Manhattan Offender

Future, Tense: Shopping the Bleecker Street Mall

Every so often a mysterious entity calls me.  The entity calls itself "The Future" and  knows where things will be in New York after the Starbucks and Whole Foods have blanketed the town and then disappeared. 

Episode Four of Twenty.  (Originally posted December 12, 2007 at Gawker.)

"Hello?"

"Jiào nǐ shēng háizi méi pìgu yǎn! Oh, hi, it's The Future. So sorry you had to hear that, but this place stresses me out sometimes."

"It's been a few weeks since I heard from you. Given the conditions of your last call, I was a little worried."

"Sorry, cybersphincter. I was at Beth-Israel-Rey getting my iPortal upgraded. Bùyàoliǎn de dōngxī! Ugh. Shopping really brings out the worst in me and it's packed here today."

"Where are you, anyway?"

"I'm just trying to get my gift shopping done here at the Bleecker Street Mall.

 

Future, Tense: It's a Tranny Reclamation Riot!

Every so often a mysterious entity calls me.  The entity calls itself "The Future" and  knows where things will be in New York after the Starbucks and Whole Foods have blanketed the town and then disappeared. 

Episode Three of Twenty.  (Originally posted November 16, 2007 at Gawker.)

"Hello?"

"Zhe shi shenme?  Is that you, nanonips?  I must have hit the wrong avatar on my iPortal!  I meant to call the police!"

"The police?  Are you okay?"

"I was just having lunch at CNNZone in Times Square when all hell broke loose."

"Is it a terrorist attack?"

"A what?  ... No.  Far worse.  It's a Tranny Reclamation Riot."

Future, Tense: Hurricane Judith aka Storm Eleven

Every so often a mysterious entity calls me.  The entity calls itself "The Future" and  knows where things will be in New York after the Starbucks and Whole Foods have blanketed the town and then disappeared. 

Episode Two of Twenty.  (Originally posted November 7, 2007 at Gawker.)

"Hello?"

"Ni hao, internuts! Did you vote yesterday?"

"Oh, hmm!  Was it Election Day? To be honest it sort of skipped my mind.  I don't think there was much on the ballot this year."

"You should've voted anyway, just for the fun of it. It's a chance to see your saltier neighbors and, if I know my history, it was the last year to use those fun lever-machines. It's not nearly as adventurous now."

"How so?"

"Well, now it's as easy as yi, er, san. Just look at the ballot on your iPortal and make your choices. In fact, I'm doing it as we speak."

Future, Tense: Once the fertilizers would move in

Every so often a mysterious entity calls me.  The entity calls itself "The Future" and  knows where things will be in New York after the Starbucks and Whole Foods have blanketed the town and then disappeared. 

Episode One of Twenty.  (Originally posted October 31, 2007 at Gawker.)

"Es salaam aleikum, giga-glans!  I've been wanting to call you for years!  This is The Future."

"Wait.  Who?"

"Pay attention, tera-tits. It's The Future. I've had your number for years on my iPortal, and it seemed like it was time to call."

"But, why now?"

"It's as clear as the waters of magnificent Lake Zero.  It's Halloween."

The present of Future, Tense

As mentioned, there are changes afoot at Gawker.  One of those changes is that Future, Tense is no longer part of the line-up.  I've chosen to carry the project forward and will post a new episode semi-frequently. 

With the publisher's permission, I'm now moving all of the previous episodes to this site so that the collection is all together.  I'll be putting them up over the next few days to revitalize the series, but not logjam the site with them for now.  Also?  They'll be posted as originally written, not as edited.  Expect more curse-words and different word choices for certain body parts.

Next step: rebuild the audience!

Future, Tense

Have I really not written about this?  Ugh, what a busy couple of months.

First off, Past, Over ended at Gawker.  Not that anyone wanted it to do so other than myself.  It was reaching a point where I was running out of topics.  In its place I proposed that instead of The Past calling, now The Future would call.  I've created a landscape of a New York circa 2018, exponentially extrapolating current events in local and national news.

But don't call it a feature.  The key thing about everything at Gawker is that it must always be reporting.  Past, Over told the story of what some 1990's icons of New York have become.  Future, Tense tells of potential outcomes of the present.

This week's installment tells of the Bleecker Street Mall.  On a random afterwork stroll with a friend, the changes in this area were striking.  Brash and vapid women filled the streets with shopping bags in tow shouting out, "Oh my god" like a poorly trained macaws of fanciful plumage.  As we walked down the street we noticed all the shops that evoked excitement from the shoppers.  And began to make parrot noises at them.  The experience stuck in my head and evolved, in part, to this piece.  (Other influences include riding a Colonial Transport van with Jason Preston and Sex and the City shooting near my office recently.)