Sunday with a Side of Psychosis

I went psycho on 96th street and broke a bunch of shit and then after I got back to Hell's Kitchen we bought a 20 pound turkey and carried it a whole bunch of blocks. Now I'm going to dress up like a spectacle and drink a bottle of vodka and maybe break some more shit, byyyeeeeeee!


via Facebook around nine pm


then i had trouble gluing fresh roses to a tiny hat with crazy glue so i went to duane reade and bought a different kind of glue, which didn't work so i used a different kind of tiny hat that was in my room, which also didn't work so i had a few drinks and a cigarette on the fire escape.  then i ripped some jean fabric and somehow was able to get the flowers on my hat just in time for steven r crays to come over and have a drink with me and doug.  then nick came back after his meeting at lincoln center and i made a water bottle and then made my eyes real dark before we went to vlada, where paige was blue and sparkly.  i gave some instructions on a really strong drink to the blonde guy behind the bar, which he followed - and then after that, we got in a car and went to greenhouse with christoper and andrew where i talked to demanda about writing and maybe we will have lunch about it later this week if we both remember it.

Listen Whole Foods, I'm gonna need you to calm down..

If you exist in that realm of New Yorkers who are to any degree self-respecting, health-conscious, or not completely destitute, you consider Whole Foods your grocery store of choice if it is convenient - the haven where pretentious vegan lesbians, aloof yoga instructors, women who think they are good mothers, and the common man can all meet and scour for sustenance.


But beneath the pristine, green, and aesthetically pleasing surface is one simple thing.

A MESS.

While in Whole Foods the other day for my lunch, I really observed for the first time just what the FUCK is exactly going on in that fucking place and I was astonished. 

First, I went at lunch time to the Columbus Circle location, so I realize that me bitching and moaning about how crowded it was is not fair.  But it wasn't the crowd... it was the utter lack of organization.  I couldn't tell whether I was at the salad bar or the steerage deck of the Titanic during the sinking.  Everyone was darting around aimlessly with their little brown boxes, all on a specific time limit, all hungry.  No one makes eye contact, there are no real lines of any sort, and the unspoken rules of human manners are somehow acceptably exempt from this place. 

The salad bar has no organization either.  They're like, oh sure, I guess we'll put some beets here and maybe some chickpeas... of yeah and some lettuce, I guess.  Listen salad bar designers, quit smoking those blunts and try to put the dressing next to the lettuce. The other day the worker man told me that there was no chicken for the day. I wanted to kill his family.

The dressing bottles feel like what I would imagine the skin of sumo wrestlers to feel like, the selection is actually very sparse but strangely spread across about forty different stations.  They don't have chicken, but they just happen to have Ricotta and olive raviolis (which are, admittedly, quite good, but obviously beside the point.)

Once I have put my boiled egg and spinach leaves into the brown box that resembles what I buried my hamster Honey in when I was 8 years old, I go to... The Line.

The Line is the worst part of all, because they have those lanes, you know, with the faggoty little colored screens that say the register numbers, and those transsexual voices telling you which register to go to - corresponding to which lane you are standing in.

REGISTER FIVE, REGISTER TWENTY, REGIS-REG-REGIST-R-R-REGISTER NINE

And inevitably, some geriatric or New Age music enthusiast is not going to understand the system and cut you in line... or take your register even when it isn't theirs because they were waiting longer and felt justified to cut you.  NOTHING in this WORLD pisses me off more than THAT right there.  I begin to have heart palpitations and become RAGEFUL when someone cuts me in line at Whole Foods. I don't care if you have a crying infant hanging off of you.  If you cut me in line at Whole Foods because my number popped up but you were physically present first, then tough shit.  It's just luck, and it's just the system, and I have no qualms with shaking that child in your hemp papoose, ma'am, I just really don't.

Then after you've purchased your hamster coffin spinach leaves for $97.85 from the vacant, tired employees, the battle to find an open seat in their little fucking high school cafeteria is the icing on the whole grain whole foods cupcake.

Ugh.  I'll probably go again today.  Because at the end of the day, it is there, it is better than the rest of what New York offers in terms of grocery stores, and it sure beats getting a sandwich at the deli where you have to deal with overweight, chain-smoking black women, cat hair, and the employee speaking in some terrorist sounding language on the the phone for 45 minutes while you are standing right in front of him with the one pack of gum you want to buy.

Listen.  If you see something, say something.

Baby, You're a Firework! (And An Irresponsible Loser, HA)

This is what happened.

Finishing work at 2:30 p.m. can be a very dangerous thing. 

It is called Happy Hour, and it is located everywhere on every corner.  But first.  After I got off work and swung by H to work out, I found myself worried sick and stressed out.  Traniella and Blonde assured me that everything would be fine and that I just needed to relax and get a drink.  Tran reminded me that I make things up in my head and that I always go terrible places and I shouldn't, and there was a cigarette, and maybe she will be getting a tattoo of a woman getting her eye ripped out by a bird. 

I met up with Craig, who was getting off from work and we went to Vynl Hell's Kitchen to bitch and moan and talk a whole lot of shit and have "a drink."  Apparently this means a frozen margarita and three frozen cosmopolitans.  Each.  And when I say cosmopolitan I don't mean Sex and the City pussy faggot new york hahaha cosmo, I mean frozen vodka with oh yeah maybe some strawberry flavoring, sure.  Brensley came and met up with us there and we agreed fuck the Gansevoort we don't need 77 dollar cocktails surrounded by a bunch of dying models to watch a Fireworks show, so we decided to go to Brad's roof instead.  Since I knew that i wasn't going to be met up with, I just took it for what it was and had another drink.  Samir also had met us at Vynl and clearly he is never a good influence and can definitely play devil's advocate when you are trying to edge toward sobriety.

This is what I know:

- we stopped by the deli because we were hungry and I think Brensley ended up buying me a sandwich because I couldn't find my debit card, which I ended up finding.
- we went to the roof and I thinnnnk the fireworks were pretty awesome and there were a bunch of people up there and I tried to FaceTime but to no avail. i thought about where i was last year, and the year before, and i always use these opportunities to intoxicate myself with nostalgia.
- I think I left my bag up there, which is the source of the rest of the evening's problems.
- Me and Samir left at some point and ended up separated.
- I peed on the street... and when I say street I mean like out in the open, not even trying to be cool about it.
- I realized I lost my bag, and for whatever reason, did not go back upstairs to look for it on the roof.  (I am still not sure why yet.)
- Samir left, apparently told me he would swipe me into the train station, but for whatever reason I didn't do that either.

And then began the walking.

Next thing I knew, like a true homeless person, I was wandering alongside the Port Authority Bus Terminal... no money, no debit card, no Metrocard.  Only my phone.  Which was dying.  Now that I look back at the situation, I feel like I got a lot more upset than I probably should have.  I saw it as the lowest of the low, the end of the line, verge of tears, my life is a disaster, I had this coming somehow.  But now that it is 8 am the following morning, I see that it was more like some dirty little persuasion that the Vodka whispered to me, and I think I was just looking for an excuse to let out a lot of pent up aggression and unhappiness with the world.

the It Boy texted, told me my bag would be fine and did not seem concerned, said I should meet and have a drink, but I was too concerned with being homeless and hating my life to even consider such silliness.

My phone, on the verge of death, was my link to the world and I think I tried to go to hummus kitchen because everyone went there to get Jarvis after work, and although I thought that the journey there would be like the fucking chronicles of narnia, it was actually really only a few blocks away.  which doesn't make sense, because if i was at Brad's roof (46th) and I was heading toward the Hummus Kitchen (51?st) then how the fuck did I end up at at the port authority (42nd). maybe i just dreamed that... the evening became so anomalous and convoluted you really can't believe anything i'm saying.

point is, i got really fucking upset, people on the street were looking at me like i was karen black if she was a fucking bag woman, i ended up hearing a rumor on the street that there was a place to charge your phone in this bar called vintage OH WAIT.... that's why it was the end of the world, because my phone was actually fucking DEAD this whole time so I didn't even have a way to get in touch with ANYONE. AND i had no money, metro, etc, okkkkkkk my disarray just became a lot more justified.

i ended up going into vintage to charge my phone at this crazy station that had all these phone ports... it is actually a phenomenal idea... and then when my phone finally came back on i had 750 voicemails from jarvis trying to find me, which he did.  him and craig rescued me, and then we got into a taxi and just sped uptown at the speed of light and jarvis held me in my trauma.

this is what i know:

- i made it to work today on time
- the sandwich i got from the deli i dont even think i ate and now i'm FUCKING starving. like, auschwitz, body dismorphic episode starving.
- my bag is still gone, and i may or may not get it back.



- i am virtually catatonic, and you couldn't pay me to care about any of what i have just told you.

i think i am beginning to detach from some of my emotions.

how deep, right?

fuck off.

It's a Monster! It's a Demon! No.. Just an NYC Rat...

Check out this little video I made of me terrorizing the streets of NYC with a dog-sized rat doll.

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Attention all Douchebags: St. Patty's Day is Here!!

Imagine what would happen if you took every single douchebag guy and fat needy girl from Manhattan, New Jersey, Staten Island, and the periphery… made them each drink 32 beers, and let them loose on the streets.  What would happen?

It is called St. Patrick’s Day, and it is the one day of the year that I will not go out for the evening under any circumstances.  I carry a switchblade, I don’t take my sunglasses off, I spit on people.

I’m about to let some people have it right now, so be warned.

Sure the holiday can be somewhat kitchy for those middle-aged women who get their kicks from pulling out that NAUGHTY green scarf that their cubicle office would normally prohibit… you know, the scarf they bought online last year after having one Zima too many, and now they finally have an excuse to wear itttt!! Or an excuse for a fat girl with a bad spray tan to go craaaaazy and get a craaaazy green hat and wear some green heeeels because everyone loves an Irish girl, right??

No, they don’t.

And they especially won’t love you when they take your loose ass home and you keep burping because you acted like a caveman and had 75 Miller High Life’s and then got too tanked to put out.  Sure, you showed your nipples in the bar and got some attention for a jukebox second, but it is not going to be enough to carry you through the rest of the evening.  And even if you do make it to someone’s place for some slutty nom noms, you will vomit in their apartment.  I’m sorry, but you were only good for a lay in the first place, so if you can’t do that and THEN you somehow manage to vomit your three Sbarro slices all over the place, you may as well kiss your sex life goodbye until you finally lose that last ounce of self respect and become a stripper. Good money.  Good hours.  Free drugs. 

And these guys with their green sweatshirts and baggy Docker’s cargo jeans that feel the need to congregate on every street corner and yell about every single thought that comes into their heads.  They heckle you and read you because even though they are drunk and it is inappropriate, there comes a level of invincibility when you are surrounded by six of your friends and three fat girls who you will impress by making fun of the dude with “elvis hair.”  Well let me gently remind you that YOUR head looks like the tip of a penis because you went completely bald years ago and you are only 24. And no, you don’t just shave your head because “you like it.” You shave it because you don’t think anyone realizes that you are balding, but trust me.  They do.  And I’m sure those fat girls that you are screwing later will be super turned on by that bald, ruddy head thrusting into their face. And you’ll already smell like BO and cheap beer, and we all know that’s a definite turn on for anyone.

By 8 o’clock all of the aforementioned are falling in front of traffic, bumming Newports from homeless people and then taking pictures of them, and quoting episodes of Family Guy that were funny the first time 10 years ago. 

Now… I’m sure that everyone I am blatantly bashing here could have a million and one nasty things to say about me or the people that I choose to hang out with – shit, I hang out with self absorbed pricks, prostitutes, fame-hungry backstabbers, and people with severe psychological damage and daddy issues (no, I wouldn’t change a thing)… but the difference is that when I talk shit and act like an idiot, it is in the privacy of my own home or a booth in a club or bar… not on the corner of 55^th street and 8^th avenue at noon on a Thursday. 

But it is a good excuse for me to sharpen my switch blade every year, so I guess there’s always that.

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pass the hash

No topic is off limits here, as far as I'm concerned.


So let's talk about the ganja.


I am not in the mood to discuss anything hard, or any instances that involved me ever waking up in a gutter on the Bowery with a needle sticking out of my arm. We are also not here to talk about my drug pushing days in a tiny bar on the Lower East Side where all I wanted was some free snow or green so I thought trafficking mainline narcotics and riding around the block in a windowless van a couple times a week was a fantastic life decision.


I'm talking the playpen here - less of a drug, more of an herbal supplement, a muscle relaxer, a bit of creative caffeine.


Last night my friend texted me while I was collecting pushpins from under my bed and asked if I was doing anything and I said no and I asked if he had pot and he said no and I said lame and he said yeah, sucks, he had hash though and I said yikes, come over I guess.


We acted like our 6 year old selves again discovering illegal drugs for the first time and Wikipedia'd how to properly smoke it, because even though I have had it many times I always end up pole dancing on a lamp post in BedStuy at 5 am or waking up in Strawberry Fields in Central Park at 10 am on a Monday morning by myself and wearing a pair of Diesel Jeans I found in the sidewalk trash the night before. (This was 6 years ago, before the age of bedbugs where if you take a shit in a public place you will get gonorrhea, herp 1 & 2, and wake up to a bedbug three ring circus in your house the next day. So relax. I will be the one to tell you how gross I am. Not you.)


Needless to say, Wikipedia was not really the place to find hash smoking instructions, even though we did become briefly enlightened on the making of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Natalie Imbruglia's sparkling career, and a couple DSM-IV personality disorders.


We just put a tiny chunk into a one hitter and then the world changed, but not in a bad way, more like the way it's supposed to be for most people when they smoke regular ole pot. But I'm not like that unfortunately. My brain is wired in a way where marijuana takes my natural sense of situation control, enhanced social skills, and common sense and cripples them all to the point where my brain becomes just like a pontoon boat floating in the universe. Or not. That was a stoner thing to say.


In this hash situation I conversed regularly, listened to some music, had some rational discussion, and discovered the joy of putting wildberry frozen yogurt on top of a Sea Salt Kettle chip and then it being the most sensational flavor on earth.


Normally, with regular pot, no matter how good the grade, I more often than not become a maniac. I don't know if this happens to you, but instead of escaping the trenches of my mind and floating seamlessly in the shallow world of family guy and cool ranch doritos, I find that the things I latently worry about and fear in my life move from the back of my mind to the front, and I'm all of sudden staring at the ceiling wondering if I'm calling my dad enough, if I'm getting an eye infection, if I paid a certain bill, what will happen to me one day in life. I cannot not talk on the phone if my very life depended on it, texting becomes an epic Sanskrit decoding workshop, and I feel like even my most nominal conversation skills are not only butchered, but noticed as being poor by everyone present. This is why when people suggest that we take a couple hits before we go to a crowded bar I think they are crazy - the last thing I'm able to do when I'm high is talk to strangers, feel like people are looking at me, and drink excessively. I'm excellent at each of those in every day life, but when I'm stoned out of my gourd I become a worthless little rag doll who seriously wonders if he is going to have a legit heart attack for watching Paranormal Activity.


Does this happen to anyone else? Is it a drug to only be experienced when your life is on such an even keel that you avoid the paranoia? Is it my mental construction that makes me confront rather than escape? And if I know this happens to me then why do I continually sniff out pot like a drug dog everywhere I go??


Thoughts?


That said, my room smells like antique hash and I haven't gotten out of bed yet. I need to be prettyish by five o clock.

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a g o o d o l e d e a r j o h n

March 13, 2011

Dear Winter,

There is no need to beat around the bush here.  I know that it is over between us.  I realize it more and more every day as I wake up and notice that you are slowly slipping away and we are growing apart.  You always find a way to make it back into my life just when things are going well, I take you back, try to re-embrace you and hope that this time is the one that will be great… but you always prove me wrong.  And it is not my fault.  It is yours.  And I’m just here, I guess, to say goodbye again.

I wish you well on your way, yes, because I do not like to go forward in my life with negativity, and my soul has rotted as a result of this too many times. But there are some things I have to get off my chest before I finally push you out to sea.

Fuck you for giving me a treacherous head cold and disgusting, coughing congestion because I decided to touch the dirty subway bars, not wear a coat the couple times I decided to go outside, or allow my landlord to go 150 years before properly replacing my windows.  You brainwashed me, said it would be okay, I trusted you, fuck you.

Fuck you for allowing the body I spent all summer trying to achieve just become average, convincing me that you would like me anyways, even if your cloudy, deceiving visage told me I didn’t have to work out 4-5 days a week anymore. I hate you for sucking the tan right out of my skin and reminding me in the paleness all of my physical imperfections.  I trusted you and it is only now that I know I can get everything back that I want… the perfect revenge body to really make you sick when we run into each other again. Don’t like that?  Maybe you should have thought of that before you manipulated me and crippled my self esteem. It is not my fault.  It is yours.  Fuck you.

You physically abused me… you sprained my ankle and hindered my ability to walk for almost 24 hours. 

You were cold, dismissive, and didn’t ever know when to stop. 

But you know what? While it is reasonable for me to highlight all the negativity you have forced into my life this infinite, icy season…

I will remember all of the good you brought to me as well. 

You allowed me to one day wake up and realize that I was going to be able to let a lot of pain go, and allowed me to recognize it that very instant so I could always remember from that point forward things would get better, and that everything was going to be okay.  Thank you for opening up a new underbelly of this city to me, allowing me to splash my creativity across the walls, taking it away against my will, (but in my best interest), and then allowing me to do it even better in the near future.  Thank you for giving me so many nights where I felt cared for, important, necessary, essential to someone else other than just myself.  Thank you for movies, dinners, cards, parties.  Thank you for whispers.  Thank you for long hugs. Thank you for making me feel poor enough to hate you, but hopeful enough to know that things are getting better.

And thank you for leaving me kindly, as I am trying to do with this letter.  Everything can happen, is happening, will happen.  It all can happen soon. And I know that spring will do that better for me than you can. I know that hurts, it hurts me too, but know that you were right for me in many ways when you were there, and I have no regrets. 

The point is, winter, that I woke up this morning, stretched, thought about the things in my life that are going in good directions.  Spring is reminding me that all the work I have done and all the waiting I have endured really can and will pay off.  Spring reminds me of all the special people I have in my life, what they each mean to me individually, and how I am welcome to bring them and enjoy them in a new season.

I’m sorry winter, but it is over.  My sense of nostalgia, even during the terrors, makes this harder than you know.  But it is for the best.

I hope we can someday become friends.

But right now, I need you to not contact me at all.

It is the only way that I can survive.

Take care of yourself.

Sincerely,

Joshua

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