Manhattan Offender

Past, Over - When the piers were old and oxycontin was new

Sometimes I receive telephone calls from The Past, a mysterious entity that remembers where things used to be in New York before Starbucks and Whole Foods came to town.  Originally posted at Gawker, April 26, 2007.

"Hello?"

"Wrigglerump? Is that you?"

"I would think The Past would recognize my voice by now."

"Sorry. I'm a little groggy. Took a Percocet."

"Your recreational drug use—"

"Listen here, Judge Mental. You go and get hit by a cargo van on the West Side Highway and see if you don't want to take a pill or five."

Status

Rod updated his iPhone software to 2.2 and now his camera is not working in any the Facebook, Typepad, or its native applications.  And he really needs to do more "looking up at extended arm" and "angled at a mirror to not feature the phone, but the face" shots.

FBI Alert - Today is Wednesday. It will be all day long.

So basically some dudes were hanging around the hookah and talking about how they'd totally bomb some subways or those douches on Metro-North.  And how they'd totally tap that hottie if she wasn't such an infidel.  The FBI heard it and is reporting "there is nothing concrete to suggest the plot went beyond the talking stage."  For either bombing or the booty.

ABC News: FBI Warns of al Qaeda Attack on New York Commuter Trains.

Status

Rod realizes that Facebook will someday not exist, or will merely persist in the same way Friendster does, as a poor sad unused shadow of itself.  So he's reclaiming his own site for status reporting, thank you.

So it's just me on the couch and Rachel Maddow on the television screen, being my lesbian straight-talk galpal while I read The Paris Review and think about the cookies to be baked Wednesday night because of Thanksgiving when suddenly this gigantic ...

baked turkey is on the screen and it's laughing and smiling, but it isn't a baked turkey at all; it's Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, and sweet baby jesus does this man have a (just-got-back-from-the-freaking-Carribean-and-not-one-of-those-aspirational-islands-but-the-ones-where-the-wealthy-do-the-limbo-under-an-emaciated-native) glowing tan while the rest of us are like, trying to figure out how to feed our layed off and otherwise miscellaneous friends just before Thanksgiving.

It's the Great American Smokeout, Charley Brownteeth! Why don't you pop a Chantix with me, and we'll hallucinate, lose weight, and feel great, Nick, a teen? What? You're not a teen? You're 22? I smoked as many years. Am I babbling? It's the Chantix.

Derek De Koff is a pussy. 

Don't get me wrong, I don't even know Miss Thing, but his expose on Chantix from earlier this year has been sent to me more than ten times after announcing my use to all of my "friends" on Facebook.  De Koff had problems with the pills starting with nightmares about his air conditioner, to hallucinations involving potted plants, to thoughts of throwing himself out of moving taxis.  While its a good read, it varies from my experience.

After 22 years of smoking, with assorted breaks my decision came to quit.  My health wasn't the issue.  Cholesterol fine, blood pressure great, breathing great, no indicants of cancer.  The issue was that something was part of my life for over half of the time I'd been on the planet.  Such bonding to an evil group of corporations was no longer tenable.  On a regular doctor's visit, my intention was announced and the prescription written.

Within days, smoking was something done out of habit still, but there was no nicotine payoff.  With one lapse, encouraged by other consumption on Halloween, the pills effectively shut off any craving for nicotine.  Like De Koff's usage, my Chantix usage also had side effects.

Maybe it's because I'm used to rolling with the punches.  Or maybe it's because I enjoy a light hallucination.  Or maybe I just have a more general mental flexibility.  Whatever the reason, I'm loving my side effects. 

Last Sunday was my most grueling workout in months.  In my mind was a little voice, "Maybe just one more rep on those triceps.  They don't hurt enough."  Writing is happening more often, with ideas popping up and going into a pad.

One small downfall occurred when the lucid dreams first started.  With full certainty, I turned to my, um, co-sleeper and asked him, "Did you just ask me a trivia question about Warren Beatty?"  Not appreciating being woken for such an insane question, he grumbled, "No" and turned away.  But for the most part lucid dreams have been about my friends or work, exploring my relationships with them.  (Classical analysis would say that I need to share more with them.)

Hallucinations have been mild, and there is a general quietness to me.  But both have always been a part of me, so it works.  There is a bit of scatterbrains, too, but it's workable.  Oh, and being a cheap date has been awesome, as three drinks has done the trick.

In more measurable terms, in three weeks almost $100 has been saved.  Five pounds have been lost.  And my windows are very clean. 

Today is the Great American Smokeout.  While in the past there have been rants and anecdotes, this year it's just sort of about me.  Like most days.

Bureau of Tobacco Control : NYC DOHMH. 
(Where you can get free nicotine patches and lozenges and gum which have a efficacy rate of SEVEN PER CENT per De Koff, who probably isn't a pussy, but then again maybe he is, but I don't hang much with those media types, especially those gay ones because you know, they're such pussies, or not, or something, but whatever, they all smoke and I so totally stopped doing that like three weeks ago so I'm totally in the judgmental phase of the postsmoker although I'm not really so light up, baby!)

Oh, sure, it was cute for a while, but those Shiba Inu puppies that everyone just so much loves are getting bigger which means they are totally pooping all over the place and barking like the shrill little bitches they are. (Well, three of them are anyw

If you didn't see them in the last two weeks, you're behind the curve and, unfortunately too late.  Those Shiba Inus were so cute when most of them were all nappy-time or occasionally rambunctious.  Everyone was learning their names and "oo"ing and "aw"ing in a collective sigh.  In my own office if someone was particularly stressed (and who isn't these days if they are among the non-layed-off), to them would come my email, headed "Please take a two minute puppy break".

Reports would fly around.  "Autumn just kicked Aki's butt!"  "I think Ando just farted in Amaya's sleepy little face, because she woke up and whimpered!"  Sadly, like your post-election Obama high, those times of puppy-goodness are over now.

Little Ayumi now shrieks for attention.  Akoni is a terror.  And all six are pooping with abandon with little poo piles dotting the web cam screen.  Poor mommy Kika, seems to regret her decision to breast feed, as the growing Shibas now hound her on her increasingly rare visits.  She shows the weathered face of a post-partem mom, looking her litter with one eye, the station wagon with one eye, and the nearby lake with one eye.  Or something.

Still, though, you should watch them while you can.  Before Akoni runs off to become a prostitute junky baby-daddy.  And while they are, admittably, so totally cutesy pies that you just want to eat wight uppity uppity puppity up!

Shiba Inu Puppy Cam

California finally has a proposition in the works that will protect its citizens from the sinister

Oh, but as a kid did I love that the word "sinister" found its derivation from the Latin "left".  My mother, a leftie, couldn't understand my fascination with her otherness to me.  (Especially since, as a child my left hand was the favored, possible because at birth my right clavicle was shattered and my right shoulder separated.  Granted, I was dead at the time, so I totally don't remember it.  Anyway, Grandma Lucile insisted that I be forced to work with my right hand, "to make life easier down the road".)

Even my childhood hero Green Lantern knew that lefties were evil.  His arch-nemesis was Sinestro, who wore his power ring on, you guessed it, his left hand! 

So it's fantastic to know that Californians have recognized the horror that is left-handedness and started a coalition to put those freaks back in the right, so to speak.

Protect Traditional Handedness.
(via Andy, who was cast as King Arthur in our high school's musical over me, which caused me to throw a fit not just because he was a freaking sophomore and I was a senior, but then they offered me the Director slot which was even more awesome in my opinion because I was really in it for filling up my college application with "diverse experiences", but then, when they couldn't find the right fit for Merlin, forced me into that role which totally upset me because I had just played The Wizard in Once Upon a Mattress and, you know, you don't want to be typecast forever as a mage, but the real problem for me was that I was horrible at monologues and Merlin has a freaking huge one in Camelot and that had me freaking out even more because of my bad memory and, oh, yeah, I for whatever reason pronounced the word "sword" with a enunciated "w")

Once protected by Gawker, Michael Musto and his fleshly follies are now fodder.

For a brief moment early this year, Gawker ran some gossip written by me.  It wasn't really a good fit for me, as my full time job is my priority (and better paying).  (Oh, and I'm not much of a gossip writer either.)  One item pitched to Publisher (and then Managing Editor) Nick Denton explored and exploited the sexual habits and habitats of Michael Musto.  Denton replied back noting that he didn't want to embarrass Musto.

Gawker has a new Managing Editor.  And perhaps a different tolerance regarding the sex lives of New York gossips:  What Was Michael Musto Doing in a Porn Store?.

"The next item up for bid is a jar of fingernails as chewed and saved by one Miss Nancy Spungeon."

PUNK/ROCK | Fine Art Auction | Search Results | Christie's.
(via The Village Voice)