slept under a plasic fern, tropics, had a moving pathway as white noise for a whole two hours i slept, or rather passed out. i made it to san francisco though.
I had to go to denver from kansas city first, and then wait for the delayed plane. but i am here. i called every hotel, hostel and motel in the city upon arrival, but everything was full.
my psyche is doing contractions squeezing out lemonade, my eyes are bloodshot to the brim, the veins are almost hanging out of my sockets, and my teeth and mouth are like a kitchen sink drain. my fingernails even grew long, how long has it been?
all i want now is some kale and sleep. ive been eating bread and airplane cookies.
listening to al green loudly on headphones in the food court at 5:15am.
have to admit i am happy and excited.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
((trapped again in Kansas city. ))
no hangover, and no rain.
wander into DUMBO to Brooklyn Roasters for a free cupping of their beans. They have a five gallon bodum. They have used it once and its hard to pour. Bookstore, flip through a signed edition of Family Business by photographer Mitch Epstein, it sells on amazon for $350. I should have bought it for $125, but alas. Go into Chelsea to see some commercial galleries, but they are all closed for the summer/bummer. Run into Vince Aletti the curator, writer, and eccentric guy at New York Burger eating sweet potoato french fries in basil pesto sauce.
Walk over to Printed Matter Inc. A store dedicated to artist publications! Filled with zines, records, photobooks, and more! I've been here, but I really looked around this time around.
Take the subway through the heart of Brooklyn to the very edge to Coney Island. Words cannot describe this place. It was the best way to end our trip to New York. Lets just say I saw alligators, vomit, a fully tattooed woman, bellybutton lint sculptures, toenail jewelery, carnies, sunsets, food under heat lamps, and screaming people. Rode the 90 year old historic wonderwheel.
Woke up at 4am to an unmarked taxi cab that sped some 70mph to la guardia in 15 minutes. We were passing every car on the road.
I got on a standby flight first class to Kansas City just to get out of la guardia, its terrible. Sat next to a very nice woman who finished the New York Times Crossword in less than one hour. It was called "What Ails Ya". But now I am stranded again. I may just break down and buy a ticket to San Francisco and stay in a Super 8.
out and I need to walk around.
no hangover, and no rain.
wander into DUMBO to Brooklyn Roasters for a free cupping of their beans. They have a five gallon bodum. They have used it once and its hard to pour. Bookstore, flip through a signed edition of Family Business by photographer Mitch Epstein, it sells on amazon for $350. I should have bought it for $125, but alas. Go into Chelsea to see some commercial galleries, but they are all closed for the summer/bummer. Run into Vince Aletti the curator, writer, and eccentric guy at New York Burger eating sweet potoato french fries in basil pesto sauce.
Walk over to Printed Matter Inc. A store dedicated to artist publications! Filled with zines, records, photobooks, and more! I've been here, but I really looked around this time around.
Take the subway through the heart of Brooklyn to the very edge to Coney Island. Words cannot describe this place. It was the best way to end our trip to New York. Lets just say I saw alligators, vomit, a fully tattooed woman, bellybutton lint sculptures, toenail jewelery, carnies, sunsets, food under heat lamps, and screaming people. Rode the 90 year old historic wonderwheel.
Woke up at 4am to an unmarked taxi cab that sped some 70mph to la guardia in 15 minutes. We were passing every car on the road.
I got on a standby flight first class to Kansas City just to get out of la guardia, its terrible. Sat next to a very nice woman who finished the New York Times Crossword in less than one hour. It was called "What Ails Ya". But now I am stranded again. I may just break down and buy a ticket to San Francisco and stay in a Super 8.
out and I need to walk around.
currently trapped at la guardia gate B3, missed three flights, booked.
MoMA was a flash mob that looked more like shopping mall during boxing day than a world renowned modern art gallery featuring the world's greatest art collection. shuffling down escalators, flowing by duchamps in a flow of people, passing all the works that i've spent the passed two years studying in short glimpses, mostly obstructed by hands holding iphones and headsets reiterating the artists statement in every language. in a near panic, I meet up with cody to go for lunch.
get to central park and are now encircled in large black flies while we eat our warm prepackaged trader joes greek salad. at least we are out of the crowds. I think if I had to go down fifth avenue on a daily basis I would wear a robe of rubber snakes, or cover myself in powdered sugar to get people out of my way as I walked steadily down the street.
Go to the Central Park Zoo, its really old, to get away from the crowds and attempt to reconnect with nature. People are seen posing, pretending to put their arms around a snow leopard that sits behind a thick layer of, hopefully one way glass. It was the same way at MoMA, why do people pose in front of famous or strange things, like a Pollack or a Picasso with their thumbs up? They only recognize the paintings from tote bags sold at shopping centers around the continent. Or they don't even see the work in real time, through their own eyes, but through a computer screen that inherently brightens, contrasts and alters life.
buy the Ballad of Sexual Dependency by Nan Goldin at the MoMA bookstore.
We walk across the Brooklyn Bridge into DUMBO (Down under the Manhattan bridge overpass).
Find a great mexican place order long island ice teas. an older puerto rican woman, we name Rosa, is our amazing waitress. She randomly asks Cody if she liked French dressing, we aren't eating a salad. I question them about a particular mexican traditional drink on their menu, no one knows what it is, so they google on their phones, saying if anyone orders it they usually tell the customers they are out of it. Great and cheap place.
Walk down the street to a gastropub, order a beer pronounced Cezzane, like the painter, but is spelled Season. Its made of grains of paradise and is ruby red and delicious. We don't know what an old fashioned is, so we order it because its the only drink I can think of, and we both ask what it is after its put in front of us. terrible stuff they are though, like a candy store long forgotten since the 1800s where all the sweets have been fermenting and stewing in large teak cabinets.
drink another beer in a G8 summit sculpture under the Brooklyn Bridge, all the personalities are there, en replica, but are three feet tall sitting cross legged in the grass. I only recognize Obama and Harper.
Subway to Brooklyn Heights around midnight monday find a place selling cheap eats and beers on a huge patio with umbrellas. I order a catfish taco, Cody, a hot dog. We then see people carrying these corn-like cobbed delicacies around. We order them too and devour them. I find out they are corn cobbs dipped in butter, then mayonnaise, then mexican cheese, cayene pepper and cilantro. Geeze! Oh and beers were only $2.00 for a Brooklyn IPA! Where can I get this in Vancouver?
no roaches tonight.
(Back to real time)
Children coughing, my bladder filling, been awake since 4am. Cody is in Kansas City. America is run on Dunkin. I hope I make it to San Francisco today.
wish me luck.
MoMA was a flash mob that looked more like shopping mall during boxing day than a world renowned modern art gallery featuring the world's greatest art collection. shuffling down escalators, flowing by duchamps in a flow of people, passing all the works that i've spent the passed two years studying in short glimpses, mostly obstructed by hands holding iphones and headsets reiterating the artists statement in every language. in a near panic, I meet up with cody to go for lunch.
get to central park and are now encircled in large black flies while we eat our warm prepackaged trader joes greek salad. at least we are out of the crowds. I think if I had to go down fifth avenue on a daily basis I would wear a robe of rubber snakes, or cover myself in powdered sugar to get people out of my way as I walked steadily down the street.
Go to the Central Park Zoo, its really old, to get away from the crowds and attempt to reconnect with nature. People are seen posing, pretending to put their arms around a snow leopard that sits behind a thick layer of, hopefully one way glass. It was the same way at MoMA, why do people pose in front of famous or strange things, like a Pollack or a Picasso with their thumbs up? They only recognize the paintings from tote bags sold at shopping centers around the continent. Or they don't even see the work in real time, through their own eyes, but through a computer screen that inherently brightens, contrasts and alters life.
buy the Ballad of Sexual Dependency by Nan Goldin at the MoMA bookstore.
We walk across the Brooklyn Bridge into DUMBO (Down under the Manhattan bridge overpass).
Find a great mexican place order long island ice teas. an older puerto rican woman, we name Rosa, is our amazing waitress. She randomly asks Cody if she liked French dressing, we aren't eating a salad. I question them about a particular mexican traditional drink on their menu, no one knows what it is, so they google on their phones, saying if anyone orders it they usually tell the customers they are out of it. Great and cheap place.
Walk down the street to a gastropub, order a beer pronounced Cezzane, like the painter, but is spelled Season. Its made of grains of paradise and is ruby red and delicious. We don't know what an old fashioned is, so we order it because its the only drink I can think of, and we both ask what it is after its put in front of us. terrible stuff they are though, like a candy store long forgotten since the 1800s where all the sweets have been fermenting and stewing in large teak cabinets.
drink another beer in a G8 summit sculpture under the Brooklyn Bridge, all the personalities are there, en replica, but are three feet tall sitting cross legged in the grass. I only recognize Obama and Harper.
Subway to Brooklyn Heights around midnight monday find a place selling cheap eats and beers on a huge patio with umbrellas. I order a catfish taco, Cody, a hot dog. We then see people carrying these corn-like cobbed delicacies around. We order them too and devour them. I find out they are corn cobbs dipped in butter, then mayonnaise, then mexican cheese, cayene pepper and cilantro. Geeze! Oh and beers were only $2.00 for a Brooklyn IPA! Where can I get this in Vancouver?
no roaches tonight.
(Back to real time)
Children coughing, my bladder filling, been awake since 4am. Cody is in Kansas City. America is run on Dunkin. I hope I make it to San Francisco today.
wish me luck.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
early, dark thunderstorms. lightning through the cracked curtain. mug quivered off the air conditioner unit smashing a glass of stale water. Dreams of long cement driveways in the suburbs with black dogs running every which way. Morning, pouring sopping rain, everything slow moving and soaked. Williamsburg streets, read about Rosanne Barr's anarchist nut farm in Hawaii and her attempts at running for President in 2012. She will make war illegal, marijuana legal, she states,
"Whatever I can't figure out, I'll get from big experts at MIT—people that have answers. I want 100 percent geniuses, no lobbyists. And 53 percent women, to reflect the character of the country. Also a lot of poor people. I'm thinking of voting an entirely new government in rather than be part of our crumbling, rotting, unfixable one."
Watched a woman with two legs as thin as train rails and very well groomed man standing and continuously drinking espresso after espresso and smoking a fresh package of Marlboros.
Cody and I wonder into an empty Indian Restaurant. A long hallway of a place with rose pink tablecloths, plastic pink chrysanthemums in plastic vases and pink napkins folded like turrets on each empty table setting. The waiter was always a stone-throw away with a pitcher of water filling my metal goblet after every sip.
The rain has started to seep into the subway stations from cracks in the ceiling, there is a river of brown chocolate colored water rushing over the tracks. workers are sweeping water into the tracks with brooms.
Triple shot of coffee under several globes floating in space at Atlas Triple Shot Cafe. Read and relax.
Kill another roach scurrying on the exposed brick wall.
"Whatever I can't figure out, I'll get from big experts at MIT—people that have answers. I want 100 percent geniuses, no lobbyists. And 53 percent women, to reflect the character of the country. Also a lot of poor people. I'm thinking of voting an entirely new government in rather than be part of our crumbling, rotting, unfixable one."
Watched a woman with two legs as thin as train rails and very well groomed man standing and continuously drinking espresso after espresso and smoking a fresh package of Marlboros.
Cody and I wonder into an empty Indian Restaurant. A long hallway of a place with rose pink tablecloths, plastic pink chrysanthemums in plastic vases and pink napkins folded like turrets on each empty table setting. The waiter was always a stone-throw away with a pitcher of water filling my metal goblet after every sip.
The rain has started to seep into the subway stations from cracks in the ceiling, there is a river of brown chocolate colored water rushing over the tracks. workers are sweeping water into the tracks with brooms.
Triple shot of coffee under several globes floating in space at Atlas Triple Shot Cafe. Read and relax.
Kill another roach scurrying on the exposed brick wall.
Monday, August 15, 2011
take the streets, lost, in search of the brooklyn flea market. end up in a rite-aid, a target, and a duane reade for cash, antibacterial handsoap, an energy drink and some terrible directions. Find the market that is two blocks up from where it was said to have been via their internet site. Lots of old vintage, new hand-crafted, and concocted foodstuffs. Come back to the house to have a rooftop bbq with mike, the apartment owner, and two of his russian friends. They are both recent immigrants that are looking for semi-permanent jobs and work visas. We talked about obtaining status, Moscow, and Visas, I had little input. They bbq chicken legs and these jerky-like pork bits that kept falling through the grill into the charcoals, covering them in this silty grey powder. Becka, was the dj, and he played very monotonous techno, that started off decent, but three hours of it in the baking sun was too much, but at least some of it was local, "holy ghosts" a band from brooklyn. Becka and Elaine, I believe her name was both live in Brighton beach, where apparently all the Russian Immigrants live. We summoned an excuse to depart this little european experience in brooklyn to be on our own.
We took the subway to get a view of the statue of liberty, and with it, large queues of overly tanned, urban outfitter-teenagers cheering and hollering at each other in line for the ellis island ferry. walked into ground zero where old yellow-haired women were seeing the sights through their digital camera screens that they held above their heads rather than through their eyes as their pink chewing gum poked through their lips as they chewed it with their front teeth, spinning in circles, pointing their cameras at the firemen that offered first hand experience of the events that happened that day nearly ten years ago.
We needed coffee. Walked through wall street to the subway uptown to greenwich. after hours of walking found this little italian place with burnt espresso but great carrot cake.
in the apartment, another roach slaughtered, and my favorite episode of seinfeld, "the pen" season three, episode three,
Stella!
We took the subway to get a view of the statue of liberty, and with it, large queues of overly tanned, urban outfitter-teenagers cheering and hollering at each other in line for the ellis island ferry. walked into ground zero where old yellow-haired women were seeing the sights through their digital camera screens that they held above their heads rather than through their eyes as their pink chewing gum poked through their lips as they chewed it with their front teeth, spinning in circles, pointing their cameras at the firemen that offered first hand experience of the events that happened that day nearly ten years ago.
We needed coffee. Walked through wall street to the subway uptown to greenwich. after hours of walking found this little italian place with burnt espresso but great carrot cake.
in the apartment, another roach slaughtered, and my favorite episode of seinfeld, "the pen" season three, episode three,
Stella!
Sunday, August 14, 2011
cody and i decided to go our separate ways today via foot. I left the apartment and immediately got lost in downtown brooklyn. After much useless walking to add to my mileage, I found the F train and went uptown to the International Center of Photography. Elliott Erwitt was on exhibition. His films were my favorite, one called Red White and Bluegrass, where he and Robert Frank visited the south and documented the old disappearing bluegrass in the deep south. Another documentary he made was called Beauty Knows no Pain, and featured an uptight, crazy old woman with cat-rimmed glasses with sparkles in Kilgore Texas from the mid 1960s who ran the cheerleading group called the Rangerettes:
Ate lunch in Bryant Park behind the main public library, with hundreds of others on little green chairs spread thin over a grassy field. Went to 5th ave to buy film, cheapest I've ever seen before. A package of five rolls of 120 film is $19.99, in Vancouver I pay $47.00
Walked down 5th ave passed ritzy shops and potential models (everyone here is so good looking and well dressed) to the Flat Iron building and district. Had a cigarette in Madison Park next to this giant white sculpture of someones face that looked like it was being stretched digitally on a computer screen. Back into Greenwich, passed the Big Lebowski store where the shop-owner sports a house-coat and slippers all day selling paraphernalia.
Met up with Cody in Washington Square Park where there sat this greying old hairy man melting into the park bench he sat on. He was enveloped in a static grey and black molten mass of moving shapes up to his neck, pigeons. He was encased with pigeons feeding them by splaying seed all over his body.
Go into Chinatown and walk along the historic Bowery to the New Museum. I'm late and talk my way into seeing the first floor of the exhibition for free. Later meander into a free Whole Foods craft beer tasting, get a bit tipsy from all the free beer. Meet with Cody and get a giant, giant slice of Pizza, and go to a show in Soho, Six Organs of Admittance, beautiful, yet too mellow and it was a late show that started late, so we had to leave around 2.
Back in the aparment, a giant cockroach is chased out from under our bed, into the bathroom, into the hallway, back into our bedroom, into the living room where it is smashed with Cody's sandal, meanwhile probably waking up our roommate from France who is leaving that morning.
These are real suckers, these roaches are the real deal.
Ate lunch in Bryant Park behind the main public library, with hundreds of others on little green chairs spread thin over a grassy field. Went to 5th ave to buy film, cheapest I've ever seen before. A package of five rolls of 120 film is $19.99, in Vancouver I pay $47.00
Walked down 5th ave passed ritzy shops and potential models (everyone here is so good looking and well dressed) to the Flat Iron building and district. Had a cigarette in Madison Park next to this giant white sculpture of someones face that looked like it was being stretched digitally on a computer screen. Back into Greenwich, passed the Big Lebowski store where the shop-owner sports a house-coat and slippers all day selling paraphernalia.
Met up with Cody in Washington Square Park where there sat this greying old hairy man melting into the park bench he sat on. He was enveloped in a static grey and black molten mass of moving shapes up to his neck, pigeons. He was encased with pigeons feeding them by splaying seed all over his body.
Go into Chinatown and walk along the historic Bowery to the New Museum. I'm late and talk my way into seeing the first floor of the exhibition for free. Later meander into a free Whole Foods craft beer tasting, get a bit tipsy from all the free beer. Meet with Cody and get a giant, giant slice of Pizza, and go to a show in Soho, Six Organs of Admittance, beautiful, yet too mellow and it was a late show that started late, so we had to leave around 2.
Back in the aparment, a giant cockroach is chased out from under our bed, into the bathroom, into the hallway, back into our bedroom, into the living room where it is smashed with Cody's sandal, meanwhile probably waking up our roommate from France who is leaving that morning.
These are real suckers, these roaches are the real deal.
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