Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Is "naked stripper" an oxymoron or a tautology?

Thursday, August 11, 2005

James Bond and Moneypenny make me think of Charlie Brown and Lucy. Moneypenny the ever-adoring maid, pining for Bond even as he jokes with her about the conquests he is making. Perhaps Lucy's the feminine revenge for Moneypenny or Bond the masculine one for Charlie Brown. Always tempted, always fooled. A woman maliciously, demonically holding something out that is desired, deeply desired; Charlie too weak to say no, too weak to obey his wiser, cooler instincts. Charlie Brown charging, ardent. Giving it his best, hardest shot, only to find the object cruelly and blithely removed. Finding only the void and thrusting into it nonetheless. The picture of antihero. But Bond – Bond whispering bitter nothings into Moneypenny's ear. Saying I have you with every gesture you make behind that Lucite desk or whatever the hell. You know I do and I do, baby. I have you because I don't want you.

And so goes our awful gender war.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Her face was sadder'n an idiot saving something worthless from the trash.


Jen resigned today and by noon her desk was transformed, hardly recognizable, barren but for the keyboard and monitor, a stray black wire hanging off the front.

Skulking around in front of the Hudson Deli with Britt, waiting for Jim, I saw a woman walk out and turn to me. She was young, attractive. Middle Eastern olive skin and dark curly hair. Beautiful open blue-green eyes and a small, round mouth opened softly to an O. I caught her eyes for a moment and loved her until the end of time; until the sun and the stars collapsed into a singularity and all matter, space and thought went vanishing always into the deep unreal. Then she brushed by me.

"I wish it finally decided to rain," said Britt.

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

I stare down the barrel of another working week.

Got my blood results today. My doctor so fat and good-natured, apologetic, heaving his burdensome corpus through the sterilized halls. He carried a plastic water bottle, taking several small sips. Do you drink a lot of water? Ah no, not as much as I should. Many small sips throughout the day. If anyone could be said to have blinding kindliness, it was him. He congratulated me immediately for being HIV-negative. Congratulations. Thanks! He shook my hand. A rather odd moment. Then he wheeled his chair to the examining table with a sharp creak and handed me a flowing ribbon of freshly faxed data, the medical me. Kidneys good, liver good. Cholesterol good, good. Actually quite good. When I departed I tried to fold the report into a size I could manage but it was oddly resilient; I folded it in half but it formed a springy, shiny-smooth pillow rather than the expected small blank rectangle that's doomed to be neglected. So I placed it gingerly in my front pants pocket this way, sticking out like a dandy's kerchief. And I bought a sandwich. And I got on the train. And I saw that the report was no longer there, it had risen from me like it was lighter than air. My name, address and detailed, present medical condition floating wispily across the block somewhere Midtown right about Broadway and 53rd Street.

Thursday, August 04, 2005

As I read an interesting yet weighty article in the New Yorker about the new Pope, Ratzinger Benedict whatever, I found I was having a strange dual experience: I was reading the text on the page yet also slipping into a dreamscape set in the desert and involving knives. All of this, in the moment in which I experienced it, felt perfectly logical – both realities at once in fact. It was only after a few moments, when I became aware of what was happening and the very oddity of it I suppose, that I drew back in bewilderment and some wonder.

I took a movie of three black girls crossing Broadway at 14th.

Every day, every day I wear my shoes.

S. returned from work followed by a date with N., all pleated pants and splayed tie. He recounted with some disgust that in the face of her intransigence and her yawns an hour in – yawns followed by intimations of I should be going home – he decided fuck it, to throw caution to the wind. To talk about what an asshole he was to ex-girlfriends, how he would fuck a girl and come home to his girlfriend the same night, night after night; his favorite porn, the assplay porn and the girl-on-girl. And he found he was loose, relaxed. The words, once halting and defused by the examination of his inner censor, now flowed freely, unrestrained. Every new word uttered more confidently and effortlessly than the last. Booze, drugs. Cocaine, acid, heroin. Cigarettes. How he was dying for a cigarette and he didn't mind saying. And sure enough her eyes widened and she said that's crazy, tell me more. You should write a book. And as I told him, in his small, accidental experience lies a lesson for all of us men.

P. greeted me cheerily tonight as the man with the squeaky sneakers, Squeak squeak squeak! So I figured the Yankees musta won but actually they drowned in their own shit. It's funny sometimes.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

I thought I'd vanquished the tyranny of critics by reading their reviews after I'd seen the movie, read the book, bought the CD. After I'd judged. Then I'd be the critic of the critics really. But what happens is instead of making up my mind they change my mind. As it has been written in that authoritative black and white I think, yes, I guess there were emotion and pathos and violence and despairing habits we recognize in ourselves in that character's fraught relationship with his father. Weren't there? Not just a tiresome, poorly played cliché. And then I try to come to my senses and remember, you have to be on your toes always.

A terrible waste is a thing to mind.

In the vain attempt to slow the ravages of time upon my countenance I've taken to washing with Neutrogena Deep Clean soap every night. In the little pump bottle. I love the act, the ritual, more essential even than the oils and the aloe it involves. And the terms. Neutrogena. Space-age, life-affirming. Swiss? Deep Clean. Yeah gimme the profound clean makes Lady Macbeth green with envy.

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

As Americans we should be grateful God does not exist. If he did, what do we imagine he'd have in store for us, we who have everything, we smug, gluttonous lords of the land of the treats and the home of the cozy? Do we not imagine He'd redress the grotesque inequities between us and the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth Worlds? Would he not spill something out of our cups and into the trembling, dark hands of beggars on the streets of Bombay? Of dirty-faced waifs in Basra? Of the countless multitudes who inhabit recesses of the world not yet penetrated by fresh water pipes, nor sewage systems, nor sitcom syndication? You better believe He'd shake it up. So what are we really doing when we gather at our altars before lunch, after fucking, before football, after breakfast? We're worshipping His absence and praying He never shows.