terrible story

A man who has worked for my father for some twenty years was arrested for a murder and is now in prison, awaiting trial. Although I would love to tell you what a wonderful person he is I cannot ask to judge his character or deeds- the event took place long long ago (whether it involved him or not) and any remarks about him or his character would be speculative.
However- it was known to the police he is a diabetic; they used this to their advantage and while nearly out of his mind he was coerced into signing a confession. As he has a job and a little equity (his house) he does not qualify for free legal aid- but he has nowhere near enough to retain an attorney, and moreover he has not been given his medication since arrested.
Further details as they develop.

oh dear ole compy

I don't think you have the guts to play my dvd's.... you chop like an osterizer, you sound terrible.. geez. anyone out there wanna buy me some ram?

Wasted away by Real Estate

Oh, I call on my memories of childhood.
Why did you teach me to spell oh teachers? Why then also to count?
Dear Mr. Stamoolis, You taught my brethren and I to type, but no, not to avail myself.. only to frustrate, compounded with anxiety and horrible anger and negativity.

I hate you real estate agents. I hate you so very much I seethe, I literally glow with the hellborne fury that is my venom written on your faces and wallets and papers and clawed furiously into my heart. There is nothing but shame and sorrow for what you represent: the American people.

Is it bad enough you cannot communicate in standard english. Why should I care? We know what you say so the language has done its job– still I care– I ask again why? Because of your flagrant disregard for it. Because you use it like a penguin swinging a jackhammer, or a politician holding a rocket launcher.

Why is it not against the law to call Coney Island 'Prospect Park Area'? What's the zip code? The only number you know ends in "percent." Will a car service be able to find it?Why is there no lawful enforcing body whose job it is to but these miscreants out of business and make them professional pooperscoopers instead of high-priced morons? My friends these are the bluebloods of america- the trust funders, the silent upper middle class which never goes to work on time and never does the job right.

It is bad enough you are lighter in substance than the smallest snowflake, flakier than the skin that rubs off from every glancing rub. I cannot abide, I cannot bear your upfront connivery, your smelly, greasy, slimy ways with your teeth smiling out of your faces as the twelve minutes I spend with you ticks away... you don't like me... you don't HAVE to like me. Get over it. This is not a personal relationship and I'm not going to coddle your twat or pat you on the ass and compliment your nice suit, your expensive car. A seller's market! A seller's market! I've had enough of this seller's market. Just because something is in demand does not mean that everything is worthwhile. I hate you and your cockroach underbellied moldy treesap beetle-infested sandblasted acid eaten rusty faces with your crap spelled out for me right in your eyes. I can tell what you mean. You're not actors.

You can't meet me at the right time, if you decide to show up at all- how many times have you not even bothered to go? And how long would I last at my job with that attitude, you stuck-up obnoxious pompous slice of wood. I hate you.

You can't give me a reciept for my deposit? You don't know how many square feet it is? No? Can I fit a bed in there? Yes? Don't you think these are things you should know? Why is asking about the noise or the condition of the boiler, the water pressure or the neighborhood tantamount to kicking myself out of the running? Why should I trust a stranger? If you don't trust me then why should I trust you?

Show me a third floor shanty with one outlet located in a prime area, and sell it for six dollars a square foot with 15% of a year's rent up front. Show me a building that reeks so badly of human and animal waste that purging it in fire would not eliminate the smell. Prey on my nightmares of homelessness and poverty, of worthlessness and crime. Lure me with cozy soft words of fantasy, of warmth and peace and comfort. Entice me with it and bring me into the pits. Bring me beyond the abysmal and the decrepit. You are slowly wearing me down and I hate you. You are killing me and I hate you. You are making me into you and yes... I hate you.

Show me an honest competent professional real estate broker and I'll show you a lie.


I see you.

TSUNAMI!!!

My dad is in india right now... and I have no idea where; I imagine somewhere not on the coast. You'd think the fool would call or wire or email or something. The last time he went there was this huge train wreck, too... I think he's just not getting the hint.

ah, geez.

Horrible. terrible. terrifying.
okay not talking about the tsunami anymore. not even a little.
sorry folks, if you want to read about that, just click on next blog. go somewhere else.



click it if you like shatner, folks
I feel like a cold is coming down the pipe... or something. the nasal fountain is on, folks. please don't climb on the mucus, you'll only wear away the walls of the sinus and promote-- ah, what's that word.. ex-lit majors shouldn't have this problem.. when the water eats the land away and attributes to greenhouse effects, continental drift.. ah- ah ah-- EROSION! all right!
well... I have mixed feelings about remembering erosion.
Okay, putting down the rubiks cube for awhile (I just play around with getting the 2nd layer solved, really) and focusing on today. What's today? Sunday! Reading napping cooking cleaning day! I got a whole bunch handled friday.. let's hear it for the day off!
today's books are: one, two, today's times, the entire Adobe CIB series... uh.. maybe this is more than I can chew today.... okay, let's see what happens! come on, caffiene! come on, brain!
on the cd player is bioritmo-- although I'm not really into salsa, these folks have some great grooves happening! Okay, let's git it own! Rat own, rat own!
Dance the day away, because trouble is half a world away and worrying never helped anyone, no never helped the help to come, so bounce off the WALL OF ROTTEN VIBES and roll back in the other direction. Change your tune but not your song.

Bring it!

wish list

we wish you a merry wish list,we wish you a merry wish list,we wish you a merry wish list...

it's cold in here. I've been having trouble typing effectively, and I keep smelling cat pee somewhere, but I can't find it. does this happen to everyone who owns a cat? I've had cats all my life and I don't remember this ever happening before... just random urine patches around the house...? I wonder what I did to (npi) piss them off?

wish I'd made some holoday plans (nice typo.. what else? holaday, haloday, joliday...) so now I'm sitting here twiddling my thumbs... well, there's always my favorite pastime, "let's get organized," aka straighten this dump up. On that note, do you think more people make their beds or leave a mess of covers? I usually don't bother, but I notice I sometimes have to fix the bedspread when I'm going to sleep, so I guess it would be the prudent move... too bad I'm not all that prudent.

feelin kinda uh?

I was just thinking about that self-hypnosis we all try to do first or last moment of the day--
"when I get up tomorrow, I'm going to get X done, and more importantly, I'm going to finish by 9:30, so I can wake up even earlier tomorrow and do X+Y!!!!"

heh. Isn't it fun to kid yourself like that?


jeez I just read this book about how I'm supposed to be positive all the time, and how negativity is going to shorten my lifespan and give me diseases and like that? What a crock. I'm tired of being depressed and moody and angry all the time sure, and I know nobody wants to hear about how I get nothing done and can't get it together and how I'm always upset about it,[ even though there are only signposts, comparisons-- I don't really exist, I know it] but it's really frustrating when I read about this crap. here's how you're supposed to feel and think and act! talk about invalidating one's opinion. now my anger is being demonized. fucking society.

stepping out

not the magazine or the joe jackson song. I'm just going to do a little joggin. What I really want is to be sore for the next four days- testament to the barrel of food I just cooked and ate. If I'm really, really lucky I'll retch half of it out some distance from home.

ascent; you hate the positive

I think I started this blogging thing to stay positive, even if only to find a place to focus my negativity. And I sure do have a lot of it. It's not funny-negative; it's "why the hell am I reading this?" negative. Oh well... the point is to get away from that and see if I can focus more on the flip....
soo...
my Unka died at 5 this morning.


I don't see this working very well. let's try again.
I made dinner for my mother, consisting of some steamed veggys (broccoli, butternut squarsh, stringers), yammies and a turkey breast. It came out well. I sent her out to get dessert, so we had some pumpkin pie from my favorite pastry shop but this also sounds good:

Bruno Bakery on LaGuardia Place (between Houston and Bleecker) for cannoli. The stuffing is squeezed into the shell just when you order--the shell stays nice and crisp, the stuffing smooth."

I read that on Fodor's Travel Guide Forums. Why I was there I have no idea. I think I was looking for DeRobertis and I got lost. Isn't that funny about the internet- it's just like driving- we always want to get lost, in hopes of the undiscovered resource, the relevant humor site or just something more interesting than those four websites we all frequent. You know the ones.

illegal subletters

these days I stay with my mom. hopefully it won't last much longer, as those readers who've seen my rant on the state of the real. It's a good deal (read:free) and not intensely crazy.. but that's a problem in and of itself. that I'm not totally allergic to this living. In and of itself this is a bad thing.

there's this girl I just met in the laundry room... she points to a washer and asks me if it's a dryer. naturally I became paranoid, and faked drying a shirt until she returned... then I smoov'd it on a little to find out where she lived; you know, the small talk about this and that. I had to lie a little and say I've only been here about a year... I'm going to turn in her ugly illegally-subletting ass. See, illegal sublets are a real problem in my moms' housing co. I think half the people here -literally- are subletting. Not my problem, right? I shouldn't care, right? Who gives a rat's ass, right? Oh but it is, I do, and I f'n SHALL.

The reality of the issue (not to get too preachy) is that when those of us willfully allow others to break the rules it diminishes us. This place is a low-income housing dev, so we sign affadavits once a year to set our maintainance.. it's like a poor man's co-op. Therefore, there's a big temptation to sublet as the space here goes for way below market.

My real problem is the security thing. I don't care if people are making money off the government.. but I don't want my mom living in a building full of transients and strangers.. what if she gets in a pinch and needs a neighbor? I worry. Weird how I can care so much about one person and so little about the others, eh? Well, I guess I'm really just a dude. A thirsty, tired, gotta go brush my teeth dude.

104th and Lexington Avenue

Yes, so I'm looking for a new apartment, and I'm pretty irritated about the whole process. I'm so frustrated with RE Agents that I feel like I want to break something!

I understand that apartment hunting in NYC is a hard thing to do. It's a seller's market, which means the people working in the industry are ghastly. It means they can be abusive and flaky and immoral and get away with it. It means false advertising is the modus operandi. I've showed up to a place at least a dozen times, just to stand on line for twenty minutes to see it, only to learn someone had already signed the lease.

104 and Lex is not the Upper East Side. I'm sorry, there's no way around it. That's like saying City Hall is in Battery Park. It's just not. Neighborhoods have boundaries. They're not grey areas, they're not moving around- and this is a clear example. Just because they're not written on the street signs doesn't mean they don't exist. The same thing happened yesterday; I went to a spot in Bushwick, and somehow the woman showing the spot called it Williamsburg.

Listen lady, I've got some news for you. When you cross Bushwick Avenue, you're in Bushwick. That's why it's called Bushwick-- that's how you know where you are! Bushwick Ave! And this place I saw.. totally ridiculous... if you called it 200 square feet you would have included the walls. And it wasn't even in the building- it was in a little shanty you had to go through the streetside building and a garden to get to. There were two electrical outlets. Count em, two. A lamp and and an alarm clock. No phone jack, tv antenna, toaster.. forget about a stereo. Unbelieve! If I wanted to live in a shanty, I'd move to soweto and set one up for free.

In SF there's this neighborhood called South of Market. It means, strangely enough- everything south of Market Street. It doesn't mean four blocks north, or ten feet north!
I'm emotionally done with these jerks who feel like they're doing me a favor. They're providing a service and being well paid for it. Last week I called somebody about a space, and the guy on the phone was immediately frantic that I go and see it that instant. I asked if the next day was okay (because I'd already booked myself for the day) the jerk hung up on me! I called him back, got his voicemail, and he never returned my call! What a prick!

This is an exchange I had a few minutes ago;

Hi, I'm calling about the apartment.
When can you come to see it?
Well, can you tell me about it before I go all the way out there? I don't want to waste my time or your time.
It's nice, it's not that small.
O-kay, there are two rooms, right? About how many square feet are we talking?
I'm not sure.. I'm bad with measurements
Okay, that's fine. The kitchen is separate from the bedroom right?
Yes.
Could I fit a small table in there?
Well-uh, yeah, you could fit a small table in there.
A small table with a couple chairs, with space to walk around?
Can I call you back?

You know I'm not getting called back. That was almost an hour ago.
Okay, the rent I'm looking for is between 8-900. I expect to pay three times that amount- first month's, security, and the broker fee. For my ~$850, here's what I would ideally expect the agent to have as ready information:

• Size of the apartment - just give me a ballpark figure. You can guess, it's okay. I expect you to exaggerate.
• Availability - when can I see it, and why is this a problem for you? Do you really expect anyone who's looking to pay as little as I am (comparatively, folks) to be able to get out between 9AM and 5PM to see it? come on!
• Working knowledge of the neighborhood- if you can't tell me where the post office/police station/ library/closest train station is, we have a problem.
  

These are things you should know, and I honestly feel that if the person selling me the space doesn't have this information readily available, they're not a very good salesperson. Just because there's a high turnover doesn't mean you don't have to do your job. We're talking about $850 here. You make a lot of money ripping people off but with me you're just gonna have to work for it!

I also realize that there's time to think about too. There are only so many days left before the end of the month, and I have only so many hours of the day to look.

Sheesh. This is getting ridiculous. It's hard to stay positive about this. I'm thinking coffee.

The deal with the mail is...

there's almost nothing good about the mail anymore, just bad news and junk. The check is in the mail? My eye. Needles in haystacks, brothers and sisters. A little accounting: How much of what we get in the mail every year goes straight into the recycling bin, and how many individual pieces of mail do we get that we're expecting, hoping for... dare I mash out the words 'stuff we want'?

So here's how I figure it: We get bills: 1-3 utilities, cable/ISP/phone, rent, credit cards, overdue bills and summonses to report for jury duty. We get checks: birthday cards (geez, when was the last time anyone you know had a check mailed to them on their birthday?) the occasional paycheck for those of us who freelance for big companies (well, when we finally get paid, anyway). Those are the ups and downs of the mail. Personal correspondence is nonexistent. I did it with my first two girlfriends, and was completely over it by '90. Oh, but the rest of the time, bro-ther! Nothing but catalogues of crap I don't want; lingerie, flatware, medical devices? How do these people get my name? I once got a B&H Catalog... it was bigger than my college biology textbook, notifications about events that don't apply to me or anyone I know or anyone in my neighborhood... and I get SO_MANY_MENUS.. I think I'm going to build a homeless shelter out of all the paper crap I have collecting. I've gone and threatened at the restaurants who do the menu-bombing, but that never helps. I've yelled at the deliveryboys but that doesn't help. So what's to be done? I tell you I want the bills, because I know who's sending them and whyl and roughly when, too. But this other garbage? Get it out, turn it off! It's worse than spam email, because I can't filter it out! and I can't stop it.

This is why postal employees go, well... postal! At one point the mail was a sacred institution and now, all they do is carry marketing and other lousy karma around to every house in America! I'd totally lose it there in a week. No doubt about it.

baby steps

This was a bad idea, or a good idea gone bad. I had so much to say to myself just twenty minutes ago... where did it go? Out with the food I didn't bother digesting this evening, I'll wager. It tasted so good my body immediately knew it couldn't possibly have been food. Cold Noodle with Sesame Sauce is just Ramen, Skippy and a little Vegetable Oil, with some bleached Sesame Seeds on top for good measure.... Maybe it was the seeds. Who knew that my system can't handle little bleachflakes fried in MSG? So I got a chill, cramped all over, shaking, sweating.. needless to say I walked home. Briskly. I passed buses.

But back to blogger's block. This space could be so much more than a venue for disgusting monologue and vapid freewriting... this deserves some thought. At a later date. Meanwhile, other topics worth exploring: Words that should be deleted from the lexicon, my general malaise and shall we say career ambiguity, Cats as pets- should we bother? and possibly an ode to H2O; You Make Our Chemicals Jibe.

~shiza!

This was hilarious... unless you didn't like Silence of The Lambs. In that case it's whatever you thought of that, perhaps brought down one denominator. Put anything to a beat and somehow that thing becomes more spiritual and less intelligent.


In all the hubub about my last meal (it may have been!) I completely forgot to talk about today's weirdness (read: moral dilemma) that came in today's mail... the mail itself is a weird thing.. I'll chronicle that momentarily.

So I have this 401 that came along with my last w-2 job, which I never signed up for... weird enough. I started getting statements right after I quit. And every once in awhile there's a little more money in there. I'm not complaining! This is a good thing! We're not even talking about hundreds of dollars, but since it's in my name, I guess it is mine, right? Possession and the law and all that. Thanks, Boss Hogg! There go two chirstmas bonuses I never got, and definitely deserved... nearly two whole take-home paychecks at slave-wages-- free and in the bank and mine, all mine. Almost pays for all the juice I'm now undeniably addicted to and have to buy. So here's the dilemma: report the possibly undeserved income? I automatically assumed the worst (always do)... I couldn't possibly enjoy the benefits of my own labors legally... Hell, I might just find out that I did indeed sign up for this program and that no mistakes were made. But what are the chances that I don't deserve it, it isn't mine, and if someone at this Inc knew about it, I'd be asked to return it... so what's to be done?

I don't know why I'm bothering asking "out loud".. I personally have no dilemma here, just wanted some context to kvetch. Maybe I wanted to see what the moral color of my two readers is....
My only indecision is-- should I cash it out and roll it into something else, or wait and see if any more dough materializes there? The danger there is discovery-- if this is indeed illicit dough and it is found as such, I risk losing it all. One might postulate that since I never signed up for it, none of it is mine, so I should just leave it. If it grows, good, if it disappears, oh well-- no loss.