revolution

it seemed sound. riding my bike across the united states would take a lot less time than walking. add a new dimension to the film with the bike and the road and the miles of back roads and trees going by. the idea was to stop every night at a religious institution, church, synagogue, mosque, and ask for food and a place to sleep. sort of a young mans search for the state of religion in america today. a confrontation.

...

* poof *

i know what happens when the unstoppable force meets the immovable object.

they both cease to be.

hammer down

it's just like me to write about a broken thumb then smash my own thumb with a hammer 2 days later.
i did. not hard enough to go all purple and have the nail fall off. just hard enough to remind me every time i use my hand.

i dreamed of my father and my sister last night. i woke with the feeling that it will be ok, whatever it is i decide to do. a very comforting feeling, especially because there is nothing i particularly want to do. now i guess it doesn't matter.

s noticed that outside of a low-rent, halfway house looking building there is a sign that says "fallout shelter". this is a large building, probably a couple hundred rooms filled with alcoholic born again native americans, mentally unstable grandparents and bi-polar methadoners. we got to thinking about the survivors of nuclear holocaust across this great country of ours, rebuilding on the backs and DNA of our hidden population of half-wits. (i should say here that more than once we have seen residents on the sidewalk babbling incoherently, occasionally smothered in their own filths)
is this what is meant by "the meek shall inherit the earth"?

portnoy's complaint by philip roth -- excerpt

but the shikses, ah, the shikses are something else again. between the smell of damp sawdust and wet wool in the overheated boat house, and the sight of their fresh cold blonde hair spilling out of their kerchiefs and caps, i am ecstatic. amidst these flushed and giggling girls, i lace up my skates with weak, trembling fingers, and then out into the cold and after them i move, down the wooden gangplank on my toes and off onto the ice behind a fluttering covey of them - a nosegay of shikses, a garland of gentile girls. i am so awed i am in a state of desire beyond a hard-on. my circumcised little dong is simply shriveled up with veneration. maybe it's dread. how do they get so gorgeous, so healthy, so blonde? my contempt for what they believe in is more than neutralized
by my adoration of the way they look, the way they move and laugh and speak - the lives they must lead behind those goyische curtains! maybe a pride of shikses is more like it - or is it a pride of shkotzim? for these are the girls whose older brothers are the engaged, good-natured, confident, clean, swift, and powerful halfbacks for the collage football teams called northwestern and texas christian and ucla. their fathers are men with white hair and deep voices who never use double negatives, and their mothers the ladies with the kindly smiles and the wonderful manners who say things like, "i do believe, mary, that we sold thirty-five cakes at the bake sale." "don't be too late, dear," they sing out sweetly to their little tulips as they go bouncing off in their bouffant taffeta dresses to the junior prom with boys whose names are right out of the grade-school reader, not aaron and arnold and marvin, but johnny and billy and jimmy and tod. not portnoy and pincus, but smith and jones and brown! these people are the americans, doctor - like henry aldrich and homer, like the great gildersleeve and his nephew LeRoy, like corliss and veronica, like "oogie pringle" who gets to sing beneath jane powell's window in a date wth judy - these are the people for whom nat "king" cole sings every christmastime, "chestnits roasting on an open fire, jack frost nipping at your nose..." an open fire, in my house? no, no, theirs are the noses whereof he speaks. not his flat black one or my long bumpy one, but those tiny bridgeless wonders whose nostrils point northward automatically at birth. and stay that way for life! these are the children from the coloring books come to life, the children they mean on the signs we pass in union, new jersey, that say CHILDREN AT PLAY and DRIVE CAREFULLY, WE LOVE OUR CHILDREN - these are the girls and boys who live, "next door," the kids who are always asking for "the jalopy" and getting into "jams" and then out of them again in time for the final commercial - the kids whose neighbors aren't he silversteins and the landaus, but fibber mcgee and molly, and ozzie and harriet, and ethel and albert, and lorenzo jones and his wife belle, and jack armstrong! jack armstrong, the all-american goy! - and jack as in john, not jack as in jake, like my father... look, we ate our meals with the radio blaring right away through to the dessert, the glow of the yellow station band is the last light i see each night before sleep - so don't tell me we're just as good as anybody else, don't tell me we're americans just like they are. no, no, these blond-haired christians are the legitimate residents and owners of this place, and they can pump any song they want into the streets and no one is going to stop them either. o america! america! it may have been gold in the streets to my grandparents, it may have been a chicken in every pot to my father and mother, but to me, a child whose earliest movie memories are of ann rutherford and alice faye, america is a shikse nestling under your arm whispering love love love love love!

all thumbs

feels like i broke my thumbs and keep forgetting. until i try to use my hands that is

heights

i'm afraid of heights. have i told you about this? about the feeling i got on the 25th floor of the sony building, 550 madison ave ny, ny, when we went up to meet with the web designers? the feeling of wanting to somehow smash the plate glass window behind me and leap out the hole with my arms and legs bent backwards. the feeling so strong my muscles begin to tighten and i feel my arms and legs bending backwards until i have to slide off the couch and sit on the floor to try to hear what the woman is saying.
there is no front on the woman's desk and she looks at me strangely, rearranging her skirted legs away from me, not that i could or cared to see anything anyway.
back on the 22nd floor, the epic records offices, i'm fine again. i can breathe. my muscles relax. except for the final, lingering effects of adrenaline i am back to my old self.

what's the point?

i was telling s that i was thinking about starting a blog and not telling anybody about it. she was confused about why i would do such a thing, and perhaps a little hurt that i would leave her out. i explained my need to write without fear of judgment or expectation. without encouragement. but also the desire to put my words and thoughts into the realm of possibility. a faceless realm, yes, but the weight of expectation is too much for me to carry at this time.
it's early-ish on thursday morning. i'm sleepy. i need to get dressed and head in to work.

the begining and the end

every story needs a beginning and an end. it starts somewhere and stops somewhere else. it may not be picture perfect or make me feel good. it might take something from me. my time or my calm. it may be exactly what i was looking for. full of surprise, wisdom, hope...
hope.
it's wednesday, the 9th of january 2008. my father passed a few weeks ago. there is a big quiet in the heart of my "soul". so many things i want to say to everyone and no one.
here i have dug a hole to throw my words into. all the questions that can't be answered. all the questions i don't want answered. and all the answers i don't want questioned. i realize that as well.

i got a rock
up n under my skin
i dig a hole
and jump right in
i got a rock
and i'm on a roll


peace and love