Happy New Year, all.

Perhaps the happiest moment of my life.

Times Square, New Year's Eve

Mexico Rocks

I'm very hungry right now and this is what I wan to eat. I toatlly want to chow down on a hot, dripping taco. I want the juices to run down my chin as the flavor explodes in my mouth. I want my tongue to reach deep into its folds to discover untold secrets of spice.

Update: Taco Bell cuisine review: http://www.angelfire.com/extreme3/tacobell/

 

Vodka Tonics out the Wazoo

Who's having the big party tonight? And by that, I mean who's couch am I crashing on? Anyone? Anyone?

Beach sex

 

Ann and I in Cancun.

Cue and Eh

1. What did you do in 2004 that you'd never done before?

Got committed for being sane.

2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Fuck off.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

My sister had Conor, my new nephew.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No.

5. What countries did you visit?

Long Branch

6. What would you like to have in 2005 that you lacked in 2004?

An abundance of recreational pharmaceuticals

7. What dates from 2004 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

February 26. She fucked me over and got away scot free.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Red Sox.

9. What was your biggest failure?

I quit working at Nelson Communications. Despite their love for me.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Don’t go there. Does 4 days in a rubber room count?

But I was on crutches for two weeks thanks to a wicked knee sprain.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

iPod.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Pat Tilman. The man who gave up millions of NFL dollars to fight in Afghanistan, just to die from friendly fire.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and deppressed?

Mine.

14. Where did most of your money go?

The bank.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Red Sox.

16. What song will always remind you of 2004?

U2- Vertigo.

17.Compared to this time last year, you are:

Taller.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Get good at video games. Watch movies. Understand culture.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Eat Xanax like candy.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

Spent with Lefty.

21. How would you rather be spending Christmas? 

With my future family.

22. Did you fall in love in 2004?

Yes.

23. How many one-night stands?

None.

24. What was your favorite TV program?

Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

No.

26. What was the best book you read?

Feed – M.T. Anderson,

Wider than the Sky – Gerald Edelman,

Stranger Than Fiction – Chuck Palahniuk,

Magical Thinking – Augusten Burroughs,

A Short History Of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

iPod

28. What did you want and get?

iPod

29. What did you want and not get?

Ann

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

Didn’t see any movies this year.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I worked and loved it. 38.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Ann.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004?

My dry cleaner is wealthy.

 

34. What kept you sane?

Dave, the friend who busted in my place on St. Patrick’s Day and fed me beer. Xanax. Lest I not forget Ann, the most beautiful thing to ever appear in my life.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Fancy? You’re begging me to say Paris Hilton. Sorry. I ain’t gay but it was Johnny Damon.

36. What political issue stirred you the most? 

Maimed soldiers. Please help them when they get home.

37. Who did you miss? 

All at Nelson Communications.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

Ann.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2004: 

Lie to hospital workers.

Mule

Guess who's been ass tonight? Good thing only people I really like read my blog. Barely.

Sugar ills

My mind seized this week. I tore open a sugar packet and poured it into an empty McDonald’s bag instead of the coffee cup. Sam watched it all in befuddled amazement. Not something you want your boss to see you do.

 

It was pure absentmindedness. Bifurcation of consciousness playing out on turf.

 

The next day I tossed an entire sugar packet into a cup of coffee as if it were a sugar cube.

 

I have a stupid Nazi Fonzi Freak haircut and I need for it to grow out and be long again.

 

I put a cigarette out on my own leg yesterday. Because it was cold outside and the cig was warm. Ruined a perfectly good pair of $80 Banana Republic chinos. Natch. Grandmom has cancer. Work is again a daily drill. Love can’t happen on Wed-nes-day.

Moleskin

I must think of a way to guide myself through these very questions in some effort to glide our way through a glistening portal. A keyhole to some uncertain, yet promising, other side. She whispers the lust of uncertainty tonight. She is absent.

4 plastic homies are fallen. Killah stands. The grinner with the spikey hair. Go figure.  I have two pages left in this gilded gray-paged format. I've written since '88 on pages just like this. 15 years is a long time to write. I'm going to be transferring formats in '05 to moleskin notebooks. And blogs. Plural.

 

Dead spirit?

Snot dead in pyrotechnic dreams. Chalk outline in lighter fluid. Smug grin to piss all off. Insecurity to reach out to a vacuum.

Reanimated in an instant.

 

Baby smile

A natural, happy grin in his Aunt Jaime's arms. He's aware of his surroundings. I'm a goo ball cause I love him.

Wicked Hungry

And then there was light. 2004, the year of changing light bulbs. Symbolically, metaphorically and literally. Flick, spark, then dark dust and bugs. Lefty loosey, righty tighty. A ladder, some twisting, and I award myself with 75 watts of rich white light. Or should I say blue. I prefer these GE Reveal light bulbs. They’re supposed to illuminate more of the visible light spectrum. I like the way they beam.

 

I’ve always gone through light bulbs the way people go through spells. I’m cursed with bad electricity. In the age of candles, I would have been a stiff breeze--oxygen incarnate. In the age of lanterns, I would have been a hungry wick.

 

Three dead bulbs down. One to go. Nope. Make that two. Lefty loosey, righty tighty.

 

The Creatures

Sam played a really cool DVD at work today. It's by Siouxsie (she of epynonomous fame with the Banshees) and her hub, Budgie. They have a band called the creatures and a disc called "HAI." It starts off with Budgie playing this cool 2/4 riff on the toms, then a Japanese dude named Leonard starts friggin' wailing on this huge Japanese battle drum (see above.) Apparently the whole disc is like this, with Siouxsie adding lyrics where appropriate. I dig it. Me likey.

Santa was just here!!!!!

Awww shit. I thought I was going to get a new Play Satation 2.

Ahh, Christmas Spirit

I don't believe that it's appropriate to comment on things while Santa

is getting a hummer from a legless elf disguised as a bag of toys.

Bad Santa

I adore Ann. But this year, Christmas sucks.

I could go on, but I won't.

Red Bank Blues

Prettiest Santa I've ever seen.

Jingle This

(Johnny rotten singing

through thrashing guitars and

rapid fire thunder drums)

Dashing through the snow
In a one-horse open sleigh
O'er the fields we go
Laughing all the way
Bells on bobtail ring
Making spirits bright
OH What fun it is to ride and sing
A sleighing song tonight, Not

Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way, not
Oh what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh
O jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way, not
Oh what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh

It's a Boy!

Conor Devlin Cohen, 6 pounds 4 ounces, born to Katie (my sister) and Matt 12/17/04. Conor means strong will. Devlin mean brave. He is both and he is healthy! I've been tasked, as his uncle. to teach him baseball. The world has one more Red Sox fan.

Womb

A great band that survived. Chrissie Hynde is an attitude dream babe. I think she gave birth to my bad ass-ness. 15 years before Kurdt appeared on the scene.

Bloom.

The last important band.

Santa wets HIS pants

 

This is my niece, Tara. Her preschool class had just learned about Hanukah, and like a good little

Christian she went right to Santa’s lap and asked him to bring her a Menorah for Christmas.

Let me out/in

The next three weeks are make it or break it. Katie may have to be induced, Grandmom has to decide whether or not to have cancer surgery and work is getting really weird. Add to that the holidays and a seemingly ceaseless case of writer's block and I have the makings of a man ready to escape the everyday mundanity for the sake of some secular sanity. See? Now I’m writing like an early 90's rapper. I need a life-ectomy.

The Last Supper

How David Ortiz became Judas, I'll never know.

I got mail!!!

 

My official "Red Sox Won the World Series" cap came in the mail today. YA-HOOOO!!!!!! I am dancing around in boxers, wearing my new cap, like an idiot. Lefty is delighted with the box it was shipped in. We are both in bliss.

Reflection

I've spent the past week looking at myself and I don't like what I see. Especially with my new military haircut.

I used to live in a room full of mirrors

All I could see was me
Well I took my spirit and I crashed my mirrors
Now the whole world is there for me to see
I’ve got a whole world that’s here for me to see
Now I’m searching for my love to be
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,

 

Broken glass was falling in my brain
Cuttin and screaming and crying in my head
Broken glass  was falling in my brain
It used to fall on my dreams and cut me in my bed
It used to fall on my dreams and cut me in my bed

I said making love is strange in my bed
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,

Love will come shining o’er the mountain
Love will come shining o’er the sea
Love will shine on my baby
Then I’ll know exactly who’s for me
Then I’ll know exactly who’s for me

(In the meantime, we still got alotta groovy time)
Hey! Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,

 

The Wall

For those of you interested, I've reverted back to my days of obsessively listening to Side 2 of The Wall. I'm in a bad state. But in a good way. Comfortably Numb helps me think.

 

Ann7inFlorida

I've been working for now 48 hours. Ann has been by backbone through this ordeal. She is a saint in my eyes for her encouragement. If she were here now, I'd forget about headlines, take her to the city, and hold her hand in the beautiful glint of Times Square neon.

All

This is an amendment to my previous entry. I mean, we are all insignifigant in the bright light of those we look to to take over after us. My sis has this going on in a highly active state within her own womb. Maybe I shouldn't be selfish in what I wish for in my stupid earthly world. Maybe I should work on paving a better way for the little ones who will inevitably inherit it. Wouldn't it be cool if they made boxers like this to remind dorks like me where we came from? I eminated from a very young woman's womb back in the 60's. And I turned out screwed up. So, shouldn't everyone like me, turned out by a young woman's womb in the 60's be equally screwed up? Or is my logic flawed?

 

It's a pagan feast. It's a mating ritual. It's a cheeseburger.

I want to eat a Wendy's Hot Mountain Wild Cheeseburger right now.

What's your fave football team?

Union Square

Nancy just called me from 14th and 5th.

She's going to the Union Square Cafe.

I'm jealous.

Pancakes are yummy there.

Let's play find the bag of weed on PK's desk

Dude. I am so baked right now.

Quiet

Chillin out on Saturday night.

I'm not sure what to do with myself. I'm not accustomed to a stretch of silence this long. I have no drugs to take, nothing to drink. Nothing but me and maybe I'm not all that bad. No one's hated me more than me. And no one wants to carve a little corner of the world to share as his own more than I do.

Peace out, Holly

Holly, sometimes known as Quroboros to us, has decided to close out her wonderful journal, A Fool on the Lake. Speaking personally, she was an inspitation and a source of creative input while my dumb journal was getting it's legs. I will be sorry to see her go. I hope to see her return in any way shape or form, quite soon.

I swiped this photo from her site, and I hope she doesn't mind. It gives a glimpse into the wonderful way her singular brain works. Visit her and say, "Come back soon!"

 

Wake up

Whatever you believe about objectivity is, really, intimidation.

Numbers

If you think you’re a week ahead, you’re really a month behind.

Hemispheres

The strangest thing happened to me today and it left me mute.

I had Erin with me in the car. We had just finished lunch at the Blue Swan Diner. She had the turkey club, I had the BLT. We had fun, but we were in a scorchingly bright, sunlit booth. I think we both prefer to dine in dimmer surroundings. The light seemed to hush me. I think it may have even dried out her turkey. She noted both.

 

I’m driving back to work in Eatontown, going up West Park Ave., heading almost due west. The sun was about as high in the sky as it gets this time of year and its beams were strained through tall trees to my left. I remember Erin saying, “You know all the back roads.” The flickering shadow/light of the filtered sun hit my left eye and totally disoriented me. Or so I thought. My right eye could see the road just fine. My brain started freaking out. One millisecond I was cool. The next millisecond I was, “where the hell am I?” This lasted back and forth for a good thirty seconds (do the math.) High sun staccato strobes glint and glare off the shield of glass before my left eye whipping and whirling me out of the now of now and into some scary state all the while my right eye gazes ahead, focused on the road, smoking a Newport Light. Left eye: rave, LSD trip. Right eye: driving, thinking about work, listening to Erin. I then hit a long shadow and the discordant symphony between right and left eye, left and right brain, stopped.

 

The rest of the day I could barely talk. And it was a strange day to not have talked. That’s another story.

 

Later, I was in a meeting with Michael, Lisa and Cathy and toward the end, Michael said that he could see my mind working; he could see that I was only hearing every third word. He thought I was being creative, and I was trying to. I was. But I was only half there. I feel like half a ghost of me is walking cold on theside of the road trying to get back to the Blue Swan. And the other half has a wicked headache.

 

Something's not right.

Sports-idiots of the year

Oh, baby, am I gonna squeeze some bloggage out of this pronouncement...

Marquis de Happy

Long day in the city, but it ended on fun note, with Chris, Lisa, Sam and I having drinks in the Marriot Marquis lounge overlooking Times Square. Haven't been there in years and I forgot how cool the view is.

Head

Head On is the coolest song in the world. Pixies did it. Jesus and Mary Chain did it. Nuff said. It makes me want to make out and have massive mutual orgasmic sex.

Homie

This is my new friend, White Face Killarh. He’s keeping me company over the holidaze. Katie is fine, so far. Nancy is cool as ever and totally concerned about me. She told me my breath smelled like jet fuel. OK, I'll slow down on the beers. Sam is acutely aware that I’m in a bad mood. Chris chased me down the hall at work when she found I had no plans for yesterday. Erin is a hottie. And Ann is in my mind. I can’t stop thinking about her. Maybe if I smoke something and listen to the Dead Milkmen, she’ll go away. I still want her to stay. I want to welcome her home.

Liar

I lied and told my family I had Thanksgiving dinner with a friend. But it made mom feel better. Is thad bad? Truthfully, I sat here with Lefty and we gulped down a meatball sub together. I've never seen a cat so happy and content. And I feel pretty good myself. I miss my family. We're good together.

Trouble

This is a terribly troubling night. There is travesty in the turkey. There is suffering in the stuffing. I feel uneven tonight. Something is not right.

See thru me?

OK for once and for all I do not have self-mutilating thoughts. My words just lean to an unbalanced lilt in that direction. I am actually quite happy these days. Think about it. The Sox won the series. I have gifted friends. I'm employed with incredibly talented people. I have food in my fridge. I have you reading this. Any conncection between words and non-thanksgiving are purely coincidental. I see this pic and think leftovers....

I got red ones, too.

Red Converse Rocks. I feel an essay coming on. Give me a minute.

Two birds. One boxcutter.

If you’re gonna cook the turkey, bake some pumpkin pie, OK?

 

Good comes with the bad, kill me so I can rise, blah, blah, blah. Mixed metaphors and cliches be gone. As of thus, my plans for Thanksgiving amount to me coiled in my cocoon, cherishing every second of silence and salivating at the gripping sensation of having two pounds of turkey, gravy, stuffing and potatoes in my mouth at once while a football game drones in the background. I’m thankful that Katie is okay, mom and dad are with her; and that all my friends are okay and nestling, however discordantly, with loved ones. I’d have to say I’m cool right now. I think the diner is okay with pouring shots of turkey gravy. To me, that rocks. That's the way it is this year. I might yelp and mope, but this is how I wish it, this is how I want it. Trust me. I'm grinning. But I've just realized that it's a terrible time to talk to bound friends.

PK’S BRAIN ASTRAY...

...hates closed pistachio nuts.

 

1)      Whatever you think of as objectivity is really just evolved intimidation

2)      The invention of the light bulb is, so far, the most important biological happening since mating. The seizing of light ceased the primordial meaning of night

3)      What are the elements of natural selection that work to your advantage in this competitive environment?

Katie Rocks

Talked to Katie tonight and tried to vibe all of everyone's good wishes toward her and the little to be one. She's resting at home and banished to bed. She has a terribly active and intelligent mind-- she's an English major lawyer with interests in psychology, Victorian literature and alternative rock (circa 1993, LOL). Any suggestions on what I might send her to pass the next few weeks as comfortably as a brother might make possible? Books? Crosswords? Voodoo hexes?

Magnesium sulfate

My how life can turn on a dime. Got a phone call at 7:30 AM from my dad. Bad news. My sister, Katie, she of the previous entry who’s now pregnant with her first child, is going into labor in her 32nd week. She was already in the hospital for dehydration, so I knew she wasn’t well. Her prognosis was good, but they were keeping her overnight just for observation. Good thing they did. Mom and dad jumped in the car and made a beeline for Arlington, VA, a mere 4 hour drive for them. I took a shower and went to work.

 

By the time they got there Katie had been put on a magnesium sulfate drip to stop the contractions. As of now it seems to have worked—Katie and baby are ok—but she’s suffering something awful. I want to help, but there’s not a damn thing I can do. I spoke with Matt, her husband, and he’s as calm and cool as ever and probably holding her hand right now. Mom and dad are there with their usual dollops of care. Even Kerry, my other sister, is there. She flew in from Seattle, a mere 2,500 miles away. Why am I here? Why am I not there? I tell myself that it’s because I have to work, but is it really? Which priorities are trumping which responsibilities?

Bragging

In 1992 my sister went to Korea to teach English to, um, Koreans. I was given the exalted honor of guarding her stereo and CD collection. Actually, I pirated both, for at that time they were a source of envy. To my disappointment, most of her CDs overlapped mine. But one stuck out like a bleedin eyeball: Billy Bragg, Don’t Try This at Home. The guest musicians alone were enough to make an alternadude drool—Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Johnny Marr….I played it and was hooked. It was Woodie Guthrie with an Irish lilt and an ass-busting attitude. All of this preamble to announce that my fave song and video is online! Billy Bragg, “You Woke Up My Neighborhood”.

 

http://www.rhino.com/retrovid/videoplayer.lasso?VidID=730

 

Fun video, the sort that aren’t really in vogue any more. I cherish it still as a Blarney Stone memory. Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and a motley crew lookin like Dexy’s fuckin midnight runners are partying with Billy. It’s kinda like when my friend Dave shows up out of nowhere with a bottle of tequila. Somehow a parade ends up happening. Then I’m asleep pondering tomorrow. Just watching/listening to it makes golden lasers of happines beam out my eyes.

 

 

This is not a metaphor

My kitchen sink drain is clogged beyond belief. Standing water. Thank God it’s past frost, or else it would be a mosquito orgy tub. So I go to the market, and with a straight face I buy 30 tins of cat food and something called: Foaming Pipe Snake.

 

What a great verb, noun, verb/noun combo. I picture it slinking down the drain and gnawing away at all obstruction. I hear the virtual sound of the air pressure release suction pull of an open drain. I get home. I follow the instructions. Pour. Foam. Wait. Nothing.

 

So I go buy more: Foaming Pipe Snake.

 

Pour. Foam. Wait. Nothing.

 

Now I have a sink full of: Foaming Pipe Snake foam and nowhere to release it. It’s all backed up and waiting to burst and I’m hoping it doesn’t explode, cause then my kitchen would be covered in: Foaming Pipe Snake Foam. Does anyone have any blockage advice?

 

Kurt’s new old song

If only the wounds of shotgun shots and needle holes could be neatly pinned back together like mangled ankles. Then we’d have another Kurt to say hosannas to today.

 

Just heard an acoustic version of the super famous Nirvana song “Lithium” this morning. It was just Kurdt, a geetar and a microphone. No drums, no bass, no shiny happy clapping people. Not even two whole minutes long. It sounds like it was recorded in a shoebox in my living room. It’s perfect.

 

Let’s pretend it’s 1993 and we’re all worry-free. I’ll go back to my bleached-yellow beach shack in Point and tool around in my old cherry red Toyota Celica again. We can drive up gritty Rt. 35 to Asbury, park at the the Pony and see Sponge and Love Spit Love. Suddenly I have an affinity for regression. Where’s my Sub Pop t-shirt?