Tuesday, May 24, 2011

I Like Hotels...

I love hotels. I love a fridge filled with overpriced goodies tempting me. I love hotel bars. New views. Fresh sheets. Wake up calls. 

I adore ice machines in hallways. That I use when I have no use for ice. I love telling the maid to please come back later. And I love that a hotel is one of the only times I can bear elevator banter...

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

My Favorite Songs Part 5...

The guitars shred through rock n' punk n' glam and roll.  The drums are hit with an urgency that you just know will come to a pay off.  While the bass jumps around, at times sporadic, but mostly holding the distrust of it all together.

"Call us fags and call us phonies..."

Lyrics spit out with a sneer and a promise.  Never pretty sounding ('just meetings and functions and social corruptionnn').  But always compelling ('we make the ginamone'). Catchy.  Crass.  Cocky.  A celebration.  Of panic and pain.  Purity and longing.  Loneliness...served up with guitar and drum.

No Way Out...indeed.

Friday, May 6, 2011

New York City

I remember I was in my room.  My first apartment, on Ave. C and 3rd St.
And I remember how annoyed I was to be woken up by my band member and roommate. 

I almost recall trying to say something nasty, but was a bit hungover and too slow to spit it out.

The news was vague, but horrific.

Before we knew it there was dust in the air.  Soot.  Ashes...from bodies and buildings.  
People with names.

..................................................................................................................

We didn't know where to eat.  Not that we cared.
But none of us knew what to do.

Cafe Orlin was open on St. Marks Place.

I have held an irrational disdain for Orlin ever since.
I never realized why until now.

They were still serving.

We went to 85A a day or so later.
And drank like nothing happened or
maybe like everything did.

Sometimes the hardest things never truly ease.
The persistence of their memory.

They become a part of us.
Goosebumps.  Uncomfortable.  And persistent.

That I can never, and would not ever want to forget.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Silent Gratitude

 
I work next to WTC and i saw 2 people cheering and they were both donning flags and newspapers with tourists taking their pics. I saw many more people taking photos with firefighters and cops and expressing their gratitude. I also saw one construction work hang a flag maybe 20 stories up on a building being constructed while 30 people or so looked on in silence. I find the response I have seen in the media of people as if they were on spring break, if not offensive, at least off putting. But down here I just have not seen that. It takes me all I have to walk past ground zero every day and not think of the soot and ashes of buildings and bodies that made its way towards the east village slowly after the planes hit. Yesterday, l looked in the faces of some first responders and couldn't help but feel a sense of relief, for them. For me. For us. I know he was largely a figurehead at this point. But in a way that makes it all the more meaningful.