Bukowski on beauty

Posted on December 8, 2009 by Exile on Pain Street

beware women grown
old
who were never
anything but
young.

I had two requests for that poem. It’s short but it really hits the mark, don’t you think? Part of what I like about Bukowski is his brevity and economic use of words. Here’s a classic. This one got me through many a lonely night.

oh, yes

there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
it’s too late
and there’s nothing worse
than
too late.

* * *

We decorated the house and put up the Christmas tree on Sunday. It’s great having little kids around when Christmas approaches. Their enthusiasm is infectious.

I was assembling my gift list and realized that I don’t have to buy a gift for my mom. She passed away in May and this will be our first Christmas without her. I’m glad I’m going back to Ohio. I don’t get to go every year and I really want to be there. I hope my sister can replicate mom’s marinara sauce. The rumor is that she can pull it off, but I’ll believe it when I taste it. It’s no small matter to copy a master.

The sound of one hand clapping in New York City

Posted on December 6, 2009 by Exile on Pain Street

Last week I had one of those rare perfect moments that Spalding Gray spoke of so eloquently in Swimming to Cambodia. These moments, which only occur a few times in your life, are brief interludes whereby you are living in that precise moment in a state of perfect bliss and nothing else exists.

I had some time to kill before a play started and I found myself wandering around the East Village on a balmy evening. I had spent a sizable chunk of my life living down there but hadn’t realized how long it had been since I visited or how much those streets mean to me. Those were among the best days of my life and I got all goopy.

I wandered into St. Mark’s Books and looked at all the small press chapbooks and art books. It’s the kind of stuff that you can’t find in retail book stores. And I’m not slamming the chains. There’s just not an audience for it. I love the smell of that place. It smells like paper and glue and dust.

I took a slow walk down 9th Street, right on 2nd Avenue and then right on St. Mark’s Place. It’s the heart of the neighborhood. I stopped at Mamoun’s falafel joint for a bite. It was so nice out that I ordered a scrumptious falafel platter and took it outside and ate al fresco—not something you can typically do the first week of December out here. My platter—six falafel balls, salad and two pita—cost a measly $5.

I had dinner and watched the grand parade. The NYU students. The misfits. The artists and the malcontents. I don’t fit any of those microcosms and don’t know how it came to be that I felt so at home there for so many years.

Aside from the great food and the ambiance, Mamoun’s has very agreeable hours: 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m., 365 days a year.

I know what I’m needing
And I don’t want to waste more time
I’m in a New York state of mind

Billy Joel

The New York Post’s sensitive handling of the Tiger Woods affair

Posted on December 4, 2009 by Exile on Pain Street

Here’s the front page from yesterday’s New York Post:

People, if you don’t have a muckraking, bottom-feeding, Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid in your town, you don’t know what you’re missing. You take one trashy story, some cheap Photoshop effects and the next thing you know, you have journalistic gold.

Tiger Woods is in the middle of a major life crisis and what does the Post do? They mark up a photo. It’s juvenile. I approve!

I especially like how they inserted a 5-iron, her weapon of choice, into his wife’s hand. There’s something perverse about it. Hitting Tiger with a golf club is like Bruce Springsteen’s wife hitting him in the nuts with a guitar or Stephen King’s wife smashing a typewriter over his head. Tee-hee.

New York’s Finest puppies

Posted on December 3, 2009 by Exile on Pain Street

I was passing through Grand Central Station at 6:45 in the morning and stumbled across a photo session in progress. The New York City K9 corps were having their portrait taken. The dogs were astonishingly well behaved. I’ll bet they can get real fierce real quick. These are cheap-o cell phone pics.

The nice officer on the end was shooting me a look so I pocketed my cell phone and moved on.

* * *

I called in “sick” yesterday (kak-kak. So sorry. kak. Can’t make it in.) and went on a job interview. I’m looking for a better life. It wouldn’t take much. The interview was in the morning and it went well. Afterwards, I went for a nice long run. Then I sat in a coffee shop and wrote some emails to friends and read the Times. In the evening I was able to have dinner with my family which is something that, thanks to Benevolent Dictators, Inc., hasn’t occurred for many, many months. Why can’t I live like that all the time? I don’t think it’s asking for too much.

* * *

Epilogue: Part of my last post was a rant directed at Eva Mendes for some idiotic comments she made while on a press junket for a movie. She takes herself a bit too seriously, in my estimation. Well, honey, let Brad Pitt school you. This is from a People Magazine article that ran a few months ago. He was asked about the difficulties of being an actor.

It’s so tough being an actor. Sometimes they bring you coffee and sometimes it’s cold. And sometimes you don’t have a chair to sit on.

THAT’S how you do it. Class dismissed.

Time for a lightening round

Posted on December 1, 2009 by Exile on Pain Street

Eva Mendes was recently on a press junket promoting the the film Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans with Nicholas Cage. Get a load of this. And I quote:

I’m not looking to be a—very dirty word—“celebrity” or “movie star.” Dirty words, again. I’m an actor. I go to acting class. I study my craft. (Emphasis hers.)

What an idiot. Listen, you insufferable bore. You’re not playing Ophelia. Just hit your mark and remember your lines. And forget acting class. You either have it or you don’t. Ms. Mendes can be seeing honing her craft in Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror and Urban Legends: Final Cut.

* * *

It’s the holidays and once again the airwaves are flooded with commercials that implore you to give a BMW as a gift. It’s always the same. Hubby leads wife out to the driveway with his hands over her eyes, he uncovers her eyes and there’s a shiny new BMW with a huge red ribbon sitting perfectly on the roof. This is an other-worldly proposition to me. Who gives a brand new BMW for Christmas!? Or gets one!? Have you ever? No one in my world.

* * *

I love the mess that Tiger Woods is in. I can assure you that the cut on his mouth isn’t from that 3 mph car crash into a tree. It’s from that golf club his wife was swinging.

He marries a stunning Nordic Princess. A perfect physical specimen. And here he is years later tom catting around Vegas with a casino hostess. Christie Brinkley is as beautiful as they come and she has had five men marry and leave her. Proof positive: you had better have some substance if you want to hold onto your spouse. That goes for both men and women. Charles Bukowski has a great poem about how you should beware a woman if all she’s ever been in life is beautiful.

* * *

Back in 1998, Cher had a big hit with Believe. In it, she used Antare’s Auto-tune software to modulate her voice. It was a fun gimmick that had not been used before. Today, people with marginal vocal skills use it as a crutch. It’s almost 2010 and just about all of the top five songs on the Billboard pop charts use this. Enough is enough. If you use Auto-tune software, your song sucks and you suck.

Do you know who else sucks? Rappers who hire women who can actually sing to do all the heavy lifting while they mumble a few lines and then repeat “yea, yea, yea” while the meat of the song is being performed. You guys are talentless suckasses, too.