Hey Kids, here is some stuff that I’ve been posting on Facebook. I’ll get back to writing here again.
I just want to share with everybody that despite the fact I’m 49, my menses is as regular as a goddamn Swiss watch. And for the second time in a fucking roll, it has hit on the fucking weekend so that now I’m miserable and must think about replenishing my stock of feminine hygiene products so that I can be comfortable. That said……No prancing around for me this weekend. It’s all about sleeping late, hot stuff on my belly to relieve my cramps and spending the whole weekend wondering why this is still happening to me when I’m spending loads of money to dye my totally graying hair. Since the onset of this supposed wonderful experience, I have been at odds with nature, God and white pants. The first time this happened, I was running to the toilet to expell yet more items from my cramping belly and cursing the day it was decided by a wrathful God that I would be a girl, my dear papa overhears my bitching that I didn’t want to be a girl and says ” Well, Barbara, there are operations in Sweden for that”. 1974!!!! Awesome!! My mother promptly punches him in the arm to shut him up. Too late……I already heard it. If not for my meager finances and lack of independent mobility, I would’ve taken that advice early on.
Yes, I bitch and bitch and bitch but wait until menopause stops………Hehehehe, Did you avoid your mothers when the “blessed event” happened to them? Well, you’re not avoiding me. I intend to share all of my hot flashes and other unslightly symptoms of impending old age with ALL OF YOU.
Police responded to a call from 202 E. Sixth St. near the Bowery at 11:56 a.m. Sat., May 9, and found a young woman in apartment No. 5 unconscious. She was declared dead by emergency medical technicians at 12:06 p.m. and the case was referred to the Medical Examiner’s Office. Police identified her as Lesia Pupshaw, 26.
According to police, “Five to six men had been throwing bottles at her earlier Friday night.”
Local photographer and blogger Bob Arihood on his Neither More Nor Less blog, gives a more detailed account of an ongoing feud between a group of local Hispanic youths and the Tompkins Square Park “crusties.” According to Arihood, there were at least three or four separate, increasingly violent run-ins between the two groups over the past week.
“One of those confrontations, the one on Friday night, resulted in the injury and hospitalization of a male crusty and a young woman being brutally battered on the head and face,” Arihood wrote. “The Friday night confrontation, which began with taunts and threats, evolved into serious physical violence. This ultimately violent confrontation was perhaps responsible for the death of a young woman, who with brutal head injuries, returned to an apartment on Sixth St. and sometime later Saturday morning died. … Another witness, not a crusty, whom the police did not believe, claimed that she had seen the young males responsible for the young woman’s injuries late Saturday afternoon in Tompkins Square Park near the Seventh St. and Avenue A entrance.”
According to Arihood, the suspects and crusties clashed again on Sunday night. Witnesses identified the suspects as “three light-skinned Hispanic males in their mid-to-late teens, one wearing a Chicago Cubs baseball cap.” The local males threw water balloons, hurled taunts and ran. The crusties chased them to Avenue D and Fourth St., where a box cutter, a pipe and bottles emerged. Outnumbered and on “hostile turf,” the crusties retreated to Tompkins Square, where Arihood said he held a flashlight as glass was picked out of one crusty’s bloody scalp.
aND NOW THE LYING ASS NEW YORK POST ARTICLE.
Last updated: 7:37 am
May 17, 2009
Posted: 2:04 am
May 17, 2009
Sometimes crime does pay.
Nearly 30 years after an eclectic group of poets, performers, anarchists and artists illegally occupied a burned-out East Village tenement, they’ve officially become a Manhattan co-op.
STERN: CHEAP DEALS UNFAIR REWARD FOR BAD ‘DEED’
Last Monday, the group signed off on the final paperwork allowing them to legally call their one-bedroom apartments home. They’re now owners of the Bullet Space building — named after the art gallery and community space on its ground floor.
The cleaned-up, five-story cooperative at 292 E. Third St. is a far cry from the rat-infested hellhole into which they first moved in the 1980s as squatters. Back then it was so derelict, its owners chose to walk away rather than pay taxes. Now the city says it’s worth $2.2 million, and real-estate experts estimate its market value between $4 million and $5 million.
To its shareholders, the building was always a coveted prize.
“What is it they say, possession is nine-tenths of the law? That was our motto,” said artist Rolando Politi, an original Bullet Space squatter.
Politi lived through the building’s intense rehab, when residents refused to vacate out of fear they’d lose their toeholds in the neighborhood.
“The city would tell us to leave and let them make the renovations, but who’s to say we would ever have gotten back in?” Politi said from his fourth-floor unit, where he’s fashioning street trash into a June 21 art exhibition.
The building’s reddish façade no longer bears the graffiti marks and cracked windows from its past, when the city battled squatters fiercely.
Hundreds of people forced their way into abandoned East Village buildings and claimed ownership, until firefighters and cops showed up to clear them out.
In 2002, the city made the controversial decision to sell Bullet Space and 10 other East Village “squats” — including one where actress Rosario Dawson grew up — for $1 each to a nonprofit housing group, the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board.
The city told the group and residents they had to bring the building up to code before the residents could officially take ownership. As part of the city’s low-income program, residents get a 40-year real-estate tax exemption.
Bullet Space is the first one to make it through the conversion process begun in 2002. Another former squat, The Umbrella House, is expected to go co-op soon as well.
Some critics say the plan rewards illegal behavior.
“I’m outraged that property would go to squatters,” said former Port Authority Executive Director George Marlin, who ran for mayor in 1993 on the Conservative Party line.
“Look at all the hardworking people who are losing their homes right now. Is it fair for squatters who badgered the city into giving them a building to now be able to profit from it?”
Bullet Space residents paid for their building’s rehab, and carry a $668,759 mortgage taken to cover the cost of renovations.
Thirty years ago, when developers walked away from the dilapidated site, squatters moved in and contributed about $50 a month for basic costs. Now those fees are up to $614, said 67-year-old poet John Farris, who lives on the fourth floor.
Farris, who invested significant sweat equity and personal money into the building, remembers the days when the toilets were “bucket flush” and heat came from wood stoves fueled by flammable objects hauled in from the streets.
“We had water, but not much else,” said the poet, who will publish his first novel this fall. “The winters were rough.”
gotis@nypost.com
Thank Gosh there were intelligent people who commented and told the REAL story.
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ManyYearsInNYC wrote:
THIS ARTICLE IS INTENTIONALLY MISLEADING! Before anyone gets upset about this “unfair deal,” let’s rewind to the start. The original landlord walked away from the building because he couldn’t make any money, like thousands of other landlords during this period. The cause was a combination of rent control, the Arab oil embargo, economic depression and the fact that people with money refused to live in such areas. Landlords either torched the buildings for insurance $ or sucked out money until the City foreclose. The area became full of crime, drugs, etc. Theses artists were a rag-tag bunch who made homes in a few abandoned buildings and, unwittingly, began the process of gentrification that now puts yuppie $$$ in the City’s tax coffers. The deal with the City for the building simply transferred the building to it’s residents (this has been done with over 1,100 other buildings in NYC!) and created LIMITED-EQUITY co-ops…which means it is difficult for the residents to cash-out, since resale is restricted somewhat. They also can’t sell the building, so the $4 million mentioned is irrelevant. The 40-year tax-exemption is simply a reference to the City’s J-51 abatement program for repairs to apartment buildings that was created to encourage LANDLORDS to fix up buildings. Also, the building wasn’t worth much to a private developer, since any occupied building is worth MUCH LESS than a vacant lot, because you can build a yuppie building on a vacant lot and make $$$. Bottom line? These folks took a lemon and made lemonade. If they hadn’t, there would have been an ugly new building there with maybe 10% affordable units, a similar 40-year tax break, etc. Sometimes the little guy wins a small victory. Is that so bad?
5/17/2009 9:06 PM EDT
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SnuggleBunny wrote:
I heart Bergen Bob. All of you commenting on how valuable the property is are missing the underlying fact that these people stepped in and invested decades of sweat equity, personal finance, and care into these buildings and this community. You’re just mad you or your bratty friends can’t live there because the area is trendy now. Well, I grew up there, and some of my friends live in the former squats, and let me tell you that YOU are the lazy ones who expect to have a place handed to you by a broker or by some greedy landlord b/c you have the money to throw at it to be near your favorite brunch spot. Sod off. It’s not your community, never was, never will be…the only semblance of community left in that area exists amongst the artists, poets, and musicians that dared call it home when the City turned its back on the Lower East Side/East Village.
If you didn’t live here in the 80s…
if you’re not from the Lower East Side/East Village…
if you don’t understand what a terrible and yet wonderful place it was to live…
then you have no business commenting on this story. Go buy yourself a doorman condo in some glass and metal box and be happy with it. The whole City doesn’t–and shouldn’t–belong to you. They earned the right to these buildings.
5/17/2009 6:07 PM EDT
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me@here.com wrote:
I was here back in those days and let me tell anybody who doesn’t get it – that building wouldn’t even be there if they hadn’t moved in and worked their butts off to bring it back to a reasonable state. Most of the buildings didn’t have squatters either – they had drug dealers and addicts from everywhere lining up twenty four hours a day to buy drugs – yelling and screaming and throwing their dirty needles all over the streets and bleeding on the sidewalks. There were rats and garbage and it was dangerous too. Meanwhile the old timers who stuck through it all are now being forced out by greedy landlords who are charging two thousand dollars a month for fifth floor wallk up apartments that shouldn’t cost one third that price. Oh – you mean you thought these landlords actually renovated these places? Let me tell you what they did in my building. The apartment beneath me has all the same filthy floors, walls and ceilings – the landlord simply put new floors, walls and ceilings over the old ones. Meanwhile, the old ceiling is still ready to fall at any second when it will bring both ceilings down on the tenant and her poor cats. You have to walk up three steps to get in her apartment now because it’s shrinking lolol. Meanwhile, the services supplied are wretched – garbage sits for days till it’s leeching vile fluids after which the super drags it through the hallway, leaving a layer of slime behind (that he does NOT mop up). He also cleans the hallways with a mop so filthy, it smells for hours afterward. And guess what? These new tenants paying these high rents? They never complain about anything. Front door lock broken? It will stay that way for days because they say nothing. I’d much rather have tenants like the folks who squatted and fixed that place up and made it what it is today. Those are good neighbors and not criminals.
5/17/2009 4:16 PM EDT
People shouldn’t comment on things they know nothing about. The only reason why I gave up squatting to move to my apartment was because I couldn’t deal with doing work days, fixing my place and being responsible. It is easier to pay rent and fuck about all day. It’s a bit embarrassing to admit that but I’d rather tell the truth and deal with it. That is a virtue that the New York Post evidently doesn’t have.
First I want to say that Bill has ALWAYS BEEN A GOOD FRIEND! He is the only Lowe East Side guy that has treated me with love and respect and never tried to bed me at the same time. He was always genuine with me. We spent many a night drinking and carousing, Ha, many a day as well. He never put on snotty airs. He never acted like an asshole to me. I know he wasn’t a perfect man. I also know that he was a good man. I never went to see him when he was hospitalized but to me, I’m glad. I will only remember him as the happy go lucky and sweet man who had a good heart. I wish I spent more time talking with him. I never knew what his life was like when he was on the ships doing his thing. He was an incredible man. Peace be with him always.
I love you Bill!
Barbara
The following article was taken from The Villager.
Volume 78 – Number 49 / May 13 – 19 , 2009
West and East Village, Chelsea, Soho, Noho, Little Italy, Chinatown and Lower East Side, Since 1933
Obituaries
Villager photo by Lorcan Otway
“Barnacle Bill” liked to roll his own tobacco cigarettes, a habit he picked up at sea.
‘Barnacle Bill,’ the last sailor of Tompkins Square, dies at 44
By Lorcan Otway
William “Barnacle Bill” Scott died of an infection after suffering a stroke, last Saturday, May 2. He had been in a coma at Lincoln Hospital, in the Bronx, since March 8.
Born on July 8, 1965, “Barnacle” was well known in the East Village as a gentleman and a gentle man, in spite of his hardscrabble looks. Bill wore a nose ring, and had a large, upturned scar on the left side of his mouth, giving him the look of a pirate, but that was the farthest from the reality of this man.
He went from the Navy, where he was a petty officer, a bosun commanding small craft, to the Navy Reserve, and then honorably discharged became a merchant mariner, spending a good part of most years sailing American-flag vessels.
When not at sea, Bill spent a good deal of time in Tompkins Square Park, where he was as at home with the “crusties” as he was with the Village intelligentsia. His stories, whether of life at sea or East Village adventures, were punctuated with his trademark Homeric line, “It was not for nothing that…,” and on the story would wind.
Bill was not too proud to borrow money from a friend. To loan him any sum was to know that as soon as Bill returned from his next voyage, he would repay the loan, over dinner, paid for by Bill, and at the table would be a collection of others who would not otherwise have eaten as well that day.
One need not look far to find where Bill got his sense of responsibility or his kindness. His mother, Dorothy Scott, was a foster mother to other children.
“He was kind of like a Lower East Side legend,” said neighborhood activist John Penley, who recently relocated to Erie, Pa. “I knew him for like 15 years, and I never knew his name — just ‘Barnacle Bill.’ He would go out to sea on merchant ships for months at a time, and come back and stay for a while, spend all his money, and go back to sea. He was the last sailing man from the Lower East Side that I knew… . The last of a breed that is probably vanishing.”
His funeral was held last Friday at the Ortiz Funeral Home, 144 Willis Ave. and 141st St., in the Bronx.
Bill was a good friend, I’m going to miss him terribly.
Bill and I having fun on St. Mark’s Place in the late eighties.
hey!!
i really hope you can come to this!
it will be so fun & completely ridiculous
& i would love to see you!
xflyo
ps – please forward & post to anyone & everyone!!
Fly & The Drunkard’s Wife!
with Eugene Carrington – poet/bike messenger
Friday May 17 – 7pm
Bluestockings Books – 172 Allen St http://bluestockings.com/events-calendar/
Fly, cartoonist & author (Peops, Zero Content) and Craig Flanagin, musician and cartoonist (God Is My Co-PIlot, Pants Avengers)
present new spoken/sung/yelped stories, playlets, songs, and frivolous dances.
With performance ensemble/electro-gypsy band The Drunkard’s Wife.
Expect accordions, brass, nice hats, and homemade electronics
Okay, so you have four vampires with extremely heightened senses. One Vampire goes berserk when Bella gives herself a minor paper cut.
HOW IN THE HELL DID THEY ALL ATTEND HIGH SCHOOLS FOR DECADES AND NEVER LOST THEIR MINDS BECAUSE OF SOME GIRL’S PERIOD? SERIOUSLY….I mean not everybody wears tampons and they had to have smelled sanitary napkins. How about some girl who didn’t realize Auntie Flo arrived and had stained knickers? By my estimation, those vampires should have wiped out the female populace of any high school they attended. And Edward was with Bella all the time, even staying in her bedroom while she slept. Come on now!!!
As a matter of fact, no vampire story addresses this shit. You can’t tell me that vampires don’t smell menstrual blood if they can smell anything else.
I’m reading Barack Obama’s book, Letters to my Father. I expected….no, I didn’t expect anything. I guess I thought I was going to be faced with a yawner about some privileged black guy who always did the right thing and make me feel like a failure. Well, I’m not finished with the book and I somewhat feel like a failure.
I cringe when I read this book. People say that I am honest, too honest but Barack Obama opens his soul to the highest point of honesty. Not once in a million years have I wrote aboiut my struggle with identity as a black woman.
I was brought up to respect myself as a black woman. I was exposed to Langston Hughes. I was always listening to soul music and being that I grew up at the height of the Civil Rights movement, I was blessed with a strong education in Black HIstory. Unlike Barack Obama, I always went to predominately black school but they were middle class schools, not the concrete jungle of the inner city ghettoes.
At school, I wasn’t mocked for having a crush on Danny Bonaduce of the Partridge Family. We all watched that stuff. We watched Soul Train on the television and followed it up with American Bandstand.
In my home, I was in denial. I thought my foster father was white. He was so pale and had such “good” hair. I overlooked the fact that some of his brothers and sisters, my aunts and uncles, had kinky hair even if they had the pale skin. I don ‘t know where I got that from. One night, my foster mom was teasing me about the way I danced and said I danced like a white person. Daddy defended me and my mom joked that he was like the rest of his people and didn’t have any rhythm either. I was a kid, I understood it to mean that Daddy was white.
I was very protective of my dad. He was my heart and soul. I think it was because I thought he was white, I didn’t harbor any bigotry toward whites because that would be like hating my daddy.
Daddy’s girl, that is what I was and I started dating white guys when my hormones kicked in. Doesn’t every girl date men that remind her of her daddy?
However, the resemblance between my father and white men only was at complexion. My father and his family considered themselves black even though they were whiter than octoroons. My aunt became a black muslim, following the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. She scoffed at the white man’s history that I was learning in school and hipped me to the book, Before the Mayflower. That was all well and good but nobody was noticing my deepening exposure to white culture. I watched tv all the time. My celebrity crushes was Donny Osmond, Bobby Sherman, David Cassidy, Elton John, Robert Plant, the list goes on and on. My parents came in my bedroom one day when I was a teen ager and my mother exclaimed, “Freddy, she has no black people on her bedroom wall”. It was true. I bought all kinds of rock magazines and covered my bedroom walls with Alice Cooper, Mick Jagger, Edgar Winter, Robert Plant and my favorite, Conan the Barbarian. All the comic books I read was primarily about white people. All the books I read, mostly about white people. Okay, I did read books like Down these mean streets. and I did read stories about black people like Uncle Tom’s cabin and things I had to read in school like James Baldwin.
I don’t know when I lost my sense of identity. When I was a teen ager, I never ran to the beauty parlor to get my hair straightened, it was nasty and nappy and I didn’t care. My mother harassed me daily, asking me why I can’t be like the nicely groomed girls across the street. I sullenly said nothing as I stood before her, dressed in my uniform, flannel shirt, t-shirt and dirty jeans and sneakers. I worshipped the sun. I always got as dark as I could. A lot of kids that I knew stayed out of the sun so that they wouldn’t get dark. Yet all the kids who straightened their hair and stayed out of the sun considered themselves blacker than me.
I talked like a white girl. That is what everybody said. My mother didn’t put up with slang words. I got slapped in the face for replying yeah to her instead of yes. From as early as when I learned to talk, it was drummed into me to speak properly. My mother meant well, she wanted me to succeed in life. She wanted me to be as smart as any child, black or white.
Still, it set me apart from other kids, particularly the lower class kids that I ran with. I was a foster kid, a ward of the state. Despite the fact of my diction and the fact that I was well-read. I was not in the circles of the Black middle class elite in my town. I hung out with the rough kids. The kids who lived in the projects. The neighborhood kids who despite the fact that they lived in nice homes and had hard working parents, still ran the streets and learned to steal from stores and did things that no child of our ages are exposed to until they are adults. We were knowing little kids. We hung out and watched the fights on our streets of neighbors who got caught cheating on their wives and the black skillet pan flying after their heads and the police who came to try to calm things down. The girls who got pregnant at 13, 14 and so on. These kids liked me because I didn’t put on airs and i dressed like a bum but when I opened my mouth to speak, that set off the alarm that I really wasn’t one of them. So, I was tolerated but if somebody felt like getting in a fight and beating somebody up, I was usually the target.
Things came to a head when I got my first boyfriend, a white boy. Honestly, I don’t know what happened. Was I ostracized? Well, there were plenty of black kids who thought I lost my mind. I thought to myself that they were nuts, especially the girls. They spent all their time straightening their hair, staying out of the sun, never going swimming so their hair “won’t go back” but I was the “white girl”
Strange. So the inevitable happened, I did turn into a white girl. My white friends didn’t give a shit about how I talked (well, umm, the lower class ones did). We all shared the same love for rock and flannel shirts. I lost myself then and for a very long time I was in denial. A look in the mirror didn’t even help me. I disavowed myself of all things black and I didn’t care. All my friends were white. I never listened to black music anymore unless I happened to be at a black friend’s home and that was rare. When my mother kicked me out of her house, I moved into my white boyfriend’s house and moved into my white world and for a very long time I never looked back.
The hair thing. Well, I finally succumbed to looking like a white girl by first getting a gheri curl and then I found out about braids. I wore braids for years. It’s funny but what broke me out of my braids and my shame of my nappy hair was when I was squatting in the lower east side and I was with these white girls and we all shaved our hair off. NO SELF RESPECTING BLACK GIRL CUT THEIR HAIR!!! It was the most freeing thing that i have ever done. After that, I wasn’t diligent about getting my hair done so that nobody knew it wasn’t my hair. Even now, I wear a weave but that is only because I am too lazy to learn how to take care of my hair. I don’t shave my hair at the edges that you don’t see my naps. You can see my naps clearly and I don’t give a rat’s ass.
Still Barack Obama writing about confronting his identity got me thinking. Even though I thought I was getting back to my roots, I still have a very long way to go. I don’t have a core strong group of black women that I am friends with. I know there are a stong community of artistic, free thinking blacks but I still haven’t tapped into that. Nearly all of my friends are white. Only recently, I have started reaching out to the black women that I do know so that I do not let them slip away. I still have not had a suitable relationship with a black man. I still have white boy fever.
Damn, I’m nearly fifty years old and it took me this long to realize that I need to come into my own as a black woman, not an oreo. Obama’s book is a awakener for me. Tonight, I paused and thought about how I present myself as a intelligent black woman and I was full of anger. Because I really haven’t been doing that. I prance around like a damn fool, performing for people, not being myself because I want to have everybody like me. That is just bullshit. I really don’t care about fucking firemen. I don’t care about young boys. I really don’t. I say that shit because I think it amuses people but it makes me look like a fool. It’s time to grow up. It’s time to treat myself like the INTELLIGENT AND COMPASSIONATE BLACK WOMAN that I AM!
I have walked right besides you many times during those moments and not once did I think of you as a white girl. It had nothing to do with your skin color or your hair texture. You have always been beautiful Barbara to me and always will.
Who you are is who you are. Black, white, red, purple, only true friends matter! Don’t worry about what anyone else fucking says! Don’t ever let society (black or white) define you. Just be Barbara and don’t worry about it! You’re just fine the way you are!
1. My ex…took me shopping for my Pesach/Passover food tonight
2. Maybe I should… go to bed.
3. I love… my cats and my humans
4. People would say that I… am slightly crazy
5. I don’t understand why people… are cruel
6. When I wake up in the morning..I say my prayers
7. I lost my… my mind years ago.
8. Life is full of… change and emotion
9. My past… is murky and wild
10. I get annoyed… with stupid people who think they’re slick.
11. Parties are… great if there’s lots of food and fun people.
12. I wish… my apartment was clean
13. Dogs… are adorable
14. Cats…sleep a lot
15. Tomorrow… I will do step work with my sponsor
16. Love… imakes me all glowy
17. If I had a fortune… I would buy homes for my brother, my sister and Ginny. The rest, I’d travel all over the world and then buy a farm in the Hudson Valley and let Anarchist kids come and farm.
First it started with the I phone. I just had to have it but I resisted temptation. My current phone works fine.
Then I got in my head that I had to have an Ipod. I was going to get a classic Ipod but my dear friend Sascha convinced me to get the touch.
I’ve been broke for months but I coveted the Ipod. I even downloaded Itunes and bought some songs in anticipation of the great moment that I will have this great gift to mankind.
So, I decided that I would use my income tax returns to get the ipod. I immediately got my taxes filed and I thought I would have a bit of a wait for my check.
Today, I was in a bad mood. I tried to go shopping for an outfit for an upcoming party but I was too broke to buy anything. I ended up buying a dress that I have no idea when I will ever wear it but it was cheap and I HAD TO BUY SOMETHING. All the way home on the bus, I was feeling horrible and depressed. I won’t bore you with the petty details but I’ve had a lot of unsettling things stirring in my mind and it made me feel so fucked up. I walked home from the bus and called an old friend up in hopes that he would cheer me up or at least get my mind briefly off of thinking stupid and self loathing thoughts.
As I got the key in the mailbox upon my arrival home, I was talking to him, still feeling shitty and I saw the check. I wanted to hang up immediately but I had to be polite. ALL OF A SUDDEN, I WAS HAPPY.
As my friend was trying to console me, I was thinking of running upstairs to my computer to find out when the Apple Store was open so that I could get the damn Ipod tomorrow.
At the time of this writing, I still haven’t googled the information yet and I spent the past few hours doing more deserving stuff but now, now i will check the Apple store hours and I will rush to the bank tomorrow to deposit my check and I will rush to the Apple store to immediately spend my money before it burns a hole in my account. Oh yeah, I’m dead broke and I owe some bills but of course I’m going to get that damn Ipod. All this time, in this fragile economy, with my employment not exactly a stable situation, I’m going to spend what little money on something that I will forget that I own in months. Well, I have tonight and tomorrow to think about it.
I am a shopping addict or a very spoiled woman or ummm, both.
Well, I wrote this story years ago and I have no intention of editing at the moment. Everything is true or as much as I can remember. This incident took place in February of 1977. I’m not going to go into detail but the previous seven months were among the worst times in my life and this period of time was no better. Here it goes:
I am sixteen years old and my world is so cold. I am in the midst of my Winter years. I can only think in black and blue.
It’s late in the evening and my foster mother decides that she wants a roast beef sandwich with salt, pepper and butter on both sides. My dad wants a bottle of ginger ale soda. Most parents wouldn’t send their sixteen year old daughter to the store at ten o’clock pm but not every daughter gets caught in the middle of a sex tryst with her high school teacher. As far as my foster parents were concerned, I’m not worth worrying about. I’M A BAD GIRL.
I wander down Elizabeth Avenue heading toward Franklin Street. I don’t like Franklin Street at night. In the daytime, the shucking and jiving drunks are a picturesque scene hanging out at in front of the liquor store. At night, their red eyes glint with lust as they inquire “Hey little Miss, where you off to all by yo’self? You want me to walk wit’ you?”
I”m daydreaming and walking, its my favorite thing to do. I’m so caught up in my fantasies that I neglect to keep myself invisible. Carl Randolplh ses me. I cringe with fear. That guy is crazy. I heard that he raped some girl. I can’t avoid him but luckily he’s with some guy. ” Hey Barbara”, yells Carl “How come you don’t ever talk to me? “Maybe it’s because you’re an evil, crazy bastard” I think to myself. I actually said I dunno or some similar shit. ” I can’t talk now, I gotta go to the store for my mom”, I scurry away.
As the Arab guys are making my mom’s sandwich, I’m hoping that Carl won’t still be up the street. I thought about going the long way back home but I didn’t relish the screams and possible physical abuse that my mom would hand out if I took too long getting back. I head on back home the quick way. Oh Damn, there he is and he was obviously waiting for me. Aw Shit, why didn’t I take the long way home? I try to walk by but Carl grabs my arm. “Carl, man”, his friend pleads “leave the girl alone”. I try to pull my arm away but only succeed in dropping the bag. I wince at the sound of breaking glass, momy is gonna be pissed! Carl still won’t let go as I attempt to save the sandwich. The other guy gives up and I beg him not to leave me alone with Carl. I’m crying and screaming. Carl tells the guy to leave so that Carl and “talk” to me alone. He starts pulling me across the street to a desolate side street. His buddy jets the other direction.
I’ve never been in the warehouse area on Grove Street before. It’s dark and to my dismay, empty.
“Please Carl, let me go home, please?” My mom is going to beat me if I don’t get home and I already busted my daddy’s soda” Carl didn’t want to hear it. He slaps me to the ground and starts pulling off my pants. I’m scared out of my wits. OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, HE’S GONNA RAPE ME, JESUS, HE’S GONNA RAPE ME!!!!!AHHHHHHHHHHH
I scream only to have Carl slap me hard enough to knock my head to the ground. He takes out his dick and shoves it in me. He grunts and pounds into me, asking me if it feels good. I’m thinking, I’m thinking and then I scream out
“YOU’RE FUCKING CRAZY, I HATE YOU!!!!!!!”
The motherfucker already had bulging eyeballs, now they bulged further out in rage. He grabs my neck and chokes me. His strength is unreal. I don’t black out, I see white. I gag and scratch at his hands. Am I gonna die?
Suddenly he stops
I crawl away from him. There, on the ground, was a piece of glass.
I clutch it in my hand.
“Come on Barbara, dont you want to do it again?”
I hold out my arm and start slashing at it. My arm is him, I slash. The blood is warm against my cold flesh, it drips down to my fingers. I hold out my arm to show Carl the gaping wound. “NOW, ASSHOLE, YOU SEE WHAT I CAN DO TO MYSELF, NOW I’M GONNA CUT YOUR FUNKY ASS!!!!!”
I’m totally full of shit and fear.
Carl only see the blood and backs off. “You a crazy bitch, damn I had no idea you were so crazy”. The nerve of that motherfucker but I don’t say anything. He’s leaving me alone, that’s all I care about. I just wanna get out of there.
Carl insists on walking me home being that I’m so unbalanced and all. I start screaming like a banshee unleashed and he runs away.
I walk home angry, drained, frightened.
I knock on the door to be let in. My mother opens the door and punches me in the face. “Where the FUCK were you and where’s my GODDAMN food?” She shoves me upstairs. My father is already lying on the bed, my mother joins him.
“Mommy, I’m sorry” I started crying “Carl Randolph raped me. I tried to get away but I couldn’t and he made me drop the soda. Look at my arm, he did this too me”. I sobbed long and hard. I held out my bloody arm, holding that damn bag to show mommy.
My foster mother smirks and gives a knowing glance to my father. She turns to me ” You’re paying for that sandwich and the soda. I don’t want to hear any more of your goddamn stories. Get out of my face, you ninnycookbitch tramp. I wish your real mother had to deal with your shit.” I cowered and took quick glance at her husband. What a fucking, fucking piece of shit. He knew I was telling the truth. I really hate them.
Back in my bedroom, I curled up on my cot. My arm was bloody and throbbed with pain but I was afraid to go to the bathroom to wash it. I would have to pass my mother’s room and I didn’t want to hear her abuse. I don’t know why I have to suffer like this. Oh wow, I still got this sandwich. I take the mangled food out of the damp bag. My salty tears seasons the sandwich. Alone in my dark room, I eat and the food briefly comforts me. I cry myself to sleep.
I really don’t want to hear any bullshit like, “He’s being respectful of Bush and not interfering” He certainly made it clear how he felt about how Bush ran the country when he was running for president. I would like to fucking know what the hell is he thinking and how is he going to deal with this. This whole situation is bullshit. The Zionist Jews stole Palestine from the Palestinians with the aid of England and the United States and everybody thinks it’s alright. I thought that shit died out in the nineteenth century. I am Jewish but I do not condone stealing a person’s home just because it said in some book that was written years ago that G-D gave the land to the Hebrews. SERIOUSLY, DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE THAT? I guess you believe that the Crusades was a worthwhile endeavor. And I don’t blame the Jews that have always lived there in peace with the Palestinians. I blame the European Jews and the American Jews that came there with their bigotry and self absorbed bullshit for this travesty. Do I believe that two wrongs make a right? No, the Palestinians who are killing people are wrong but you know something, when all else fails, what the fuck else are you going to do to get people to deal with a situation?
And what about fucking Obama, why isn’t he saying something? Does he really know what time it is??? Does he know that he can’t afford to fuck with the Zionist Jews because they can fuck with him politically? So he’s just another cowardly hack that will “run” this country? Fuck it, we might as well admit it. Let the corporations and other monied powers that be come out of the closet and publically assume their seat in this government. I knew that Obama would be a bitch ass. Damn, I wish I was wrong for once.
A man that I never knew before.In all likelihood, I would have never known of him but for the tragic events that happened five am , Friday morning.
The irony of the matter is that at the same time as he was being trampled by a raging crowd desperate to shop, I was being swept into Macy’s Department store by a rushing crowd.The parallels end there.I was in no danger.There were no chaotic crowds at Macy’s and the New York Police department was there to do what should have been the job of Macy’s security.
At Macy’s,the police told people to back away from the door and told them to cease their attempts to get inside because the store was not open yet.
Over in Valley Stream, according to news reports,the Nassau County police department stated that security was the jurisdiction of Wal-Mart, thus that is why they didn’t do anything about the crowd situation that was definitely getting out of hand.So why did the NYPD do it for Macy’s?
What was Wal-Mart thinking?Green Acres Mall has a had a history of ummm, shall I say, unstable behavior by it’s shoppers.Judging from what goes on at the movie theaters and other parts of the mall, they had to know that security would definitely be an issue on Friday morning.
The crowd itself.As I viewed videos on youtube, it took me back to a particular night in 1974.I attended a basketball game at Hempstead Middle School, a black junior high school and we were playing Oceanside, a white team.We lost that game.The crowd went wild and we (yes, I ran with everybody) went after the white kids that managed to make it to their bus in time.We were out for blood.In a lemming like fury, we stormed out of the school parking lot into Peninsula Boulevard and proceeded to bang on cars and just literally went wild.
A driver tried to run us kids over in retaliation.I was caught up in the excitementand even though I didn’t condone the behavior of what we did, I couldn’t deny the rush of being in chaos like that.
It’s a feel that followed me through life.If there was a fight at a soccer game or a baseball game, I rushed into the fray, heedless of the consequences.It’s that crazed feeling that made me challenge police at riots, not caring about being arrested.
No order, chaos.Some people would mistakenly say anarchy but anarchy doesn’t apply at all.Just simple chaos.
In a time when people are in a frenzy over the economic state of the country.Freaked out about their financial situation, you find people who really don’t give a fuck about right or wrong, they just want what they want.
And where do we place the blame for that?Bad upbringing?A sense of spoiled entitlement?The ongoing desire to keep up with the joneses?The government and the media encouraging people to rush out and spend, spend, spend?
Who do you blame for this tragic death?For surely, there is blame.Greed is number one.
The greed of the crowd to get the savings and the product, the greed of wal-mart who opened only two hours later so that they didn’t miss their chance to make that money.
People were psyched up for this for weeks.Before Halloween passed, I saw Christmas advertisements and decorations up at stores and Christmas products for sale.
The radio blared Christmas music weeks before Thanksgiving and everywhere, from the internet to the newspapers screamed out, SHOP, SHOP, SHOP.
The frenzy set in, the “people” wanted to buy and nobody was getting in their way.“Over my dead body” will take on a new meaning now.
This is not the first shopping frenzy, it’s just the first that I’m aware of that ended in a death.Will it be the last?Will people finally realize how greed corrupts and eventually kills?
Just so you people know, I wrote this October 20, 2008. Get mad at me, I don’t give a shit. I’m telling you exactly what I feel. if you don’t like it, then hey, get the fuck out of this blog and find a nice, warm and fuzzy one to read.
Posts: 2873
10/20/0810:07 PM
Section 39 Bench Warmer
I don’t understand what the fuss is all about? Barack Obama is a Buppie muthafucking Uncle Tom Bitch. I thought all of you conservatives would like that shit. There’ll be no chitterlins, hog maws. collard greens, Colt Forty Five or Kennedy Fried Chicken up in that White House. Those Oreo cookie bishes will be having crepes suzette and caviar while they figure out who is cooler to have at their first soiree, Michael Bolton or Johnny Mathis.
You think Talib Kweli will be there? You think Wyclef Jean will be there? Do you think that The Roots will be up in that joint. Hellz the fuck no! Every single rich black bitch that has been relaxing their hair for so long that they forgot they have nappy hair will be there. And all the Black men who have blonde bitch girlfriends like Ice-T will be hanging out. Its going to be known as SELL OUT MANSION.
CHECK THIS SHIT OUT NEGROS…….BARACK OBAMA IS NOT AN AMERICAN BLACK PERSON LIKE WE ARE. Sure he was raised here but he was raised with WHITE PEOPLE. Not only that but he is not descended from slave ancestry like the majority of blacks in this country. I hope you don’t think that he’s going to do something for us black folk because ummmm, it ain’t happening. That muthafucka might as well be white. You think he’s going to save the country and the black folk??? FOLLOW THE MONEY TRAIL BITCHES, THE MOTHERFUCKER IS BOUGHT JUST LIKE THE REST OF THE POLITICIANS THAT ARE ABLE TO GET SO MUCH MONEY TO RUN A CAMPAIGN.
Seriously, don’t be deluded. Its like you thought Bill Clinton was the best thing that happened to black people when in the meantime he implemented the welfare reform that took away our fine lifestyle. and before you go and say that Guiliani was to blame, Let me just say that it started at the NATIONAL LEVEL and Guiliani only did what he was supposed to do according to the welfare reform changes.
You think Obama is going to bring back Welfare abuse and good times???? Keep dreaming.
While Obama is no Papa Doc Duvalier or Idi Amin, he’s no savior for the black people. Get over that “I got a Dream” bullshit and wake up, NEGROS.
In all sincerity, I have never felt so shitty as I do now. I voted for the lesser of two evils (or so it is said). Twice I have voted for Nader and gotten shit from all of my liberal friends and even my radical friends. This election, everybody and their mother admonished me for even thinking of voting for Ralph Nader again. So, I did it, I weakened and voted for Obama. And truly, I feel like shit because more worthy candidates deserved my vote. Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney to name a few. I don’t care if McCain wins and drives this country into the ground. I will never do this again. I will never go with the fucking flow. How the hell will people really get what they want when they settle? Its like being a sports fan, you don’t keep switching sides to be a frontrunner and only root for the winner, you follow your team. You believe in your team, through thick and thin. Americans are spoiled pieces of shit. I feel like a piece of shit, I let down my candidate, I thoroughly believe in Nader and I had serious misgivings about Obama because it really seems to me that he is just a dark skinned white corporate tool like the rest of the ilk.
The Republican party doesn’t speak for me, The Democratic Party doesn’t speak for me. I absolutely vow to never vote for either party for as long as I live. Its either Nader or a Green Party candidate from now on. Obama and McCain are bad news for America, they are both more of the same bullshit. I am ashamed that I didn’t stick to my virtues and values and vote for Nader again. With that said, here is an open letter to Obama from Ralph Nader. I felt like a fool after reading this.
In your nearly two-year presidential campaign, the words “hope and change,” “change and hope” have been your trademark declarations. Yet there is an asymmetry between those objectives and your political character that succumbs to contrary centers of power that want not “hope and change” but the continuation of the power-entrenched status quo.
Far more than Senator McCain, you have received enormous, unprecedented contributions from corporate interests, Wall Street interests and, most interestingly, big corporate law firm attorneys. Never before has a Democratic nominee for President achieved this supremacy over his Republican counterpart. Why, apart from your unconditional vote for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, are these large corporate interests investing so much in Senator Obama? Could it be that in your state Senate record, your U.S. Senate record and your presidential campaign record (favoring nuclear power, coal plants, offshore oil drilling, corporate subsidies including the 1872 Mining Act and avoiding any comprehensive program to crack down on the corporate crime wave and the bloated, wasteful military budget, for example) you have shown that you are their man?
To advance change and hope, the presidential persona requires character, courage, integrity– not expediency, accommodation and short-range opportunism. Take, for example, your transformation from an articulate defender of Palestinian rights in Chicago before your run for the U.S. Senate to an acolyte, a dittoman for the hard-line AIPAC lobby, which bolsters the militaristic oppression, occupation, blockage, colonization and land-water seizures over the years of the Palestinian peoples and their shrunken territories in the West Bank and Gaza. Eric Alterman summarized numerous polls in a December 2007 issue of The Nation magazine showing that AIPAC policies are opposed by a majority of Jewish-Americans.
You know quite well that only when the U.S. Government supports the Israeli and Palestinian peace movements, that years ago worked out a detailed two-state solution (which is supported by a majority of Israelis and Palestinians), will there be a chance for a peaceful resolution of this 60-year plus conflict. Yet you align yourself with the hard-liners, so much so that in your infamous, demeaning speech to the AIPAC convention right after you gained the nomination of the Democratic Party, you supported an “undivided Jerusalem,” and opposed negotiations with Hamas– the elected government in Gaza. Once again, you ignored the will of the Israeli people who, in a March 1, 2008 poll by the respected newspaper Haaretz, showed that 64% of Israelis favored “direct negotiations with Hamas.” Siding with the AIPAC hard-liners is what one of the many leading Palestinians advocating dialogue and peace with the Israeli people was describing when he wrote “Anti-semitism today is the persecution of Palestinian society by the Israeli state.”
During your visit to Israel this summer, you scheduled a mere 45 minutes of your time for Palestinians with no news conference, and no visit to Palestinian refugee camps that would have focused the media on the brutalization of the Palestinians. Your trip supported the illegal, cruel blockade of Gaza in defiance of international law and the United Nations charter. You focused on southern Israeli casualties which during the past year have totaled one civilian casualty to every 400 Palestinian casualties on the Gaza side. Instead of a statesmanship that decried all violence and its replacement with acceptance of the Arab League’s 2002 proposal to permit a viable Palestinian state within the 1967 borders in return for full economic and diplomatic relations between Arab countries and Israel, you played the role of a cheap politician, leaving the area and Palestinians with the feeling of much shock and little awe.
David Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator, described your trip succinctly: “There was almost a willful display of indifference to the fact that there are two narratives here. This could serve him well as a candidate, but not as a President.”
Palestinian American commentator, Ali Abunimah, noted that Obama did not utter a single criticism of Israel, “of its relentless settlement and wall construction, of the closures that make life unlivable for millions of Palestinians. …Even the Bush administration recently criticized Israeli’s use of cluster bombs against Lebanese civilians [see www.atfl.org for elaboration]. But Obama defended Israeli’s assault on Lebanon as an exercise of its ‘legitimate right to defend itself.’”
In numerous columns Gideon Levy, writing in Haaretz, strongly criticized the Israeli government’s assault on civilians in Gaza, including attacks on “the heart of a crowded refugee camp… with horrible bloodshed” in early 2008.
Israeli writer and peace advocate– Uri Avnery– described Obama’s appearance before AIPAC as one that “broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning, adding that Obama “is prepared to sacrifice the most basic American interests. After all, the US has a vital interest in achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace that will allow it to find ways to the hearts of the Arab masses from Iraq to Morocco. Obama has harmed his image in the Muslim world and mortgaged his future– if and when he is elected president.,” he said, adding, “Of one thing I am certain: Obama’s declarations at the AIPAC conference are very, very bad for peace. And what is bad for peace is bad for Israel, bad for the world and bad for the Palestinian people.”
A further illustration of your deficiency of character is the way you turned your back on the Muslim-Americans in this country. You refused to send surrogates to speak to voters at their events. Having visited numerous churches and synagogues, you refused to visit a single Mosque in America. Even George W. Bush visited the Grand Mosque in Washington D.C. after 9/11 to express proper sentiments of tolerance before a frightened major religious group of innocents.
Although the New York Times published a major article on June 24, 2008 titled “Muslim Voters Detect a Snub from Obama” (by Andrea Elliott), citing examples of your aversion to these Americans who come from all walks of life, who serve in the armed forces and who work to live the American dream. Three days earlier the International Herald Tribune published an article by Roger Cohen titled “Why Obama Should Visit a Mosque.” None of these comments and reports change your political bigotry against Muslim-Americans– even though your father was a Muslim from Kenya.
Perhaps nothing illustrated your utter lack of political courage or even the mildest version of this trait than your surrendering to demands of the hard-liners to prohibit former president Jimmy Carter from speaking at the Democratic National Convention. This is a tradition for former presidents and one accorded in prime time to Bill Clinton this year.
Here was a President who negotiated peace between Israel and Egypt, but his recent book pressing the dominant Israeli superpower to avoid Apartheid of the Palestinians and make peace was all that it took to sideline him. Instead of an important address to the nation by Jimmy Carter on this critical international problem, he was relegated to a stroll across the stage to “tumultuous applause,” following a showing of a film about the Carter Center’s post-Katrina work. Shame on you, Barack Obama!
But then your shameful behavior has extended to many other areas of American life. (See the factual analysis by my running mate, Matt Gonzalez, on www.votenader.org). You have turned your back on the 100-million poor Americans composed of poor whites, African-Americans, and Latinos. You always mention helping the “middle class” but you omit, repeatedly, mention of the “poor” in America.
Should you be elected President, it must be more than an unprecedented upward career move following a brilliantly unprincipled campaign that spoke “change” yet demonstrated actual obeisance to the concentration power of the “corporate supremacists.” It must be about shifting the power from the few to the many. It must be a White House presided over by a black man who does not turn his back on the downtrodden here and abroad but challenges the forces of greed, dictatorial control of labor, consumers and taxpayers, and the militarization of foreign policy. It must be a White House that is transforming of American politics– opening it up to the public funding of elections (through voluntary approaches)– and allowing smaller candidates to have a chance to be heard on debates and in the fullness of their now restricted civil liberties. Call it a competitive democracy.
Your presidential campaign again and again has demonstrated cowardly stands. “Hope” some say springs eternal.” But not when “reality” consumes it daily.
Why do I torture myself? a scathing review of last night’s Metropolis Apocalypse punk show
It started off quietly enough. I arrived in Williamsburg early and decided to walk around the area to find a suitable place to eat. I invited Seth and Hilda to come with me.
My therapist was against me going to this show. Knowing my penchant for certain types of men, she tried to reason with about the folly of my ways but headstrong and stupid as I am, I went anyway.
Of course Hilda and Seth was late and when Seth did call, he said that Cashman told him that Hammerbrain was already on the stage. Freaking out, I rushed over to Supreme Trading. On my way over there, I passed a crowd of people at a church at North Seventh and I knew it was an AA meeting. I asked a young woman and yes, indeed it was a meeting and that it would be starting in 15 minutes. I felt calmer after than. I felt that if I got freaked out for some reason, I can always run over to catch what’s left of the meeting.
I get to Supreme Trading and of course, Hammerbrain was NOT on. I hung out to see what old timers were about. Some nasty crusty punk kids managed to get in with their dogs. Damn, they smelled, it was really gross.
Hammerbrain was an old school band from the eighties. I was friends with Al and reasonably friendly with Ned. For some reason, I never was friendly to Ned’s younger brother but I must say that he aged fucking nice and so did Ned. They are both fucking hot! Some of the rest of us didn’t fare so good. We had the bloated calf appearance that is only gained by years of alcohol abuse. All I have to say in my defense is that I’m fucking 48 and still going strong. Thats more than what I expected out of my life.
Hammerbrain was great, it was good to sing the old songs or at least hear them. It made me feel young again. What did NOT make me feel young was the goddamn crusty punks who made a goddamn mosh pit. Of Course they should have made a pit, it’s a fucking punk show. Yet all of us old timers with weary bones were a bit disgruntled but tried not to show it.
It was interesting to note the changing of the bands and their audiences. The bands were newer and newer as time went on and their followings were also younger so by the the time the main attraction came on, the crowd was properly suited for the rowdy hijinks that ensued.
I don’t want to get ahead of myself here.
After Hammerbrain played, the lovely Hilda showed up and we went around to see what old timers were there. Seth introduced me to Bill Cashman and I was my usual obnoxious self asking him about the bed bugs at C-Squat and saying other snippy things. Mr. Cashman was not at all entertained by my joking and dissed me immediately to drool over Hilda. I was offended. hmmmph and all of that I got over it though and Seth, Hilda and I saundered off to dinner at Oasis, a fine Middle Eastern restaurant.
Back at Supreme Trading, I wandered off from Seth and Hilda and found John Penley schmoozing a hot Brazilian young woman. Penley is the man, that’s all that I can say.
I looked into the art space and I saw Stza hanging out talking with some hot chick. I whipped my dvd out and went in to make my acquaintance and give him the dvd. He was actually really nice. I mean, I read all this shit about him and local people said some particularly unkind remarks about him but I found him quite charming. We chit chatted about personal hygiene and then I went back to find Hilda and Seth.
Back in the stage area, I found empty seats on the aluminium bleachers. I made sure that I got to the top section because I wanted no part of anybody’s stinky, sweaty body hurling into me because they were “dancing”. I happily checked out the crowd. There were absolutely no real outstanding hoties there. At least not guys. There were some doable sex minxes in the mix. I love punk rock sluts. Especially the healthy ones with hardly any clothes on. The really skinny ones just remind me of coked out skanks.
Finally, the moment everybody was waiting for….STAR FUCKING HIPSTERS!
At least thats what everybody though but due to equipment malfunctions on Sturg’s amp, there was a long, long delay.
and then they played….and it was good.
However, Sturg was ummm, fucked up!!! What the hell happened in two fucking hours? He was totally fine when I left him.
Still, He was awesome, the band was awesome. Oh my gawd, the bassist and the other guitarist. They absolutely ruled!!! I was rocked.!!!
I really could’ve cried at one point, it was so good and so emotionally charged and everybody was into it.
and though it all, you just felt so alive and the music torched through and you felt….understood because the music said it all for you.
and you were safe, you could do anything because there was always somebody there to carry you
However, this is reality and this is alcohol we’re talking about and we can’t leave out the truth.
I have no idea what went through Jimi Hendrix’s mind when he set his guitar on fire at Monterey Music Festival. I have no idea why Pete Townshend smashed his guitar back in the day. All I know is that when Sturg swung that guitar like a real axe and I felt that swoosh of air above my head which might have led to real trouble for me if I was taller, I knew things were gettng out of hand.
Just as quickly as it started, it ended and the band played on until the end.
It was an amazing night. I just hope we don’t blow our wad and die in a blaze of glory because there’s a lot to be said for growing old and still kicking ass.
At the very end, they turned the lights on to stop the music but the band played on until the management got testy and finally over. I ran to piss and the bathrooms were scandalous. What did I expect? Ha!
I went back into the stage area to put my warm things on and I look on the ground and saw rigs everywhere. That really freaked me out. I almost picked one up but my better judgment took over. It kind of brought everything in full circle for me. Twenty years ago today, I was a junkie living that supposed punk rock dream in a junkie squat on the Lower East Side and it was all about the music and getting high. Just like Arthur Rimbaud, I had to let go of those angst ridden days and move on. Thinking about it like that puts it all in perspective for me. I am so glad that I can feel music like I always did. I’m also glad that I find so much more out of life than living in a drugged out day dream.
Last year around this time, I was at the onset of one of my biggest drinking binges ever. All local stores that had the strong Polish beer that I swilled was visited by me daily. I had to have my refrigerator full. On the weekends, I had beer for breakfast. It used to be that I had a rule that I drink no alcohol before Noon. That was broken. I believe I drank more than when I was swilling with Michael McGreal. Or even when I was living at Umbrella House and you know I drank a lot then. Towards the end of November, I rediscovered Barcardi 151. I needed it. Nothing else really fucked me up anymore. Despite the fact that I was on sleeping pills and anti-depressants, I drank constantly. It wasn’t a success unless I passed out from the booze. At the end of December, 2007, I went to Jael’s pre-New Year’s Eve party. I got there drunk and drank more. I brought my bottle of 151 to keep the party going. I ended up snorting cocaine that night and I haven’t had that in years. It was weird because when the girl passed me the mirror, the first thought was “I might get a heart attack if I snort this”. That thought did not stop me from snorting the coke. It was a good thing that they didn’t know where to cop anymore because I would’ve blown all the cash in my account for some more blow. I went home in the morning and decided enough was enough. A look at my reflection in a mirror at the party scared the shit out of me.
What the fuck??!!!
Days later, I go to the liquor store and buy a bottle of champagne. At the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, I popped open my bottle of bubbly, drank half the bottle that night and poured the rest down the drain. I haven’t had a drink since.
I started going back to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. I didn’t want to but I knew I couldn’t stay sober on my own. I started going to a lot of meetings. Things got a lot better for me. I was actually happy, less stressed and I began to do things. I occasionally went to the gym which was more than never. I began to take guitar lessons and I started seeing a chiropractor for my ailments. Things were working out. As the months progressed, I got up early to do my stretches, I did my prayers every morning. I was actually feeling so good.
Summer is usually a hateful time of year for me despite the sun and warmth. This Summer was different. I did a lot of things with people and I had the best time.
So, I don’t know what happened. Lately, I’ve been moody and desolate. My apartment is gathering clutter again and I feel as if I don’t have the strength to deal with it. I stopped working out, at home and at the gym. I make excuses for it. I stopped going to AA meetings regularly. I’m lucky if I hit two in one week lately.
I just read the book, DRY by Augusten Burroughs and I’m realizing that I”m heading for a relapse if I keep up with my current lifestyle. Already my body aches are back as a result of no exercise. I have nine months. I want to stay sober. I don’t want the chaos that was my life for many years.
I went to two AA meetings tonight. It was a bit overwhelming but I needed to do it. I shared about what is going on in my life and I feel better now. I know I have to start going to meetings regularly again. I have to make sobriety a priority in my life, not going straight home to play on the internet. I need to take care of myself. It is a lot of work but in the long run, it makes my life so much happier.
I guess that means no more booty calls, Sorry Jay and Scotty. but it is what it is and I promised myself no more hook ups. I want a man in my life, not a dick on call. Right now, I just need to take care of myself, fuck the romance and sex shit for awhile.
The late eighties, crack in the street, toothless hookers giving out the best blow jobs, burnt out buildings and the smell of shit in the air. New York Fucking City!!!! And if you were poor, The Lower East Side was the place to be, Alphabet City. Hanging out in Tompkins Square Park all night. Taking your sweetie for a stroll along the East River at East River Park. Shooting up with your friends in some squalid abandoned building. Yeah, life was good. It was made even better by the grace of the United States Government. Food Stamps.
On the first of the month and in the middle of the month, it was like Christmas. As soon as you got your food stamps, it was time to party. Every bodega accepted food stamps for candles, toilet tissue, pet food, beer and ummm, food. Ohh hell yeah and the Chinese places took them too. You could save the cash for drugs and while you’re waiting for your favorite dope spot to open, you could get some fried chicken with pork fried rice and a forty ounce of Olde English and the party could begin. If you were willing to leave the neighborhood, you could traipse uptown to the Upper East Side and buy some high class pate and all that gourmet shit at D’agostino’s and Gristede’s because they couldn’t turn down your food stamps. It was awesome to get a whole array of fancy food and whip out the food stamps. The rich bitches standing behind you would be scandalized as hell and you would give them a wink, pat the grocery bag and say..bon Appetit!
Later, in the park, after you copped your drugs and chilling with your friends, you could lay out your fine spread and your homies would exclaim “Damn, you got that with food stamps??” Ohh hell the fuck yeah!!!! Lets be real, the government never gave out enough food stamps for a normal needy family that played by the system. I don’t know how normal needy people did it. I mean, sure, you could buy loads of rice and beans in bulk but what about milk and veggies for the kids and yourself? The only people who could live on food stamps were druggie welfare cheats. Druggies don’t need to eat all that much, so as long they could cop a bag of dope, who gave a fuck about eating? Thats why druggies are so nice and skinny. I wish I was a druggie. I’d like to be skinny…sigh.
I hear that now they have a card for food stamps. That must suck.
