God is New York beautiful. Everyone is so smart and handsome and educated and hip. It’s really something.
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But there is also the other side to is as well. the whole lower half of the island is quite dirty and seedy. There is graffiti everywhere. and the streets get all cockeyed and confused and broken up. there is the aspect of having to walk everywhere in the freezing cold that truly sucks. Or you have to go down and catch a subway and stand in these crazy ass lines and wait a long time and ride in these train cars packed like a sardine with thousands of other people. nothing fun about that. but somehow I find it fun.
I think that at a different income level New York would be everything that a person would want it to be. once you get to a six digit income then I think it would be just grand, once you can afford your own driver really. That’s what you need really. That would be the first thing to word toward. For me anyway. My own driver. Getting around here at this income level just really sucks if you are not from here and are not accustomed to it. honestly, and with all due respect towards native new Yorkers, walking around like this and taking the subway everywhere just really sucks and is very inconvenient if you are used to just getting in your car and driving where ever you want to go.
[speaking of being accustomed to something, I recently contemplated the difference between the English phrases of “I am used to it” versus “I am accustomed to it.” we use the phrases interchangeably don’t we? But they don’t really mean the same thing literally when you think about it. Even though we intend the same idea at this point in their usage. But their original derivation is quite dissimilar when you stop and think about it. ‘I am used to it’ would mean more that ‘we’ are ‘used’ to ‘it,’ that ‘it’ is somehow tired of ‘us,’ that we are no longer ‘new’ to it. Now seeing that most of the time the ‘it’ we are referring to is most likely an inanimate object, if we really wanted to say ‘I’ am accustomed to ‘something,’ then we should really be saying ‘it’ is ‘used’ to ‘me,’ rather than ‘I am used to it.’ Just an observation.]
The other day I went to the local smoke shop to sit and have smoke with all the other guys from around town. it is quite the scene here in the city. a very special scene, one that I had dreamed of my whole life. and it really does exist. You just buy your favorite smoke and sit down in this lounge area with a bunch of other guys smoking a cigar or pipe and talk about politics or sports or finances or stocks or the latest issues of the day. you end up hanging with all these Harvard business school graduates, and ceos of major companies like office depot and even the mayor will stop in and sit to have a smoke and a talk.
Being in a band, living eating sleeping breathing in the world of rock and roll, all you ever talk about is music and sex and pop culture. So the older crowd more mainstream crowd is important for me to get away to. there are only so many dick jokes you can hear in one day. and that’s what being in a rock band is all about. talking about music or girls and lots of dick jokes and gay jokes. Its fun, but you know, it can get tiresome.
So I tend to need to sneak away to a more refined and intellectual scene now and then. Get into a different crowd altogether. And there is no place like a cigar shop to do this. these men are puffing away on cigars that cost at a minimum of ten to twenty dollars a pop. So they are well to do and already quite made. so they have a lot of time on their hands so they tend to study a lot and be well educated. You can learn a lot in a cigar shop. And make a lot of good connections.
We spent a whole evening watching jeopardy. If you can imagine. Everyone shouting out the answers to the questions. Or rather, the questions to the answers. And I must say I was in heaven. So there is intelligent life in the universe after all. I just needed to get to New York to find it.
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The poet, our drummer of course, came into town tonight. the first of the guys. tomorrow morning the rest of the guys pull in. we go to the apocalypse lounge to meet some of his friends. East village. Walking around that I feel down there as though any minute you are three yards from an impending drug deal going down from all sides. A grungy area that when I was a younger man I cherished, and now feel more comfortable admiring from afar. Perhaps, I remark to the poet, that as you become older you simply become more uptown, and that’s just the way it is. regardless of the plausibility of my words ever ringing true enough to become prophecy, it has certainly happened for me. I couldn’t feel more comfortable on the upper east side, even though I couldn’t look more east village if I tried. This is the dichotomy of character that I have lived with all of my life. but now I am very comfortable in it.
If you are a person who drives, as most of us are here in America, you know that homey comfort you get from getting inside your car. especially if you have a car you really like. It becomes a part of you. and when you are inside of it you feel as though you are in your second home, your home away from home. in New York you don’t have that because you don’t have a car in New York. Some people I hear, but most don’t. you don’t drive anywhere but instead you just walk or take a cab or take the subway everywhere.
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*** it is not the best city in the world to be fair to other cities, but I would say that in all fairness it may be the best place in the world. something like that.
Last screening: what the bleep do we know? good film. all should see it. doesn’t say much new if you are already a new-ager or into quantum physics. but you will still enjoy it. just being among like-minds for a short time will give much comfort.
By the way, Christopher reeves died today. I am writing it, but I cannot believe it. now I fear for the worst. I had just always envisioned that in the next couple of years that we would all wake up one day and discover that Chris was up and walking on his own. That was the great promise of the superman. THAT WAS the dream. But that dream is lost now. seems like a bad omen.
Last night I dreamed that I had killed a few people. the agony over it, the irreversible guilt and agony was miserable to bear. You wouldn’t imagine. An intense secret that weighed very heavy. Constantly trying to hide from everyone that I came into contact with.
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In fact, and this is the true nature of why I am writing, New York is such a beautiful happy go lucky and joyous city, (o.k. so forget the noise, the cold, the crowds, the lines, the traffic, the piles of garbage everywhere, and how expensive it is…) that you may even find yourself picking up litter off of the street. You almost notice yourself feeling a kind of motherly protectionist feeling about the city. say what you will, it may be for you and it may not be for you, but its one of those places that if it is for you, people just worship it. New York is something sacred and holy to people, both residents and visitors alike. Even to people who have never been to New York but who just honor it or are fascinated by it from afar, from books or movies, find a certain sense of awe or inspiration from the great city. a certain pride that New York is an American city. its our city. We’re lucky in that. its our greatest achievement.
And this is the nature of my thoughts this evening as I noticed that I was picking up all of the used matches from the stairs I was sitting on so as not to litter. I noticed how careful people are to pick up after themselves, how much money has been spent over the years on the city’s streets and infrastructure and buildings… but I reflected back on a time when it wasn’t like that. back in the seventies when New York the city filed for bankruptcy and had to beg president ford to bail them out not once but twice. When indeed New York was known as one of the dirtiest cities in the world and it was considered quite gross to live in New York. Like you lived in the ghetto or something.
So it made me think about the nature of how things evolve, how sometimes it appears that something is dying, and they may indeed die and then they are no more. think of the great kingdoms of the Aztecs or the Mayans or the Egyptian empire. Great things die and then they are no more. this is true. but sometimes they persevere. They keep going in the face of the most abject adversity imaginable.
Everyday you hear stories here how someone bought a building for three hundred thousand and now its worth 4 million. What was once considered a ridiculous buy now is considered a treasure to be coveted by all. New York real estate is like that now. the whole damn city is. I look around me and I cannot fathom the amount of love and care and attention that has been put into this city over the last four hundred years. it is apparent everywhere you look. People love it. they give to it, donate to it, take care of it, pamper it, and protect it like it is one of their children.
So New York didn’t die in the seventies like many cities do. and it didn’t die after September 11th, as some people predicted. It only got stronger and more beautiful and more valuable.
People are moving to New York in droves, twice as many are moving here than are leaving, even after September 11th, strangely enough. I often am asked by other people who live in different parts of the country why I would possibly move to New York now? of all times? aren’t you afraid of terrorist attacks? And my answer of course is that if I’m going be blown to smithereens by a terrorist attack I would rather it be here than anywhere else. in fact, if New York is going to be blown up beyond all recognition sometime in the near future, I want to be here. after all we’re in the belly of the beast here, the heart of the empire, the living breathing epicenter of the known universe… so for now it makes perfect sense for me, and I guess for a lot of people to be here if anything happens here, good or bad. after September 11th people just started flocking here. maybe its our motherly instincts to want to protect each other. Maybe its our tribal instincts wanting to be together in good times and bad. If we’re all going to die anyway, let it be in the center of it all. let it be at the very heart of the matter where we take our last gasp in this brief and fleeting life. the last thing in the world I would ever want to have happen and this is entirely selfish on my part I would assume, is for something horrible to happen to New York again and for me to be watching it on a TV from somewhere else in the world. I would feel as though I was betraying myself in some way, and even more than that, that I was betraying New York, and betraying my fellow man in some weird way.
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But no more. this move to New York is a bold statement of the extent I am willing to go to make necessary changes in my life to make it that much better and more exciting and successful and fulfilling. One of the many steps in that process is making sure that I get what I want when I want it and I get what I pay for. That I am still empathetic and compassionate to my fellow man but that I am strong and bold enough to get the job done and make sure that others who work for me do the same. That is all part of being a good leader and a successful caretaker of any business or family which I hope to be one day.
Played the cashflow game again with Boo Boo Kitty. I won the game in three hours. Ended up with over a million dollars of cash on hand and four hundred and fifty seven thousand dollars in passive income. A good game indeed. Learning a lot from this brilliant game.
Still finding it very hard to secure good enough paying dats for the band to do a real tour. very frustrating!!!! This is with a song on the top forty of many rock stations around the country and good CD sales nationally. Starting to believe that the only way were going to make this happen is to get a major record deal. I hate to say it but it very well could be that this is the unfortunate but inevitable truth.
Finding myself more deeply rooted in truth more so than I have been for many years. even the diaries have taken on an air of truth quite surprising and unexpected. I feel for the first time since their inception that I am finally writing from my heart of hearts.
The goal is to get the diaries to a level of truth so crystal clear and sharp that they transcend mere telling of events and feelings and become a tool like the diaries of Camus or Davinci. Where they become the canvas on which I work and learn and grow. The only way to accomplish this is to get out of the need to simply recall events or try to build the ego by stretching the truth and to just lay it on the line in as honest and forthright a fashion as is humanly possible.
Also realizing that to rent in New York sucks and that the key is going to be to buy as soon as possible. When you are a renter you have no control, no equity, and no leverage and no buying or borrowing power. I have said it before and I am convinced of it now yet again. to own is power. to rent is to be a slave.
Finding it hard to get anything done here still. still in shock and relocation trauma sort of.
So many beautiful and eligible girls here that I am turning my head every few seconds walking down the street. I realize now that my wife wherever and whoever she is will have to be my destined wife. It will have to be an almost cosmic attraction and coming together. because the truth is that there are many many possibilities out there. so it will have to be something more fated, something more than mere attraction or beauty or style or anything like that. but rest assured, my intuition tells me that she is just around the corner and I will be married within a year. My message to you my love? I am here. can you feel me? I am scared and slightly anxious and nervous about money right now in all honesty. I have not been this broke since I was in college. so I am slightly nervous that I will not be able to at this time support us in the fashion that would serve us best, but I am over all feeling happy and excited about my life. even though we have not met yet, you have my heart and my undying devotion. I think of you often and I dream of you during the nights.
A good concise video documentary short about the 9/11 pentagon bombing cover-up is here:
http://www.freedomunderground.org/memoryhole/pentagon121.swf
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All night tossing and turning. Not a lot of sleep. Hate the mattress. Really gross. Feel very claustrophobic in the bedroom. The entire apt is only 414 sq ft. everything including kit and bath. Crazy. that’s the size of my bathroom back home. I have been studying intently the sounds of different accents the last few years. brought on by the fact that when some one puts you on the spot and asks you to sport and English accent you may or may not be able to do it, unless of course you have been schooled in it. By a voice instructor, like actors do for certain roles in films. So I have really been trying to pay attention to all the different accents people speak English with. The Russian accent, the Irish, the new York, the new jersey, the Boston, the polish, the middle easterner, the South American — forklift
Spent all day looking at offices for the new TMG headquarters. Still not feeling a hundred percent. No NE of my stuff is here yet. still on the truck . anxiety at night sleeping in others peoples strange bed and bed sheets freaks me out.
Still spending more than I’m making, not good.
Phone company will not install Internet service till next week some time so I am forced to walk around the city opening my alp top everywhere to see if I can log on to some network wirelessly to get on the Internet for a few minutes. Its totally crazy. you hit ‘view wireless connections available and you see like maybe five to ten wireless connections while you’re just sitting there on a bench somewhere . I have found that the best place to go is on the steps of apartment buildings and then you have a lot to choose from that way. and then I log into them and then I’m on the net.
Not a very productive way to work. But better than nothing and better than an Internet café where you pay by the hour or whatever. for now.
Fun New York facts. [If you are a new Yorker skip these sections because it will seem obvious to you and boring.] A city block takes a minute to walk. a north South block is called a block. A east west avenue is called an avenue, not a block. Each avenue is approximately three blocks. You find yourself walking a lot here. a lot. You could easily walk a hundred blocks in a day.
As a visitor I used to take taxis everywhere. now I realize the value in trying to take the subway everywhere or walk.
I have lots of friends here. maybe not as many as Miami but it seems like more because we are all in this city so it is easier to see each other. In more suburban areas like Miami or LA, it seems like you are so spread out from everything that you always have to make plans with everyone to do stuff, whereas here you just meet up all the time because you are so close to each other.
Protesting in Madison Square Garden
Called Chapper this morning and told him “dude come by my hotel. I have a ton of calls to make but you we can hang out and you can order room service and watch me work for a few hours. Oh yeah, and will do me a favor and buy me a broom…” “A what dog?” “A broom. I need a broom. Just find one and bring it to me.”
So old Chapper arrives and actually throws a broom on the bed. I was pretty impressed I have to say. Of course I unscrewed the broom part and just used the long handle to hold my signs I was making. So after this ungodly long day where I learn that I am not getting this huge sum of cash I thought I was getting on the phone now and on top of it I have to come up with five months of NEW York rent to the tune of about ten grand, and something they call brokers fees to the tune of another three grand, and so now I have this sudden realization that I am broke. Like flat broke. Like I can’t buy lunch in two hours if I get this apartment. And I don’t even know if I will be approved for it anyway. But worse than that, how am I going to live? this fear shoots through my body and honestly I had this uncontrollable urge to lie down and go to sleep. Its all my body could do because it was like I went into a panic. But I didn’t because I had to go to this stupid meeting at the realtors to have them rape me and take all this money from me.
Anyway, I made it through and then after that I called boo boo kitty and said c’mon lets go march and protest the evil empire. So I get dressed up in my newest character, the general, who made quite a stir at the MTV vmss, and I go to hail a cab to get to the protest. Boo boo says to me, “what kind of a protester stays at a five star hotel while he’s trying to rent a park avenue apartment and then takes a cab to the protest site?”
“babe, this has nothing to do with money or class or style. This rebellion against bush has to do with good versus evil. There are those of us who are poor hippies fighting this battle. There are those of us who are rich protesting I’m sure. And yes there are even those of us who are poor but live like we’re rich, like myself, completely committed to seeing that this guy is brought down. So lets just catch our cab and catch up to our fellow peeps. we got some protesting to do.”
we get to the site. and what was it like? Think tens of thousands of people carrying signs crowded into ten city blocks. From 20th street to 32nd street. All the way up eighth avenue. Shoulder to shoulder. Everyone carrying signs and screaming and shouting and chanting various rallying cries of the revolution. I feel very much at home in the large protest groups. Like I am among family. No matter where I go in this country of ours to protest for one cause or another I always feel very safe and homey with all the other fight-the-good-fighters.
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New York is brilliant right now. the weather is crisp and clear and sunny. The people as always are nice and friendly.
Hey Flash,
Thanks for the heads up about what’s going on down there. Feel free to forward this to our fellow friends in soflo. While you all are busy preparing for the hurricane, I am here in New York City in a storm of our own; up here now with hundreds of thousands of other people who have flown in from all over the country to march for peace, and in protest against the occupation of Iraq and in protest of the Bush administration in general.
Tomorrow night during Bush’s campaign speech literally hundreds of thousands of people will be outside Madison square Garden doing everything in our power to make as much noise as possible to get the attention of the world media off of the RNC and onto the voice of the American people (granted, this select group of people — but an amazingly large body of people of all ages and races are represented here in solidarity for this movement) it is truly inspiring how many people are here all over the city sacrificing their time energy and money, with only one goal in mind: to get this administration out of power. We have not seen anything like this since the sixties.
Good things indeed. Wish us all luck and success and safety.
Peace,
Fishy
Its about midnight now. I’m exhausted. Sitting in central park to smoke and write. O.k. looked at apts all day. def think I found one. I’ll say it again, more beautiful girls here than any other city in America. Just wonderful. I don’t mean like sexy or hot, like in LA or Miami, but I just mean beautiful girls in what they appear at least to posses on the inside. That smart sassy witty cultured and stylish look. If I want to, I can be married within the year. I just felt that being here the last few hours.
I have been getting calls and emails all day from friends from all over the country who are here to march and protest this week. I cannot believe how many people from every generation is here for that one reason… its inspiring. now that I have found a place I can take tomorrow and spend all day on the streets making noise and wreaking havoc for the evil empire that took over our nations capital three and half long years ago. There are cops everywhere in this city! I mean everywhere. I have never seen anything like this. police in cars, in motorcycles, helicopters, on foot, on horses and in big paddy wagons.
I’m going around all day with a realtor looking at all these posh apts for rent and purchase like I’m some rich capitalist rock star, which to a certain extent I certainly am. Little did they know that my suitcase is filled with peace signs and protest propaganda and tomorrow I’ll be hitting the streets with the rest of the hippies. America. What a country.
Luckily the republican convention has come off very much like a silly made for TV circus and the media has done a good job of reporting on it that way. almost. Tomorrow night will be the test. We’ll see if we get the message across to the rest of the world.
One thing I’ve noticed is that somehow strangely enough I seem to have more friends already here in New York than I do back home and I don’t even live here. its just like all of friends from over the years from various aspects of my life have been moving here the last few years.
Today in the bathroom I was reading the new book by Howard Bloom, mass brain I think, something like that. an amazing social-science read, one of the most brilliant and interesting reads of modern times… reading it and reading all the accolades about it I was reminded of all the other great intellectual reads that have been written over the centuries by us and how important they all seem at the time, and then in that moment I had this remembrance of what I have slowly been coming to terms with lately… that in the bigger picture none of it really matters that much. We can make all this intellectual stuff mean a lot to us if we want to. certainly. We can take our daily dose of politics and poetry and prose philosophy and religious studies and what not, but in the end, we can just as easily go sit on an island somewhere and so nothing and still get to the same place. the life is so big and so mysterious that I don’t think it really matters what we do as humans here. its till going to be the same big mysterious life with very few answers and a lot of conjecture and second guesses about the meaning of it all.
In the elevator a few minutes later I had this realization, and I barely dare write it, that still in the end, the thing that matters most is going to be how much money we can create so we can live happy healthy lives and assure the same for our families. The meaning of it all in the big picture is not going to matter half as much as is our ability to take care of ourselves and our loved ones and assure our survival while we are here. that’s what’s going to really matter.
I think about the difference between Beaver and me. he’s got a good job that pays him well and a beautiful loving wife and kids and a great home in middle America. I don’t think he’s ever even been to any big cities even here in the states, let alone in other parts of the world. He never has the time to read or study or research or learn foreign languages or protest or be a social activist. And me, I get frustrated with myself because I cannot speak fluent French well enough to communicate with the Haitian cab drivers here in the city. We live polar opposite lives in those respects. But he’s as happy and content as can be. I’m still going to keep studying and researching and traveling and roaming and searching, fighting the good fight, marching and protesting and voting and doing my best to give whenever and however I can, because I believe in what I’m doing, but in the end its still all about love and money. I felt that today. I really understood it for the first time. that it’s a choice we make in how we want to spend our lives here. And either way we choose is just as good and noble and meaningful as the other