalks every few minutes. And the cold snow hitting my face as I walk is a tad uncomfortable and frustrating, I must admit. But still… there is something very special about a real winter versus what many other cities and towns experience as winter in the world.

Dasher immediately fills with light and energy when discussing it. “snow is good luck man. When it snows its good luck…” “you believe that?” I ask him. ”Oh yeah man. Can’t you feel it?” “Yes I suppose I do… its magic isn’t it?” “Its so many things. its warm and comforting. It makes the city clean, its this comforting white blanket that makes everything seem o.k. for a while… like a fresh start… for us all.” “Yes Dasher. I couldn’t agree with you more.”

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Uncategorized blizzard, fears, Labels: being happy, letting go, living in new york, Money, transcendence diaries

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November 29, 2004
I was awakened tonight at 3:37 am by two things: extreme hunger, which I could have easily cured by getting up, getting dressed, and heading out into the freezing weather to find myself something to eat. I must say that I have not gotten used to my current circumstances of not having a housekeeper. So not only do I not have anyone to make me food when I get hungry, there is also no one to shop for food. So there is never anything to eat in the house. I have gotten to the point where I can manage sometimes to have sprite, cookies, and coffee in the house sometimes, the bare essentials, but that’s about it. that’s all I can fit in my hands at one time at the local drug store.

New York is extreme in so many ways. Grocery shopping is one of them. now not having grocery shopped by myself in nearly ten years, I couldn’t imagine doing it with any fair amount of success in Miami, let alone here in New York city. you don’t have a car so how the hell do you get the damn bags into your house after you make your purchases? And how do you know if you aren’t getting totally ripped off with everything you buy? The last time I went to buy sugar here in the city, for my coffee, the guy said it was $2.39 for this little box. And I asked if he was sure, and he said yes. now maybe its just been so long since I had been in a store to buy something like sugar, that prices have just skyrocketed. But he did give me a shrug of the shoulders and say “hey it’s the neighborhood.’ Which led me to believe that the prices are just really high here. So that means what? Going to some other neighborhood to grocery shop? So indeed a quandary. I mean, that’s what housekeepers are for. along with so many other important things. like my laundry. God don’t even get me started. Lets just say that for the first two months here I bought a lot of new pairs of underwear because I just didn’t feel like even thinking about how one goes about getting ones laundry done. I have finally figured out that what one does as horrible as this sounds is puts it all into big bags and hauls it to Chinese people who weigh it and then do it for you and charge you by the pound.

It’s not the worst thing in the world but certainly not good either. I would have to say that among all the changes and adjustments that I have had to make in moving here, it is this that has been the most severe, the fact that living here is so much more expensive than I am used to or can afford, that I must at present forgo my beloved Rosanna. One can live in so many other places here in the states and especially in Europe and South America and pay the same I am paying now to live or even less and have so much more, including of course a full live in staff to take care of all of the little things that make life so tedious and unbearable. But I am determined to make it work here and to rise to the occasion and make enough money to have the same luxuries that I had before but have them here. In this city. I even make my own coffee now, or at least try to. And I spend countless hours starving and thinking about food, which is actually quite horrible. Not because I’m that broke, because I’m not. Not yet anyway. But because I am lazy. And too cold to leave my apartment at night. so once I’m in, I’m in. hungry or not.

But none of that is what got me out of bed to sit here and write, as humorous as it all is. no, speaking about the extremities of nyc living, remember the mouse that crawled over me a few nights ago… well tonight I was awoken as I said by two things. one was hunger. The other was this mouse had finally crawled into this trap that the landlord had set. He told me that he would and he did. he told me that he would crawl in there and die. what he didn’t tell me is that he would crawl in there and wiggle around for hours, making all this noise. So in the moment I had an idea. Half asleep I got up, got a dustpan and scooped the whole dame mouse hotel thing up in the dustpan, opened the window and just chucked the whole damn thing out the window, mouse and all. I just figured when that thing hit the ground down below it would probably break open and the mouse could crawl away to safety. But either way, at least it wouldn’t be making all that noise in my apartment. Of course now I don’t have a mouse trap in my apartment so I am bound to see more of them scurrying around. Luckily one of the few things I brought with me is my 357 and a CO2 cartridge BB gun. A man is nothing without his guns. So if I do see another one I will just start firing until I hit it or get carted off to jail in the middle of the night for firing guns off in an apartment building. Crazy indeed.

One more thing since I was so rudely interrupted and am too hungry to sleep. I have discovered something called slippers. Growing up in the South you always hear about slippers but you never see them and you don’t know exactly what they are for. now I realize that they are for keeping your feet from freezing. And bathrobes. I have one of those now too. crazy.

Current spin: Alicia keys, if I aint got you. I love this song.

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Uncategorized grocery shopping in New York, Labels: cost of living in new york, living in new york, transcendence diaries, waking up hungry

Father to Son

November 28, 2004
I called my dad today. figured I would ask him about card game rules. A very simple casual non-committal kind of subject. The perfect thing to talk about with your old man. He tells me he has a spot on his lungs. Doesn’t know what it is yet. tells me, listen Fishy, I don’t know if you’re still smoking but you have to quit son. Even if it’s just cigars. Just stop now. everyone in your family died of lung cancer. It runs in your family. I quit what 11 years ago and look at me now. just quit while you still can.

Fucking great. So we talk some more. I remember that the guys had an idea where after I interview this Vietnam vet then the whole crew goes down to Florida and films this reuniting scene with my father, who is also a Vietnam vet. So I just casually asked him about the idea, see if he was up for it. but he answered quickly and unequivocally no, not a chance. He then went on to tell me that he doesn’t like Fishy the rock star. That he likes Fishy the man, but doesn’t care at all for me as a rock star and since that’s what I would be when I came, that I should not bother coming and definitely don’t bring any camera crew.

Well if it couldn’t get worse he then went on to tell me that not only isn’t he a fan of Fishy the rock star, he isn’t a big fan of my music either. I tried to entertain the conversation as much as I could, but still found it quite disturbing. He said that the only good song on rise and shine was the journey and that he hated the sleep with you album so much from listening to it on the Internet that he didn’t even buy it. he actually said, and I quote, ‘for lack of a better word, it sucked. It just didn’t sound good. and I’m not the only one who felt that way about it. I have read many critics who felt the same way. I may not speak with you much son, but I keep my eye on you. You really got raked over the coals for that one by a lot of people and for good reason. Its just not good. your singing was awful on that album. Really out of tune and you have no rhythm… your voice wavers all over the place.’

I won’t go on. I tried to explain to him my side of the story. How I really challenged myself as a singer on the album. How I know I may never be a great singer but that I still like what I do and how I reached to a lot of places that I had never attempted before vocally. How much I like the album myself and I don’t give a shit about the success of a work. All that matters is that I am happy with it. that was my only obligation as an artist. To please myself. He would hear none of that and wrote it off as bleeding heart artist hippie talk.

I looked around me as I walked through the beautiful streets of central New York in the fall and continued to listen to him insult the very lifeblood of my being, and on my way I would see beautiful trees of yellow and orange and the sidewalks covered in red leaves and I just determined in that moment to listen without prejudice. After all, I have my mom, God bless her, and she doesn’t care what I do. she always thinks its great. Even if it isn’t. that’s what mothers are for. So maybe there is something to be said about having a father who is so brutally honest that he doesn’t mind telling his son who he barely speaks with once a year if that that he doesn’t like his music and explain the reasons why in such detail.

There was a moment there where I felt like I should be upset by it, but honestly I just wasn’t. perhaps a bit, but not enough to let it bother me too much. There was something noble about his reproach. Something bold and ballsy about a father telling a son what he really feels about his work. He hates what I represent. He hates my liberalness. He hates my protesting. He hates the constant onslaught of self aggrandizing press releases, even though he recognizes that its all part of the machine of the business. he still just hates it all. hates the sex, hates the fame aspect, hates the idea of the TV show, hates the free lifestyle, the homosexuality that is so prevalent in that biz, hates the drug scene, hated the blatant references to drugs I made on sleep with you, hates the image entirely. and me, I kind of like it all. I just think its all part of the moment. part of the bigger picture. I tried to explain to him that I was sure that one day I would end up a retired old man, happy and idle and just as conservative and family values as one could get, but that now this is where I am, and that’s the most important thing. that I remain true to that. I tried to get him to see the good in it. that I wasn’t such a bad guy. he told me he knew that I wasn’t a bad guy, but that my image was that of a bad guy. coming from his perspective, that of a Christian right wing conservative middle American view, I can see how he would feel that way. But I just don’t see it that way at all. On that we would just have to disagree we said and we hung up. told me he’d call once he found out what this spot on his lung x-rays were.

I don’t know what it is about us gen-x’ers and our fathers, but there was just something weird there that happened to them during the sixties and seventies that made things fucked up with their kids. Like the dads were having kids when they really didn’t want to be; maybe the moms too. but the moms stuck to their guns and raised the kids anyway, but the dads mostly just bailed. I can’t tell you how many people my age who say that they just don’t have relationships with their fathers. Its wild.

Well then I’m off to the smoke shop to sit with the old guys and talk politics and the like. And there’s this guy in there called New York mike. A famous guy for owning the largest harley Davidson store in America. Has his own radio show about bikes and all. and he’s the most conservative guy you’d ever meet. A radical conservative. So we’re screaming back and forth about pro-life and same sex marriage and the American Indians and who should walk in but the reverend al Sharpton himself. So I look at Al and I tell him ‘look man, I’m on your side, I go to all the same events that you do around the country, but I’m warning you now, you have just sat down amongst the most radical clan of conservatives I’ve ever seen. I’m just warning you.’ he looks at the group of guys sitting there, their faces all eager to get one in on the guy. they had heard enough liberalism from me to last them a lifetime. So you could see them drooling, just chomping at the bit to go off on him as soon as he opened his mouth. So what does he do? He thanks me, says ‘gentlemen,’ and grunts at the rest of them and just stands up and walks away. classic. Only in New York.

Oh yeah, and on the way home of course I noticed a man in a telephone booth peeing. This is actually a common site here. no matter where you are in Manhattan you cannot help but see some poor homeless guy just letting it rip right in the middle of the street or sidewalk. Crazy. 

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Uncategorized disappointing your parents, father son relationships, Labels: conversation with dad, living in new york, lung cancer, transcendence diaries, Vietnam Vet

article 2019-04-29 124617_5.html

November 25, 2004
Didn’t fly home for thanksgiving this year. stayed here in the city with Boo Boo Kitty. Macys day parade. Then Madame tousants wax museum. Then Bridget Jones diary part II, with a thoroughly bored Hugh grant who seemed to be saying throughout the film, I am so fucking sick of playing this same part that I have actually gone insane. Can no one else see it but me? then off to Brooklyn to have dinner with Chapper’s whole family who came down from Vermont. A lavish feast with good conversation. Mainly centered around the mystery of the people of the red states and how in shock they still were up in Vermont about the election results etc. good people. educated, friendly, hospitable. Then a cigar and a few beers out on the terrace in 35 degree finger freezing weather and then a surprisingly stimulating eight person trivial pursuit match over coffee and various pies. A good night had by all.  

While laying half asleep tonight, I noticed something move to my right. something small and black. I jumped slightly and as I did I noticed a mouse I swear to fucking God run across my blanket with a Frito corn chip in its mouth. I jumped up. I had never seen a mouse before. how cool. what I wanted to know was where it got that Frito. I wish I had found it first.

A real mouse. That’s great. Never saw that before. of course I didn’t sleep for hours. Just waiting for that thing to jump on top of me again. Yes you see this in New York. other things too. the other night at about 4 in the morning, I was sitting out the stairs in front of my brownstone smoking and writing and this guy stumbles up to me obviously wasted on something, just tripped out. and he comes right up to me and touches my computer with these glassy eyes. I looked at him and said very loudly and deliberately as if I were speaking to a little kid, “laptop.” He acted like he wanted to play with it. but I stared him down. And then he stumbled away. I see a lot of people stumbling by in the wee hours of the morning drunk off their asses. Just Stumbling all over the sidewalk. Wonder how they make it home. wonder why they get so drunk. you see many hunched over men and women looking very sad in the streets and subways of the city. People who have forgotten about their lives. People who life has left behind. For the moment. they can come back if they want to. I keep that candle burning for them in my heart. I carry my leftovers from my meals with me in my laptop case so I can give them away whenever the opportunity rises. When someone asks me for money I always just reach into my pocket and give them a bill and keep another for myself, unless I only have one; then they get that and I get nothing. The other night I whip out 6 bucks. “Well I guess that’s a fiver for you and a one spot for me you lucky bastard,” I tell the guy. You wouldn’t believe how happy that can make someone. What’s really funny is when an hour or two a later I go to get a burger or something and reach into my pocket and realize that I only have a dollar and I have to go away hungry. That can make you laugh at yourself.

I think that it is a noble mission to have on the side as you are building your empire. Give away a little everyday. Allow God/the force to use you as a conduit or a missionary so to speak. Just always be in the right place at the right time for those in need. since I don’t really choose to make the time to volunteer or anything, which I feel awful about. cause I know people do and I envy their dedication to that. but I figure that if I prefer to just focus all of my time on working hard to build my shit up then I will have so much money then I can just give a lot of it away and that will be my way of giving. I know its easy and not doing that much, but I still think it does something, even though its small. I think God kind of picks us out and knows what each of us can do for the other. I picture him/her whispering in a homeless persons ear, ‘turn down this street now; there’s this long haired kid sitting on some stairs typing on a computer. Ask him for money. he’ll give you whatever he has in his pocket.’ And that’s my way of fitting in to the whole complex mechanism of it all. I have still not come to terms yet as a man with some of us having food and shelter and some of us not having that. it freaks me out and makes me sad.

I do not see it in our future. I have to be honest. I believe that man will one day rise to a state just beyond modern capitalism, of which I am very fond of to be quite honest, unlike many of my activist comrades; a kind of socially conscious capitalism so to speak. Someone told me yesterday that some 30,000 children die everyday of starvation. I don’t know if this is true but I will check on it. if this is even close to being true than we have far indeed to go in our evolution as a species. America is a great example of our species still being caught in the middle. We certainly give more than any other great empire of the past, but obviously not enough, since so many people are still hungry and in need.

Last screening: life and debt. Story of Jamaica and their heartbreaking struggle to make it in the global economy. They complain about the global economy and how hard it is to make it because of the world bank and the IMF. More free trade, globalization stuff. But honestly, in the free market system if a country can’t raise itself out of its financial problems, they should just feel lucky that there is a bank they can go to to lend them any money. I mean, from a very non socialist viewpoint, who says that any other country has the obligation to help any other countries. I mean if yo uare to look at it purely from a logical standpoint. Hard to do though at the same time. but this is must see if you are a socially conscious person. the global economy powers that be have really fucked over the Jamaicans in a big way. destroyed their country in twenty years. unfortunately America had no small part in it. destroyed every money making industry they had going and loaned them money at ridiculous interest rates so now they are slaves to the United States. Tommy Hilfiger had a big hand in it. so did the Dole and Chiquita fruit companies. Hardcore capitalism. At its most fiercest and heartless. Again, I’m not going to cast the first stone, because I make my living from the capitalist ways so I can’t really say anything. It’s the free enterprise system after all. like I said, we have to let all the old war dogs of the old capitalist system die out and then sneak in there and make things a bit more fair for the peeps that aren’t doing as well.

I always wonder Why the turkey is called with the name of my country.
Let’s read the article;
 
Talking Turkey: The Story of How the Unofficial Bird of the United States 
Got Named After a Middle Eastern Country by Giancarlo Casale

How did the turkey get its name? This seemingly harmless question popped 
into my head one morning as I realized that the holidays were once again 
upon us. After all, I thought, there?s nothing more American than a turkey. 
Their meat saved the pilgrims from starvation during their first winter in 
New England. Out of gratitude, if you can call it that, we eat them for 
Thanksgiving dinner, and again at Christmas, and gobble them up in 
sandwiches all year long. Every fourth grader can tell you that Benjamin 
Franklin was particularly fond of the wild turkey, and even campaigned to 
make it, and not the bald eagle, the national symbol. So how did such a 
creature end up taking its name from a medium sized country in the Middle 
East? Was it just a coincidence? I wondered. 

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Uncategorized God's will, how turkey got its name, Labels: capitalism, life and debt, living in new york, mouse in your room, talking turkey, thanksgiving, transcendence diaries, Wax Museum

article 2019-04-29 124617_14.html

November 15, 2004
Four more cabinet members of the Bush admin resigned today, including the sacred cow of the republican party known as Colin Powel. That’s a total of 6 in the last week. Payback time for the blue states who knew all along that the red states and their persistence in rewarding ignorance and misguidance was not going to go unnoticed or unpunished. With the last of intelligent life gone now in the white house, we can look forward to four solid years of pure evil and buffoonery for sure. I bet these cabinet members were hoping as much as the rest of us that Bush would lose and now find themselves in such a compromised position within themselves that they felt like they had absolutely no choice but to get out now. better before its too late. 

Last screening: Still watching the Ric Burns documentary of New York. Volume 4, 5, and 6. we are so lucky to have New York I think as I watch little bits of it everyday. And even luckier if we are one of the fortunate ones to live here. It is a breathtaking and bewildering history. Now that I am here I could not imagine living anywhere else; for now anyway. Harlem and the birth of jazz, f. Scott Fitzgerald, emma lazarus, George and Ira Gershwin, Broadway musicals, the stock market crash, skyscrapers and the race to continuously build the tallest buildings in the world — the tallest buildings in the world were the pyramids of ancient Egypt all the way up until New York city skyscrapers interestingly enough, John Astor, waldorf Astoria, Al smith, Roosevelt, Fiorella La Guardia, Robert Moses and his creation of the highway system, Ellis island and immigration into the city in such shocking numbers that the city seemed to be caving in on itself, but all the while a very special place on the planet was being born. A melting pot of different nationalities and ethnicities that the world had never seen anywhere in the world before; and from it the greatest city in the world.

This is what I like about New York the most, more than anything else, and there are so many things to like about the city, but the diversity of people, that’s the thing. The fact that you can be standing on a corner with a hundred other people waiting for a light to change and be listening to Spanish, Albanian, Russian, Indian, French, and Chinese being spoken all at the same time around you. You know you’re in New York. That the man who lives next door to you is form Hungary and the girl above you is from Vietnam and your landlord is a Russian Jew and your postlady is half black and half Puerto Rican and the guy who makes your pizza everyday is from Brooklyn of Italian descent and claims he knows pizza better than anyone else on earth. Hehe. That’s the coolest part of New York. Constantly stimulating and exciting, and ever challenging our understanding of what America is.

Currently there are over 27,000 people per square mile in the great city. when I sit in my little hole in the wall apartment I imagine myself as one of those 27,000 people in that one square mile and the thought is mind boggling. A total of over 8 million people on just the island of Manhattan alone and 18 million in the entire area of the five boroughs combined. Friends ask me, how do you live in that? My answer to them is that it is easy. when I’m falling asleep at night I am comforted by the sound of the traffic and all the big industrial noise outside my windows. There is something secure and calming about it.

And the history of course. New York is running through our veins as Americans because so much of what we are as a country and as a people came from New York, most of our families arriving first to Ellis island in New York before we moved on to other cities or states, each of us an immigrant still in our blood. Every one of my grandparents can be found on the immigration records of Ellis Island showing what day they arrived here and what country they were coming from and how old they were and whether they could speak English or not, and whether they could read or write and how much money they each had in their pockets. Whenever I see the Statue of liberty I think of them and how they must have felt when they first saw it as children after so many months living on a ship hoping to find a new world to build their new lives in. The excitement they must have felt seeing the great land of America for the first time. And it was here, the city of New York, that welcomed each one of them, each one of us. Ninety years later they have all passed on, but I am here. So in a way their legacy lives on. As I visit neighborhoods for the first time I wonder if they too walked those same streets and try to imagine what the city looked like to them way back then when they were first starting out in their new lives.

Between the years of 1890 and 1920, every four years a city the size of Boston was being added to the small island of Manhattan in the sheer number of people that were coming into the city from Europe and Asia and South America. In the year 1907 alone over 1.2 million immigrants came into New York from Europe. In less than ten years twelve million people came to America and settled in New York from the old world, including my grandparents. Americans were frightened by this wave of immigration that was flooding our young country. There came a time where there were more Jews in New York City than anywhere else in the world (New York still is the second largest Jewish community in the world except for Israel now), more Italians in New York than in Naples or Rome, more Irish in New York than in Dublin, more Greeks in New York than in Athens. Over 700,000 Russians alone lived in New York in those early years. Over half a million poles came over and never returned. As Americans now we are all a part of that. We are the descendents of that great wave of hungry eager ambitious immigrants who flooded into the seaports with nothing but a few suitcases and made America what it is today.

And New York is our living breathing testament to those immigrant years, and to all the years that have come since. It is the most mixed up racially and ethnically diverse cosmopolitan city that we have ever seen in the world’s history. Never have we seen a city such as New York.

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Uncategorized history of new york, Labels: diversity in new york, living in new york, politics, ric burns documentary of new york, transcendence diaries

article 2019-04-29 124617_19.html

November 10, 2004
Dear stallion, 

Well it has finally happened. You said it would.
I am sitting in my apt on a ledge hanging outside the window so I can smoke because it is too cold and rainy to go outside! so I have the window in my apartment open, the fan on full blast, my overcoat on, and I am hanging out a window ledge trying to blow smoke out the window. I never thought it would come to this. You were right. the New York life at this poor a level is a totally other world from the rest of the country. I’m inside but still my hands are freezing. And all of this just to have a smoke at the end of the evening. 

Current spin: George Michael, his new one Patience. I love George. not all of his work, but a lot of it. I’m just glad he has a new CD out. and I’m glad he is more open about his sexuality now. still digging into this one. the songwriting doesn’t seem as strong as normal. How does this come out of the same person who brought us “freedom,” the greatest song of all time, I don’t know.

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November 6, 2004
Friends in town from Miami and all over the states and South America to run in the nyc marathon tomorrow. had a great experience where I met up with Luis downstairs on the street. He was in town from Venezuela, and was shopping and called me and asked me where I lived. I told him, and then he exclaimed, ‘I’m downstairs on your street!’ I was like ‘no way! o.k., I’ll be down in less than a minute.’ Crazy. so then he tells me that Ivonne this girl I dated about a year ago and a few friends were was also in town. and told me where she was eating in the west village. So I went there and pretended I just happened to be there and bumped into them… her face just dropped and she got all nervous was shocked and it was really funny. Then I told them the joke and we all laughed. Good times. so tomorrow I will go film them crossing the finish line. 26 miles. Wow.

Then off to the macanudo club for a smoke and a few drinks with Christopher and his girlfriend. Sinatra and Tony Bennet singing over the speakers over glasses of beer and port. Good times.

And then off to a debutante party for one of the secretaries of Mayor Bloomberg at some new hip club in the meat packing district. More Miami-vibe than I would have liked. You get to a certain class level, the level where they haven’t quite made it yet, but really want to make it or are close to making it or work for people who have made it… and its all posing and bullshit. no substantive conversation. A lot of tight asses and turned up noses. You hang with people who are already there and everyone is laidback and easy going and cool as a fucking cucumber. Because they aren’t worried about it anymore. So real things can get accomplished in that environment. Ideas generate and contacts are made. You can always tell someone who is still wanting it because all they do is ask you fucking questions about what you do or talk about what they do till you wake up ten minutes later realizing that you fell asleep midway during their diatribe and have dropped your drink and spilled it all over the floor. I’m usually good for about ten minutes in those scenes till I feel the world caving in around me and start feeling this nagging dread that if I don’t go actually do an actual something that I’ll be as big a loser as the rest of them. hence the arguably obsessive and unnatural workaholic ethic I so loyally abide by. Its past four am now and I’m still sitting here in the freezing cold madly typing away. I don’t know if you can call writing, the kind of off the cuff stream of consciousness writing that I do, “doing something,” but I find comfort in the practice of it nonetheless.

Its nothing against people. its just that you reach a certain point where you realize that you are where you are. And putting on a show is not going to help you get anywhere. The people we admire are that way because they are just fucking cool. and that doesn’t have half as much to do with your status in life as it has to do with how you feel about who you are and what you are doing. Rich or poor. I learned that the hard way over the years. be cool. stop worrying. just be cool.

Something I thought of last night just before sleep, that there is this major difference between the regular working class people of society and the artists and that is that the artists to a certain degree are not as focused on the monetary rewards of working as much as just getting off and creating art. Whereas the working people are more focused on the rewards and the materialistic gain that can be had from working rather than the work itself. A lot of people don’t even mind switching careers a bunch of times throughout their lives just to get to the top. Whereas the artists would never even consider that if it would spite or compromise their art. They’re just really focused on making their art and getting it out and they don’t even care if they are making money with it or not. I can easily relate to both sides of course. I mean, at a certain point you have to. unless you want to always be struggling. But still, the art is always going to come first, above all else.

Anyway, a busy fucking day and a busy crazy week. life here is much more difficult than living in other places where you drive. Everything here is twice as difficult as the rest of the country. New Yorkers just don’t know it because they are used to it. but it is. you get so worn out being on the subways and having to walk all day and night. by 7 you feel wiped out and ready to lie down for a while.

Current spin; Caetano Veloso. His first album. Self titled. Brilliant. one of the best albums of all time.

Last screening: THX 1138. this is the first George Lucas film he ever made. it is fucking amazing. an absolute MUST SEE. You see glimpses of what would come later in star wars six years later. this is just an amazing work of art. If you work in film or in sound or music this is a classic and you prob know it already but if you don’t, you will love it. it’s a library piece for sure.

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Uncategorized friends from out of town, Labels: Friends, life of an artist, living in new york, party, transcendence diaries, working class people

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A private little world for me… a private little world for you. The online journals and musings of singer-songwriter author and activist Ed Hale. The Transcendence Diaries have been posting regularly online since 2001. Comments are always welcomed. And so are YOU.

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