who are the people in your neighborhood?
by TRUE
Tony Ferguson
...or neighbourhood. barrio, district. however you say, "on the streets where you live"?
you never really know any of them. what fucked up shit they might be up to behind those closed doors.
those sounds that you sometimes hear...and the smells...
give money to klinkfamily
I posed lasiviously in the back seat, loose ass basketball shorts sliding this way and that. They both took turns checking me out in the rear view mirror. I lit a cigarette and pretended not to notice. Deep in my chest a little checkbox was being checked.
same as it ever was,
same as it ever was,
same as it ever was,
same as it EVER WAS
Now and then we caught a glimpse of Long Island from out behind the billboards and rest stop signs. Golden arches floated in the darkness.
It was a dream to really be there...three in the morning, going on four.
"I feel like you two have got something planned," I called out. "You know I reread BRANDTRUEBOY, the other night. I refreshed myself on everything that you both said."
"You mean everything that we wrote," Fitz said.
"That you wrote, whatever."
"It makes a big difference," Fitz said in that faggy tone that I despise.
"Words, words, words," Sterling said, yawning and leaning back like the mack.
"Half-truths and fiction," I said, struggling to light a cigarette. The match flashed in the rear view mirror, and for a second my face was lit up like a ghost. "That's all you're going to claim then. Huh."
"Who's making a claim? Not me," she turned and scrutinized me unapologetically.
"I think you're fucking with me," I proclaimed.
"Really? Well I think you're high," she returned.
"That doesn't mean you aren't fucking with me."
"That's true, TRUE," she laughed her famous, beautiful laugh and punched Fitz's arm in a way that seemed close to a real punch.
"I'm always fucking with you." She leaned over and put her face a few inches in front of mine. I could see her freckles in the passing headlights.
"Everyone is always fucking with you."
"What the fuck, I know!" I leaned back, miserable. My hands were two dead fish in my lap, lifeless, bloated. It took a couple of tries until I was able to bring them to my nose, so I could see if they stunk or not.
They smelled like nothing.
oh, sod-o-mio!
by fitzcarraldo
(States with sodomy laws. I know, I know, you're like, quick, give me a newspaper. I need to check what goddamn century it is!)
Fuck. There's always something that gets between me and a really good time. The sacred, sexy veil of the night is yanked from me just as my fingers brush its hem. Perhaps it's because I've suddenly realized that my clothes don't fit right around my middle. Or my hair's squashed on one side. Or the band/dj/smacked-out-amazon- fashion models/drunken overrated poet is late and I'm developing a backache and a depresssion from waiting in the crowd with the rest of the plebs, our stupidly hopeful faces bathed in artifical yellow light. Or maybe there's a constellation of pimples twinkling across my chin--perhaps the proverbial piece of spinach in my teeth. Tonight, it was gas. I knew I shouldn't have followed the arugula and red onions in my salad with chocolate cake. Dolce de leche caramel filling, oh god. I didn't even have the whole sinfully slimey piece--just a few forkfuls and my tummy's blown out like a beach ball.
Speaking of beaches...South Hampton this weekend, ladies?
Anyway, the california boy and i stood around like zombies, smoking his nasty, low-tar cigarettes. The Chrysler building loomed over us, muted in the murky air like a badly done backdrop. We were outside his hotel. His shirt was sticking to his shoulders as he closed his eyes and leaned back against the brass doorway. There was silence as midtown lasers shot up and down our bodies like disco lights. It was now or never, but I felt disgusting. I'd received the broadcast from the satellite heart and it was not good: Using strings of zeroes and ones it communicated to me that I was only one of many, and not worthy of experiencing anything exciting.
At least not tonight...
I sighed and stepped back on the moist white marble sidewalk. I sang a little song, "Tra-la-la!" and bent down to pull down my pants cuff. I looked up and caught him looking at me. His face reddened and he immediately turned away.
Shit, baby. I don't have time for shyness.
I decided that no matter what I'd be at home within the hour.
In bed.
Alone.
I kept my eyes on the avenue, on the cabs darting this way and that like fish. A green truck with a heavy looking tank on the back lumbered past. A skinny Mexican guy sat on top with a hose, spraying water on the pots of flowers that hung from the streetlights.
I got halfway through my cigarette and stubbed it out. Sometimes it's all too much work, you know what I mean?
bunniewunnie
Yo mammi, I know I look tired…
by TRUE
I paged D. and because I didn’t have anything better to do, I ended up accompanying him on his afternoon rounds. Sadly, his truck was impounded in March. I feel for him. That shit was bad ass—but not in a played out bling bling kind of way. D. doesn’t front like he’s big pimpin. He’s got a wife and a kid. His ride was what it was—a shiny black pick-up. A gilded workhorse. After 9/11 a plastic american flag flapped wildly on its antenna. I won’t tell you what he drives now except that it’s vastly inferior. Actually, he has several cars as well as an entire collection of bikes, scooters and ATVs. This particular vehicle, however, was lame. I wore my shades and pretended that I was undercover.
hey. i love those movies like donnie brasco and deep cover where the cop goes in all the way down and stays there, trying only to do his job and breathe the air and check the scenery but the situation gets twisted as situations so often do…he makes money, gets girls, befriends the antagonist, that goddamn perfectly cast Lucifer character—the rebel angel so dashing and charming and strong and good looking that everyone’s cunt throbs in and out to the bass beat of the dolby decimals…
In the tradition of grand theater plays, a decision is presented, padded by suspense and chase sequences and an uneven hip-hop soundtrack: Will our hero turn to the dark side and take up a life of financially rewarding crime?
(Or will he kiss his one true love instead? Will he pull her to him and press his chin on her shoulder, his cheek against her hair, taking in the scent of her. Will he get to close his eyes and finally achieve that state of Just Letting Go that’s so often touted in the lyrics of pop songs?)
At some point between clients I stuff my money under the stereo that’s hardly ever on. D. pushed his long hair behind his ears. He fumbled around for a bag, talking about his wife and son, and then about the girls wearing nothing up in his neighborhood.
“One thing I like about the heat—the clothes come off on the la-dies,” he shot me a questioning look as we hooked around and pulled out on the West Side Highway. I think he’s trying to find out if I’m gay.
I don’t mind, he can think and say whatever he wants. As long as he keeps coming up with those next level trees, it's all good.
eight-three-five be smokin the la-la-la
Jennyeah be smokin the la-la-la
anti and whitey be smokin the la-la-la
Trav'ling lady, stay awhile...
by sterling
...until the night is over
i'm just a station on your way
i know i'm not your lover.
(leonard cohen, you don't stop.)
Two T1s and a Microphone (the babysitting TRUE while i'm at work mix)
by sterling
(hey everybody! it's the online, version of that game where you write something and fold the paper over so that the other person can only see the last line. then they have to write something back, and so on, until there's no more room and you unfold the now ragged page and read aloud, all giggles at your wacky poetics and unintended inferences...in place of a physical fold, we're utilizing the swanky new blogger scrollbar... TRUE lost the coin toss so i go first and she's in italics...)
Message! Message! Something's got a hold on me and I don't know what
Something's got a hold on me and I don't know what
It's the beginning of a new age... A note from the underground...
...where i'm forced to hide my hideous deformity. my peeps backed-out and got jacked-up, my mind's taped and masked-out.
there's no easy way down...
it's been too long a time since you've been wranglin' out in the street...you've got to say goodbye to all that, the comfort, the false sense of safety...you've got to drink the shit that makes you sick, makes your mind flip...(and so i drank one it became four, and when i fell on the floor i drank more)
you've got to wake up in a strange place with the gangbang closing in. huge dicks pressing eagerly against your neck and eyelids like the answer to a question you never dared to ask.
the smell of ammonium, on your knees and ashamed that you're about to cum in a stranger's cellar...
cellar, seller, sell me out.
you ain't got no political clout!
give me your tired, your poor...the masses of the unconnected, standing together on the subway platform. the train came at last, infusing their bodies with a yellow light that electrified eyes and necklaces...
...when you're strange, no one remembers your name...
half a world away, your shoes are gone
(blackbirds, backwards)
For a few seconds the two boys seem to be moving in reverse, as the train glides into the station, going in the opposite direction. Through the flashing windows I can see their faces, one expressing to the other the wish to race--the one who is asked is cockeyed and confident. His expression asks, 'are you sure?'.
Then they're off...frame by frame in the passing windows, flickering brightly like an old movie. Arms pumping, grinning faces straining forward. The guy who was sure of himself wins, reaching the tiled stairway well ahead of his friend. Turning back, laughing.
There's the yellow light again, and that mournful bell signalling the opening of the doors.
...revealing my little room, my sad, lonely world. look there at the wall--the patch of paint chiselled out by idle fingernails
you can see all the old colors, four layers deep...
...just like BRANDTRUEBOY. there's the father the son and the holy ghost. plus one extra layer for all the prophets.
The task at hand: to remove all vestiges of "me" from my writing. I'd like to produce an impersonal work, one that is deliberate and slow moving like the orbitting planets or the growth of garden vegetables.
Make me over.
make me over, make me out. you smiling whore. why the fuck did you kill kurt? a lot of kids came up to me, talking about revolution...evolution...
the going price of an eighth...
Split double, into fourths. If only I could cut time, buffer my minutes with some baby powder. Can't I be measured on the basis of what I conjecture, and not upon what I actually produce?
by TRUE
oh, ho. what's the story, party people? i'm locked out of my friends pad (south bronx represent) so i'm here chillin with sterling at her place of work. soon to be ex place of work, as i have a proud and hallowed tradition of getting bitches fired. so here i am now, entertain me! that's right, sterling. big reading over my shoulder with one eye half open! don't front with that "you need to get up now" shit. i don't see your nameplate on this swank ass aeron chair.
what i've been able to scam from corporate america thus far: software. a box of 40 OB tampons and bumble and bumble hair shit from the bathroom. three handfuls of single serve timothy's world coffee (french roast and french vanilla). a couple of boxes of those light blue pilot precise V7 pens that i adore so. a stack of yellow steno pads, the kind my dad used to cover with his loopy ass prose. more software. blank CD-Rs (i'm making mixes for y'all), pink post-its, two glue sticks, some serious heavy-ass-gouge-a-motherfucker's-lung-out-metal scissors. a "while you were out" phone message book, complete with yellow carbon copy pages.
did i mention software?
the crunch-crunch of the carbon copy brings me back to the days of soap erasers and blue xerox "ditto paper" that got you a little bit high if you sniffed it hard enough.
you best believe i was sniffing with all my might, party people.
wah lee
oh, ho. what's the story, party people? i'm locked out of my friends pad (south bronx represent) so i'm here chillin with sterling at her place of work. soon to be ex place of work, as i have a proud and hallowed tradition of getting bitches fired. so here i am now, entertain me! that's right, sterling. big reading over my shoulder with one eye half open! don't front with that "you need to get up now" shit. i don't see your nameplate on this swank ass aeron chair.
what i've been able to scam from corporate america thus far: software. a box of 40 OB tampons and bumble and bumble hair shit from the bathroom. three handfuls of single serve timothy's world coffee (french roast and french vanilla). a couple of boxes of those light blue pilot precise V7 pens that i adore so. a stack of yellow steno pads, the kind my dad used to cover with his loopy ass prose. more software. blank CD-Rs (i'm making mixes for y'all), pink post-its, two glue sticks, some serious heavy-ass-gouge-a-motherfucker's-lung-out-metal scissors. a "while you were out" phone message book, complete with yellow carbon copy pages.
did i mention software?
the crunch-crunch of the carbon copy brings me back to the days of soap erasers and blue xerox "ditto paper" that got you a little bit high if you sniffed it hard enough.
you best believe i was sniffing with all my might, party people.
wah lee
by TRUE
i close my eyes and imagine suburbia's blue streetlight glow. row after row of flat brown rooftops. perfect green lawns symbolizing the bless'd wholesomeness of space and lo-density safety.
cars.
the risen lord.
belgium is the size of new jersey, for example.
I've had a strange sick feeling in my gut ever since "we touched the ground at JFK".
angel of harlem
my country tis of thee.
slower
raymitheminx.com is not the answer. and it is not the question. it is what i wanted and what i started, the best way i knew how. the internet is the answer. ray mi the min x . com.
whatthe?...don't fool yourself, it's a big country out there...there are many, many blogcrews to do battle with...
i close my eyes and imagine suburbia's blue streetlight glow. row after row of flat brown rooftops. perfect green lawns symbolizing the bless'd wholesomeness of space and lo-density safety.
cars.
the risen lord.
belgium is the size of new jersey, for example.
I've had a strange sick feeling in my gut ever since "we touched the ground at JFK".
angel of harlem
my country tis of thee.
slower
raymitheminx.com is not the answer. and it is not the question. it is what i wanted and what i started, the best way i knew how. the internet is the answer. ray mi the min x . com.
Back in the USSR...
by TRUE
...boy...
you don't know how lucky you are...BOY
thisisamagazine...because everybody wants a shadylane
i light a smoke and lean back in a heavy morning gospel chair. i haven't slept yet. when you go this long without sleep you become afraid of the sudden drop.
the bellyflop into the abyss.
i'd rather space out to the beat of life's knock in my wrists.
cha-chum, cha-chum, cha-chum
gears switch, hydraulics hiss
greased with ancient residue, I'm my parent's genetic wish
half-granted, half-mistake
with fine-tuned migration instincts like a fish...
the blue waves of the harlem river are in freeze-frame, thick like icing on the cake.
(when things switch, I chop a new niche)
thankyoujamie
the gray light is different. it glows with an inner bling. a new york thing.
by fitzcarraldo
darling, it's so boring without you!
Fired. Finally. How many porn sites was I going to have to FORCE myself to look at before someone pulled the switch? It’s not as though I was burrowed away in some back office—I was at the front desk with a 17 inch flat screen monitor, for fuck’s sake. My former boss, an impossibly good hearted wench named Jill, informed me that as “The face of the company” I was not “relaying” the company’s “belief system” to its “valued visitors”. I told her no hard feelings, and that perhaps I was better qualified to be the lap of a company than its face. At this her already bugged out eyes bugged out further, and after dryly pumping my hand she excused herself in order to puke up her marinated tofu lunch.
Those of you who know me know that I am glad, glad, glad to get canned. It was, in fact, my goal and highest priority. I’m not at all cut out for the daily grind. I develop a rash. Fluorescent lighting gives me migraines. Filter coffee gives me the runs. The rush hour commute makes me hate without prejudice. Mine is a contemplative, sedentary existence. Why live in the world when you can live in your head?
I’m golden and weak and I break easy. Just ask Mother.
She feels so bad about her poor little boy getting the shaft that she’s dispensing with the usual mint green bank check and wiring my monthly “allowance” directly into my account.
Aaah, progress!
The working life strips the veil of symbolism from things. One can not hope to retain a refined sensibility in a 9 to 5. In just a few short weeks, whatever innate and cherished nobility one might have had has leaked out all over the cubicle in the form of politically correct email replies, terse digital telephone rings, multi-colored post-its, org charts that flow in every which direction but never end up anywhere…dress down Fridays…etc, bloody etc. Classiness must remain mysterious in order for it to be truly captivating, like a plainly dressed woman who everyone knows is wealthy even if she isn’t wearing any jewels and is just standing on the curb hailing a cab. It’s an ineffable something in the cheekbones of her face--it’s a dainty way of moving her wrist and making an event out of an otherwise ordinary afternoon.
It has to do with impeccable posture and perfectly filed fingernails…with having clean, silky hair and a certain way of saying “hello.”
It’s all about money, but at the same time it has nothing to do with it whatsoever. A princess is a princess is a princess. Incidentally, though, I think that American money is the best kind of money whether it has the highest value or not, because it has the best design. I once threw it into the East River down by the Staten Island Ferry just to see it float. My boyfriend at the time was convinced I’d lost it. Years later, I was pleasantly surprised and reassured when a friend told me that Andy Warhol had done the exact same thing.
classy ass mott cromby
darling, it's so boring without you!
Fired. Finally. How many porn sites was I going to have to FORCE myself to look at before someone pulled the switch? It’s not as though I was burrowed away in some back office—I was at the front desk with a 17 inch flat screen monitor, for fuck’s sake. My former boss, an impossibly good hearted wench named Jill, informed me that as “The face of the company” I was not “relaying” the company’s “belief system” to its “valued visitors”. I told her no hard feelings, and that perhaps I was better qualified to be the lap of a company than its face. At this her already bugged out eyes bugged out further, and after dryly pumping my hand she excused herself in order to puke up her marinated tofu lunch.
Those of you who know me know that I am glad, glad, glad to get canned. It was, in fact, my goal and highest priority. I’m not at all cut out for the daily grind. I develop a rash. Fluorescent lighting gives me migraines. Filter coffee gives me the runs. The rush hour commute makes me hate without prejudice. Mine is a contemplative, sedentary existence. Why live in the world when you can live in your head?
I’m golden and weak and I break easy. Just ask Mother.
She feels so bad about her poor little boy getting the shaft that she’s dispensing with the usual mint green bank check and wiring my monthly “allowance” directly into my account.
Aaah, progress!
The working life strips the veil of symbolism from things. One can not hope to retain a refined sensibility in a 9 to 5. In just a few short weeks, whatever innate and cherished nobility one might have had has leaked out all over the cubicle in the form of politically correct email replies, terse digital telephone rings, multi-colored post-its, org charts that flow in every which direction but never end up anywhere…dress down Fridays…etc, bloody etc. Classiness must remain mysterious in order for it to be truly captivating, like a plainly dressed woman who everyone knows is wealthy even if she isn’t wearing any jewels and is just standing on the curb hailing a cab. It’s an ineffable something in the cheekbones of her face--it’s a dainty way of moving her wrist and making an event out of an otherwise ordinary afternoon.
It has to do with impeccable posture and perfectly filed fingernails…with having clean, silky hair and a certain way of saying “hello.”
It’s all about money, but at the same time it has nothing to do with it whatsoever. A princess is a princess is a princess. Incidentally, though, I think that American money is the best kind of money whether it has the highest value or not, because it has the best design. I once threw it into the East River down by the Staten Island Ferry just to see it float. My boyfriend at the time was convinced I’d lost it. Years later, I was pleasantly surprised and reassured when a friend told me that Andy Warhol had done the exact same thing.
classy ass mott cromby
Nerves don't fail me now...
by sterling
The inevitable litany: Have I changed? Do I look different? Is the sadness that appears like a scratch on my corneas a new thing or has it been there all along?
What do I have to show for myself?
How can I explain?
The Real Ish
by TRUE
Motherfucker Brit undercover store detective sheizzerkopfs (or whatever the word for ‘shithead’ is in German—if it’s one thing the Germans have a handle on, it’s shit). Two days left in this dried up twat of a country (bejewled isle, yeah right—England can kiss my euro fannypack) and I get tapped for shoplifting. At pansy ass Self-ish-ridges of all places, that avenue-thick, three block long fortress of a department store nightmare, where, incidentally, I once had a breakdown on the escalator trying to get to the subterranean luggage dept. Will someone please tell me when, oh, when will I learn to avoid the scene of the crime? Vibes, karma, I don’t know what it is--some places are just bad news and there t’ain’t no amount of time or greenbacks that’s going to change it. But here’s the rub-a-dub, party people: I got tapped and brought down to the in-store clink (metal tables, cloth handcuffs, psych ward style) even though I didn’t take shit (sheizzer). For real, honest-to-goodness, I swear on my biz class (you know how we do) plane ticket to NYC. All I did was peel off a hologram sticker from the lid of a New Era cap (BoSox, whatimsayin) to replace the one that fell off my recently PURCHASED (OK, not from Selfridges, but the point is I BOUGHT IT) throwback Detroit Tigers cap. What’s the point of rocking a brand new hat if it’s missing the sticker? I thought I could hold off until I got to NYC, but when I got high last night that bare ass lid looked back at me in the mirror, bringing tears of shame to my eyes, so that I had to say “enough”.
Party people, you know how it is. Sometimes you just gotta say “enough”.
They pulled the sticker out of my sweaty palm. They brought me swiftly downstairs and put me through the paces. They called me by the name in my passport. They claimed to have no understanding as to why I might want to take a sticker but not the hat.
“Look,” I said, “I’m willing to buy the sticker. How much does it cost, 50p?”
The undercover frowned. He rubbed his chin and narrowed his eyes.
“The point is not the cost.”
His partner scrawled something on a sheet of paper and placed it in a folder.
“The point we're concerned with,” he said, his South London accent infused with all sorts of moviecop bullshit, “is how you're going to pay for it.”
kevyn malone
The last time I saw TRUE...
by sterling
…her poor swollen shoulders were being massaged by Fitzcarraldo. She was topless, arms akimbo. Autumn was rough on her arthritis. As for me, I was everything I usually was, and I couldn’t help but watch as she tried to get some relief. I stood transfixed in the middle of my kitchen with a Brita and a dishtowel. Fitz’s large hands kneaded on. I’d seen him do this before but I’d never noticed how professional and compassionate he was, two qualities I wouldn’t ordinarily ascribe to him. He steadied one knee against a chair and hunched over, forming a straight line across his shoulders. I watched his forearm muscles flex in hard, tight lines.
I remember the doll-like appearance of TRUE’s skin in the yellow fluorescent light as she leaned forward, trying desperately to loosen the knots of muscle and nerve that had seized up across her back.
I thought, she’s in pain and he’s in love and neither of them will ever say a thing.
sweet babygirl bing
by fitzcarraldo
whambamthankyoublam
Go figure, sweethearts. In a city filled to the rim with intellectual poseurs and wannabe freak mamas--all talking loud but not sayin nothing--Sterling and I stumbled upon the real deal holyfield waaaay uptown, where I’d gone to be introduced to and in due turn spook the shit out of her sugary little yuppie German fuck bunny. Nothing serious, don’t worry. Just some good, clean conversational fun on a Saturday morn.
The night before having been a tad debauch, by the time we left the kleine frau I had to insist to Sterling that we make a stop at the nearest Starbucks. Yeah, I know. Listen. I give two shits about the so-called middle class-ification of the world via Starbucks and McDo. Facts are facts: I was in desperate need of an Iced Soy Chai Latte for the hangover that was just starting to show its face.
Upon collapsing onto the kindergarten style spongy cushions, I immediately noticed three thirty something, beautiful and stylish black and Latina women gathered around one of those horrible squat Starbucks tables that I’m always murdering my shins upon. Two were actresses staging a piece together. The other seemed to be a comedian, or some kind of performance artist.
I liked them immediately. They talked about the characters they were working on as though they were real people. She’s my double, I’ve put into her all the things that I don’t dare think about, said one woman, her voice tinged with the easy-going humor of those who are completely convinced in the worth of what they’re doing. She wore carpenter jeans and an electric lime green football jersey with a faded number on the front.
Oh, I think about her a lot. I’ll close my eyes and try to think about whatever she would be thinking about in that moment, said her friend, who had the most gorgeous neck and managed to pull off wearing pigtails without looking trashy or ridiculous.
The third woman was more dressed up in a white pant suit. She had a long face and looked as though she might have been part Native American. There was a tasteful diamond stud in her nose—a classy declaration of alternative thinking. She told the story of her seven year old daughter having assumed the personality of some character she’d seen on TV. The woman may have said the character’s name or the show she was on, but I didn’t catch it. Regardless she was a tough, foul mouthed broad, and her daughter’s imitation led to her calling out “Yo, bitch,” to one of the neighbors.
You always hear about those bad kids with the bad mouths and you’re like, oh, no—those OTHER kids, they’re so messed up. But then, suddenly, there’s a phone call and it’s YOUR kid who’s messed up and you can’t believe they got that way. I was like, what? MY daughter? How completely ridiculous.
I laughed into my Venti cup. I had the feeling that these women were just like us—smart, creative, trying to get their piece of the pie. They were a few years older, and going through kids and real relationships and all the things that we were going to have.
(That’s right, I come from a long line of whiteboy fag divas who suffer delusions of being a black woman. Elton, Freddie, David and George, for starters.)
R.I.P.
I kicked Sterling’s foot.
“Yeah?” she asked, reluctantly looking up over her glasses.
“You’re listening?” I whispered.
“Of course,” she said. “Shhhhhhhh.”
But the girls were leaving. I felt it had something to do with me. That perhaps they’d felt me looking at them so hard.
“They were cool,” Sterling said, slurping up the last of her iced coffee.
“You’ve got that right.”
“You see Fitz, things are happening in the City. Fuck what all your lazy ass fashion magazines have to say--all that always already out-of-date glossy staleness. It’s about what’s going on out on the street, under the radar."
Sterling scooped up the plastic lid and napkins she’d deposited upon the arm of her chair.
“In a Starbucks of all places,” she said, smirking at the absurdity of it all. She threw her garbage into the trash.
“I don’t think this is the quote unquote street, darling,” I said, laconically.
Sterling laughed. Such a melodious, thrilling sound. People nearby turned in their plastic seats, smiling just to have heard it.
“C’mon, let’s get the fuck out of here,” she said.
We pushed open the glass and plastic doors and stood in the sunshine. I lit a cigarette. Sterling bounced up and down on the balls of her feet.
“Do you feel like you’re ready?” she asked, her voice deepening as it only did when we spoke about one thing.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think there will be much drama this time around.”
“’This time,’” she repeated, still bouncing. I got the feeling she was trying not to look in my direction.
“You haven’t told this kid,” I said, referring to the German girl.
“What’s to tell?” Sterling said. She sighed and reached out her hand for me to give her my cigarette, which I did.
“An old friend is coming back from Europe, that’s all,” she said, and proceeded to take two drags, quick and hard.
blahblog
whambamthankyoublam
Go figure, sweethearts. In a city filled to the rim with intellectual poseurs and wannabe freak mamas--all talking loud but not sayin nothing--Sterling and I stumbled upon the real deal holyfield waaaay uptown, where I’d gone to be introduced to and in due turn spook the shit out of her sugary little yuppie German fuck bunny. Nothing serious, don’t worry. Just some good, clean conversational fun on a Saturday morn.
The night before having been a tad debauch, by the time we left the kleine frau I had to insist to Sterling that we make a stop at the nearest Starbucks. Yeah, I know. Listen. I give two shits about the so-called middle class-ification of the world via Starbucks and McDo. Facts are facts: I was in desperate need of an Iced Soy Chai Latte for the hangover that was just starting to show its face.
Upon collapsing onto the kindergarten style spongy cushions, I immediately noticed three thirty something, beautiful and stylish black and Latina women gathered around one of those horrible squat Starbucks tables that I’m always murdering my shins upon. Two were actresses staging a piece together. The other seemed to be a comedian, or some kind of performance artist.
I liked them immediately. They talked about the characters they were working on as though they were real people. She’s my double, I’ve put into her all the things that I don’t dare think about, said one woman, her voice tinged with the easy-going humor of those who are completely convinced in the worth of what they’re doing. She wore carpenter jeans and an electric lime green football jersey with a faded number on the front.
Oh, I think about her a lot. I’ll close my eyes and try to think about whatever she would be thinking about in that moment, said her friend, who had the most gorgeous neck and managed to pull off wearing pigtails without looking trashy or ridiculous.
The third woman was more dressed up in a white pant suit. She had a long face and looked as though she might have been part Native American. There was a tasteful diamond stud in her nose—a classy declaration of alternative thinking. She told the story of her seven year old daughter having assumed the personality of some character she’d seen on TV. The woman may have said the character’s name or the show she was on, but I didn’t catch it. Regardless she was a tough, foul mouthed broad, and her daughter’s imitation led to her calling out “Yo, bitch,” to one of the neighbors.
You always hear about those bad kids with the bad mouths and you’re like, oh, no—those OTHER kids, they’re so messed up. But then, suddenly, there’s a phone call and it’s YOUR kid who’s messed up and you can’t believe they got that way. I was like, what? MY daughter? How completely ridiculous.
I laughed into my Venti cup. I had the feeling that these women were just like us—smart, creative, trying to get their piece of the pie. They were a few years older, and going through kids and real relationships and all the things that we were going to have.
(That’s right, I come from a long line of whiteboy fag divas who suffer delusions of being a black woman. Elton, Freddie, David and George, for starters.)
R.I.P.
I kicked Sterling’s foot.
“Yeah?” she asked, reluctantly looking up over her glasses.
“You’re listening?” I whispered.
“Of course,” she said. “Shhhhhhhh.”
But the girls were leaving. I felt it had something to do with me. That perhaps they’d felt me looking at them so hard.
“They were cool,” Sterling said, slurping up the last of her iced coffee.
“You’ve got that right.”
“You see Fitz, things are happening in the City. Fuck what all your lazy ass fashion magazines have to say--all that always already out-of-date glossy staleness. It’s about what’s going on out on the street, under the radar."
Sterling scooped up the plastic lid and napkins she’d deposited upon the arm of her chair.
“In a Starbucks of all places,” she said, smirking at the absurdity of it all. She threw her garbage into the trash.
“I don’t think this is the quote unquote street, darling,” I said, laconically.
Sterling laughed. Such a melodious, thrilling sound. People nearby turned in their plastic seats, smiling just to have heard it.
“C’mon, let’s get the fuck out of here,” she said.
We pushed open the glass and plastic doors and stood in the sunshine. I lit a cigarette. Sterling bounced up and down on the balls of her feet.
“Do you feel like you’re ready?” she asked, her voice deepening as it only did when we spoke about one thing.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think there will be much drama this time around.”
“’This time,’” she repeated, still bouncing. I got the feeling she was trying not to look in my direction.
“You haven’t told this kid,” I said, referring to the German girl.
“What’s to tell?” Sterling said. She sighed and reached out her hand for me to give her my cigarette, which I did.
“An old friend is coming back from Europe, that’s all,” she said, and proceeded to take two drags, quick and hard.
blahblog
(I was lookin' back to see if you were lookin' back at me to see me lookin' back at you)
by sterling
I’m a very quiet person. In real life I hardly say a word. My voice is fluttery and high-pitched.
(I know, I know. The way I write made you think it would be deep and raspy).
I prefer to watch. I can sit still for hours, transfixed by the movements of someone’s face while they talk to other people.
I like when they know I’m watching and go on as if.
For every card laid face down on the table there’s another held close against the chest.
There comes a time, however, when the moment becomes overripe (one furtive, searching glance too many) and I’m forced to speak up.
(when I break in, with that smile that is aching, it might be too ugly to look on)
“Excuse me. Hello. My name is Sterling Fassbinder.”
(what’s your game, pancake?)
I try to look in a person’s eyes. It’s that first few seconds that decide everything. Some pliable, otherworldly shit in the eyes gives way and you know (right there and then) whether or not you’ll be plumbing each other’s depths. It could be a society girl in a club or it could be a guy polishing his five dollar shades on the train. No difference. It’s not about sexuality—not right away, at any rate. Initially it’s about power. Raw, human-to- human (station-to-station) uncut, unadulterated power.
It’s the power to make someone do something, as well as the power to make them whole.
kool keith vs. the moxie minions
by fitzcarraldo
Let’s get something straight (ha! I’m so punny!)
Just because I laid the pipe with a chick doesn’t make me any less a faggot.
Out of a sea of cum what I gave to her was only a drop.
That's like comparing a skimped-out dime to a whole pot crop.
Or a mall security guard to a Dunkin Donuts full of cops.
Or the difference in bandwidth between Moxie and MoxiePop.
Let’s get something straight (ha! I’m so punny!)
Just because I laid the pipe with a chick doesn’t make me any less a faggot.
Out of a sea of cum what I gave to her was only a drop.
That's like comparing a skimped-out dime to a whole pot crop.
Or a mall security guard to a Dunkin Donuts full of cops.
Or the difference in bandwidth between Moxie and MoxiePop.
by fitzcarraldo
TRUE’s the sugar and I’m the hot coffee.
She’ll never say it, but it’s because of me that she left New York.
She needed an interruption: a break from feeling constantly exposed.
(And she certainly was exposed, ladies and gentlemen.)
I wish I could tell you the whole story, but you see it goes backwards and forwards at the same time.
There would have to be two of me in order to tell it.
Anyway, it’s more a feeling in the chest than a story,
And feelings in the chest can not be communicated.
Unless it's by a barroom song sung at closing time,
When everyone panics and starts scanning the room for someone who'll do..
Hooking up with TRUE meant I was finished with that level of loneliness, the drawback being that I don’t feel as though I’ve had a private moment since 1995.
killyrboyfriend
You're fishing for explanations? I’ll give you one.
TRUE’s the sugar and I’m the hot coffee.
She’ll never say it, but it’s because of me that she left New York.
She needed an interruption: a break from feeling constantly exposed.
(And she certainly was exposed, ladies and gentlemen.)
I wish I could tell you the whole story, but you see it goes backwards and forwards at the same time.
There would have to be two of me in order to tell it.
Anyway, it’s more a feeling in the chest than a story,
And feelings in the chest can not be communicated.
Unless it's by a barroom song sung at closing time,
When everyone panics and starts scanning the room for someone who'll do..
Hooking up with TRUE meant I was finished with that level of loneliness, the drawback being that I don’t feel as though I’ve had a private moment since 1995.
killyrboyfriend
Don't hunt anything you can't kill.
by sterlingYes, of course I want to be happy. I'm just so fucking scared of being bored.
My nightmare is that I'm going to end up fashionable and alone.
davidchoe
It was late, she dragged dinner out for as far as it would go and now the empty plates and coffee cups stared back blankly at us from around the room.
Should I stay or should I go? There’s always that moment in a date when one has to decide to take control if it hasn’t already been taken, otherwise the evening looses it’s shape like clay left unattended on a spinning pottery wheel. I leaned back in the over-stuffed chair I’d deposited myself in, my hands gripping the armrests. I watched her without saying anything as she sat on the couch, nervously pulling on her shoulder length hair, trying not to look but looking nevertheless at my gloved right hand.
“Would you rather I take it off?” I asked.
“What?” she asked, her eyes going politely blank. Although she had only a faint accent left, her English charm was still going strong.
“The glove.”
“Oh, right. That. No! Not unless you want to, of course.”
“I want to make you comfortable.”
“Oh,” she giggled and looked down. As she explained to me in the cab, she’d only “done this” one other time before.
She jumped up and started gathering the dishes.
“Hey, no,” I said. “Come here.”
“OK.”
She put the dishes on the coffee table and walked over. I stared at her belt and then at her thin white wrists. I purposely waited too long before saying anything.
“Maybe you want to take it off?”
“Me?”
“Sure, why not?”
“But maybe you want to leave it on…”
“It doesn’t matter to me. But don’t you want to take a look?”
“No!”
“C’mon!”
I turned my hand palm up on the armrest. The last two fingers jutted out stiffly.
“It’s a batting glove.”
“I know.”
She bit her lower lip.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
I nodded and she undid the Velcro strap. Then she pinched the tip of my middle finger and slid the glove off my hand.
“Oh,” she said looking down at the prosthetic. I watched her face turn from worried to curious to fascinated.
“They’re so perfect,” she said. She leaned down for a closer look, bending over my knees. Her hair fell forward, revealing the doll white line of her neck.
“May I touch them?”
“Go ahead,” I said, still staring at her neck. As I watched, a patch of red appeared in the center.
She felt my fingers, first poking at them with the tips of hers and then touching them fully.
I pressed myself back as far as I could against the chair.
“Are you OK?” I asked, as I watched the rash deepen into a darker shade of red. It looked vaguely like the state of California.
“Yes,” she said, her voice a bit deeper than before. She turned to me, her face inches from mine.
“Why?”
briar
by TRUE
1998: The three of us walk into the casino at Baden Baden, deep with the shades and long white cigarettes. “More Reservoir than Tarantino,” remarks Sterling, who’s looking dapper in her dark green, Dries Van Noten suit. I nod and flip back my hair. Fitz hands us each a wad of bills. I’m playing the part of The Gambler in my suave ass Vivienne Westwood, sporting my sling back heels and black lace tights hand woven into intricate pornographic patterns that run along the inside of my thighs. Outside it’s hot and bright and humid from all the water shooting into the air from the famous Baden-Baden spas, but inside the casino it’s cool and dry like a museum. Everything echoes against the marble floors and walls. The place is nearly empty. We saddle up to the glistening bar and slouch under the lights. I feel like an international criminal on the run. Fitz tells the bartender to bring us a bottle of champagne. He and I touch glasses and then tap Sterling’s, which is still on the bar. “Cheers, Dears,” she mumbles, and hovers over the top of the drink like a hummingbird. After the first sip her hand is steady enough to pick up the glass.
We head for the floor, feet sinking into the ancient red carpet that’s soaked through with a million conversations and exhalations, as well as microscopic bits of hair and skin and sweat. Fitz is the only one whose German is good enough for Poker. Sterling and I lose a few hands of Black Jack before moving over to the Roulette wheels. I’m transfixed by the old fashioned-ness, the spinning, creaking wood sighing reluctantly as the greased metal gears send it whirling. There are no blinking lights, computer soundtracks or hysterically ringing sirens, just a red faced attendant guy wearing black pants, a white shirt and an ill fitting black jacket. There a green casino insignia on the front pocket, the same one that graced the corners of the thick white cocktail napkins. He nods his head in an exaggerated, coked-up kind of way. When he hands me a stack of chips I notice that his fingernails are chewed down to the nub.
Time passes but we have no awareness of it, as the only windows in the casino are tiny portals just beneath the ceiling.
“Leaded glass,” Sterling reports, while she plays hopscotch with the patterns on the floor.
“What little light there is has gone green,” she says as a waiter serves her a martini from a silver tray. He addresses her as “Sir”.
“I feel like I’m in a New Order video,” she said, before berating the waiter for having run out of olives.
We throw our last Deutsche Marks on the wheel and stagger off to find Fitz. We wander around and around, getting hard looks from little old men as we drunkenly call out his name. I stop Sterling from going off on one of them, and we proceed to have one of our terrible fights, in which each accuses the other of being a fake and a liar. We pull out all the stops, using every name in the book, spitting on the floor and pulling at our hair, insane with emotion and alcohol. Finally, we end up in a bathroom stall, where Sterling digs out her works from her suit jacket and we shoot up and fall against the partition, sweating and laughing. The towel lady freaks out. She yells something at us in German and then we hear her scurry out the door.
I slide all the way to the floor and sit slumped against the toilet. My legs are spread and my skirt’s hiked all the way up to my crotch.
Sterling hands me a cigarette that’s already lit.
“We need to boogie,” I say through numb lips.
“I wish we could stay here forever,” Sterling says, dreamily.
“Bitch is getting her boss,” I say.
“We could exist, timeless, forever…you and me.”
I squint up at her. She’s calm and in control, the H having set her straight.
“God, Sterling, we’ve been through this. You’re a girl.”
“What if I became a boy for you?”
“A what?”
“You know, I was thinking. I’ll get an operation.”
“You’re on drugs.”
“I’ll get off drugs.”
“I like you as you are, c’mon what is this shit?”
“But I want you to like me more.”
“Sterrrrrr-ling,” I sing. It’s a song that she knows.
“No, TRUE, I’m serious. I want to be with you.”
“Sterrrrr-ling Fasssssssssss-bin-da.”
“TRUE, please.”
“You don’t really want to be a boy.”
“I’m willing to do what it takes.”
“No, I can’t get over it.”
“Maybe not at first, but you could train yourself to think of me as a… I don’t know, as your husband. Why the fuck not?”
“Flesh, Sterling. Flesh doesn’t lie. It’s irreducible. It’s the point where there can be no metaphor.”
“But I’ll get an operation.”
“But you’ll always be a girl and so will I.”
“Couldn’t you pretend?”
“Pretend……?” I close my eyes and see the roulette wheels, spinning off into infinity. I feel the Casino’s marble arches pressing down on me from above. It's a cool, smooth weight.
“No, I can’t pretend,” I reach up and push the hair out of her eyes.
“But it’s nice of you to think that I could.”
therealkidgod
1998: The three of us walk into the casino at Baden Baden, deep with the shades and long white cigarettes. “More Reservoir than Tarantino,” remarks Sterling, who’s looking dapper in her dark green, Dries Van Noten suit. I nod and flip back my hair. Fitz hands us each a wad of bills. I’m playing the part of The Gambler in my suave ass Vivienne Westwood, sporting my sling back heels and black lace tights hand woven into intricate pornographic patterns that run along the inside of my thighs. Outside it’s hot and bright and humid from all the water shooting into the air from the famous Baden-Baden spas, but inside the casino it’s cool and dry like a museum. Everything echoes against the marble floors and walls. The place is nearly empty. We saddle up to the glistening bar and slouch under the lights. I feel like an international criminal on the run. Fitz tells the bartender to bring us a bottle of champagne. He and I touch glasses and then tap Sterling’s, which is still on the bar. “Cheers, Dears,” she mumbles, and hovers over the top of the drink like a hummingbird. After the first sip her hand is steady enough to pick up the glass.
We head for the floor, feet sinking into the ancient red carpet that’s soaked through with a million conversations and exhalations, as well as microscopic bits of hair and skin and sweat. Fitz is the only one whose German is good enough for Poker. Sterling and I lose a few hands of Black Jack before moving over to the Roulette wheels. I’m transfixed by the old fashioned-ness, the spinning, creaking wood sighing reluctantly as the greased metal gears send it whirling. There are no blinking lights, computer soundtracks or hysterically ringing sirens, just a red faced attendant guy wearing black pants, a white shirt and an ill fitting black jacket. There a green casino insignia on the front pocket, the same one that graced the corners of the thick white cocktail napkins. He nods his head in an exaggerated, coked-up kind of way. When he hands me a stack of chips I notice that his fingernails are chewed down to the nub.
Time passes but we have no awareness of it, as the only windows in the casino are tiny portals just beneath the ceiling.
“Leaded glass,” Sterling reports, while she plays hopscotch with the patterns on the floor.
“What little light there is has gone green,” she says as a waiter serves her a martini from a silver tray. He addresses her as “Sir”.
“I feel like I’m in a New Order video,” she said, before berating the waiter for having run out of olives.
We throw our last Deutsche Marks on the wheel and stagger off to find Fitz. We wander around and around, getting hard looks from little old men as we drunkenly call out his name. I stop Sterling from going off on one of them, and we proceed to have one of our terrible fights, in which each accuses the other of being a fake and a liar. We pull out all the stops, using every name in the book, spitting on the floor and pulling at our hair, insane with emotion and alcohol. Finally, we end up in a bathroom stall, where Sterling digs out her works from her suit jacket and we shoot up and fall against the partition, sweating and laughing. The towel lady freaks out. She yells something at us in German and then we hear her scurry out the door.
I slide all the way to the floor and sit slumped against the toilet. My legs are spread and my skirt’s hiked all the way up to my crotch.
Sterling hands me a cigarette that’s already lit.
“We need to boogie,” I say through numb lips.
“I wish we could stay here forever,” Sterling says, dreamily.
“Bitch is getting her boss,” I say.
“We could exist, timeless, forever…you and me.”
I squint up at her. She’s calm and in control, the H having set her straight.
“God, Sterling, we’ve been through this. You’re a girl.”
“What if I became a boy for you?”
“A what?”
“You know, I was thinking. I’ll get an operation.”
“You’re on drugs.”
“I’ll get off drugs.”
“I like you as you are, c’mon what is this shit?”
“But I want you to like me more.”
“Sterrrrrr-ling,” I sing. It’s a song that she knows.
“No, TRUE, I’m serious. I want to be with you.”
“Sterrrrr-ling Fasssssssssss-bin-da.”
“TRUE, please.”
“You don’t really want to be a boy.”
“I’m willing to do what it takes.”
“No, I can’t get over it.”
“Maybe not at first, but you could train yourself to think of me as a… I don’t know, as your husband. Why the fuck not?”
“Flesh, Sterling. Flesh doesn’t lie. It’s irreducible. It’s the point where there can be no metaphor.”
“But I’ll get an operation.”
“But you’ll always be a girl and so will I.”
“Couldn’t you pretend?”
“Pretend……?” I close my eyes and see the roulette wheels, spinning off into infinity. I feel the Casino’s marble arches pressing down on me from above. It's a cool, smooth weight.
“No, I can’t pretend,” I reach up and push the hair out of her eyes.
“But it’s nice of you to think that I could.”
therealkidgod
by TRUE
Kid God says:
people take everything too seriously
Kid God says:
life's a game
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
mmmm
Kid God says:
waste of time to take it for real
Kid God says:
think of devo
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
it's real though
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
flesh is real
Kid God says:
sometimes
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
always for me
Kid God says:
i have a friendship like you and sterling
Kid God says:
it freaks me out to read about you guys
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
it's hard to say what are friendship is like
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
our
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
why
Kid God says:
just strange whan you see yerself somewhere alse like situations you can identify with but aren't affected by
Kid God says:
holy typos
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
who do you identify with...
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
sterling or myself
Kid God says:
both really
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
ha
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
we are like night and day
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
she
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
she's always on the verge of letting me down
Kid God says:
evryone has a bit of night and day in them. maybe jus cuz i'm gemini
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
twins
Kid God says:
no no
Kid God says:
she loves you
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
oh, i don't know about that
Kid God says:
whatev, just from what i read
Kid God says:
hard to decipher sometimes
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
anyway, if i ever had children they'd proably be twins
Kid God says:
twins are creepy
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
i know
Kid God says:
like the shining
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
oh, yeah, and start figuring out a way to nyc
Kid God says:
my friends are recording out there
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
i'll be there in a week and a half
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
who
Kid God says:
are you stoked?
Kid God says:
the stills
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
stoked?
Kid God says:
happy
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
i know what it means, but i don't think i've ever been it…
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
I’m not stoked, I’m stoned.
Kid God says:
c'mon
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
dethroned
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
a-lone
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
ingrown
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
ha
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
no, i'm ready to be back in the saddle
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
seriously, there's no where like nyc
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
for getting shit DONE
Kid God says:
what do you do in NYC
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
work
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
i'm an american, after all
Kid God says:
oh yes
Kid God says:
i won't hold it against you
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
o yeah
Kid God says:
for long
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
it's not a pro or con
Kid God says:
isn't it?
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
america is just like any other country, really
Kid God says:
i know
Kid God says:
i been to vegas
Kid God says:
ha
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
i suck at gambling
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
it makes me way too excited…
Kid God says:
people take everything too seriously
Kid God says:
life's a game
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
mmmm
Kid God says:
waste of time to take it for real
Kid God says:
think of devo
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
it's real though
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
flesh is real
Kid God says:
sometimes
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
always for me
Kid God says:
i have a friendship like you and sterling
Kid God says:
it freaks me out to read about you guys
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
it's hard to say what are friendship is like
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
our
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
why
Kid God says:
just strange whan you see yerself somewhere alse like situations you can identify with but aren't affected by
Kid God says:
holy typos
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
who do you identify with...
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
sterling or myself
Kid God says:
both really
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
ha
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
we are like night and day
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
she
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
she's always on the verge of letting me down
Kid God says:
evryone has a bit of night and day in them. maybe jus cuz i'm gemini
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
twins
Kid God says:
no no
Kid God says:
she loves you
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
oh, i don't know about that
Kid God says:
whatev, just from what i read
Kid God says:
hard to decipher sometimes
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
anyway, if i ever had children they'd proably be twins
Kid God says:
twins are creepy
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
i know
Kid God says:
like the shining
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
oh, yeah, and start figuring out a way to nyc
Kid God says:
my friends are recording out there
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
i'll be there in a week and a half
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
who
Kid God says:
are you stoked?
Kid God says:
the stills
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
stoked?
Kid God says:
happy
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
i know what it means, but i don't think i've ever been it…
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
I’m not stoked, I’m stoned.
Kid God says:
c'mon
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
dethroned
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
a-lone
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
ingrown
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
ha
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
no, i'm ready to be back in the saddle
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
seriously, there's no where like nyc
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
for getting shit DONE
Kid God says:
what do you do in NYC
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
work
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
i'm an american, after all
Kid God says:
oh yes
Kid God says:
i won't hold it against you
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
o yeah
Kid God says:
for long
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
it's not a pro or con
Kid God says:
isn't it?
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
america is just like any other country, really
Kid God says:
i know
Kid God says:
i been to vegas
Kid God says:
ha
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
i suck at gambling
yerbluetoy@hotmail.com says:
it makes me way too excited…
by TRUE
Dearest Jules,
If you’re reading this, then congratulations, you successfully decrypted my message:
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: To die alone and in the rain.
Feel free to look around, to dissect, to judge…there are three of us here.
Myself, Sterling Fassbinder and Fitzcarraldo.
(Three’s the magic number)
And you thought I was writing a novel, you poor pretentious fuck.
aurore
Dearest Jules,
If you’re reading this, then congratulations, you successfully decrypted my message:
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: To die alone and in the rain.
Feel free to look around, to dissect, to judge…there are three of us here.
Myself, Sterling Fassbinder and Fitzcarraldo.
(Three’s the magic number)
And you thought I was writing a novel, you poor pretentious fuck.
aurore
no sleep till brooklyn...
by TRUE
i'd never noticed how festive disco is. the 70s are often portrayed as this bleak, depressing time, and sure, there was the oil shit and vietnam and the black panthers getting assasinated but you've got pretty much the same thing nowadays. we've got the big cars, just like they did. what we don't have is a sexual revolution and lady snow parties and the birth of hip-hop. mean streets. bruce lee.
the way the economy is going, it's going to be tough to stay straight in the states. i've got to have a plan. mama's not seeing a nine to five.
blegging, anyone?
actually, i have nothing against these folks. i'm not above the scramble: just not for fives or tens--that's not worth my time.
a plan, i need a plan
(first we take manhattan)
i've got my mind on my money and my money on my mind
(then we take berlin)
what about blogshares? is that the next evolution? like david bowie issuing stock in his...
(what? person? fame? talent?)
america needs more disposable heroes. more reality TV. more organic chocolate and pink icing endings. more extreme close-ups, more tears and humiliation. more pimple constellation foreheads. more upright make-up coated muscle racks.
america eats its young but not before its young eat america
blogs are a crop that will be harvested.
tell me, party people
do you feel yourself being blindfolded
as you line up for your rapid fire fifteen minutes?
do you love plastic idols like i do?
tell me,
are you also sliding across the surface of things?
pieceoblog
by TRUE
Home. The street where I grew up. Jersey baby, that's right. I took this picture two years ago and have carried it around ever since. It's a little bent and there's a faint yellow stain over the tree on the right where I touched it with a greasy fingertip. Anyway, the bright, undented speed limit sign's a replacement. By now, it's probably a replacement of the replacement. We used it's predecessor for target practice, hitting that cool-ass whap-bing! high note with rocks and snowballs packed so tight and thrown so hard that when they hit, they didn't stick to the sign like scoops of ice cream but instead ricocheted off it whole, leaving behind only the barest snow kiss. Baseballs, green beer bottles--anything we could find, until one day, Mark Dubeke from down the block came over and tossed an M-80 at that bitch, leaving a fuming hole the exact size of my open mouth in the center. I'll never forget the whizz of the plastic casing as it shot past my ear. My mother heard the explosion and came running outside, bare foot and smoking. She grabbed Mark by his skinny ass arm.
"What are you doing? Just what the hell were you thinking?" Her voice sounded strange over the ringing in my ears.
"Sorry," Mark said, looking at the ground through his hanging yellow bangs. His family was trash. His mother threw dinner plates at his drunk father, and his older brother Chuck smoked j's on the rooftop, listening to Ozzy. Chuck worked at A&P, walking the aisles with a pricing gun sticking out of one pocket of his super tight jeans and a comb sticking out of the other. He was a total waster who would end up kicking the bucket at 22 when he stupidly shot an air bubble into one of his veins. Mark was the worst, though. He wasn't just a fuck-up--there was something about him--a light missing from his eyes or some shit like that. There was a steadiness of movement and a singleminded nature to his actions that was somehow unnerving. I doubt he ever hesitated for a second over any of the fucked up shit that he did, even years later when he took to lighting parked cars and condos on fire.
He wore army surplus and his brother's old heavy metal t-shirts. He smoked cigarettes and lit firecrackers. I remember him on Fourth of July's, shirtless, his smooth back awash in the flickering yellow light of sparkler glow. "He's so skinny," my mother liked to say. "Look, you can count every rib."
We often saw him leaning against idling, backfiring cars, flirting and getting his cigarette lit. Meanwhile, he treated us younger kids in the neighborhood like we weren't really there while we followed him around at a safe distance. Or so we thought before the cherry bomb. My mother made the five or six of us who were present line up along the curb. I remember BJ and David were crying. With her hand still firmly encircling his upper arm, my mother made Mark go down the line and tell us he was sorry, one by one. I didn't know which was more shocking: her actions or the fact that he was going along with them. Usually, he could care less what my mother said. It felt like church: I remember being barely able to look him in his eyes. They were yellow, like his hair.
Like a tiger.
When he finished his apologies, my mother made him pick up the plastic shrapnel that was scattered across the street. I can still see her standing there, keeping watch over him while she raised her hands slowly, as if in a dream, and lit a new cigarette off her old one. Her toes curled over the edge of the smooth white curb and her shadow stretched out behind her like a skyscraper.
anti4ever
Home. The street where I grew up. Jersey baby, that's right. I took this picture two years ago and have carried it around ever since. It's a little bent and there's a faint yellow stain over the tree on the right where I touched it with a greasy fingertip. Anyway, the bright, undented speed limit sign's a replacement. By now, it's probably a replacement of the replacement. We used it's predecessor for target practice, hitting that cool-ass whap-bing! high note with rocks and snowballs packed so tight and thrown so hard that when they hit, they didn't stick to the sign like scoops of ice cream but instead ricocheted off it whole, leaving behind only the barest snow kiss. Baseballs, green beer bottles--anything we could find, until one day, Mark Dubeke from down the block came over and tossed an M-80 at that bitch, leaving a fuming hole the exact size of my open mouth in the center. I'll never forget the whizz of the plastic casing as it shot past my ear. My mother heard the explosion and came running outside, bare foot and smoking. She grabbed Mark by his skinny ass arm.
"What are you doing? Just what the hell were you thinking?" Her voice sounded strange over the ringing in my ears.
"Sorry," Mark said, looking at the ground through his hanging yellow bangs. His family was trash. His mother threw dinner plates at his drunk father, and his older brother Chuck smoked j's on the rooftop, listening to Ozzy. Chuck worked at A&P, walking the aisles with a pricing gun sticking out of one pocket of his super tight jeans and a comb sticking out of the other. He was a total waster who would end up kicking the bucket at 22 when he stupidly shot an air bubble into one of his veins. Mark was the worst, though. He wasn't just a fuck-up--there was something about him--a light missing from his eyes or some shit like that. There was a steadiness of movement and a singleminded nature to his actions that was somehow unnerving. I doubt he ever hesitated for a second over any of the fucked up shit that he did, even years later when he took to lighting parked cars and condos on fire.
He wore army surplus and his brother's old heavy metal t-shirts. He smoked cigarettes and lit firecrackers. I remember him on Fourth of July's, shirtless, his smooth back awash in the flickering yellow light of sparkler glow. "He's so skinny," my mother liked to say. "Look, you can count every rib."
We often saw him leaning against idling, backfiring cars, flirting and getting his cigarette lit. Meanwhile, he treated us younger kids in the neighborhood like we weren't really there while we followed him around at a safe distance. Or so we thought before the cherry bomb. My mother made the five or six of us who were present line up along the curb. I remember BJ and David were crying. With her hand still firmly encircling his upper arm, my mother made Mark go down the line and tell us he was sorry, one by one. I didn't know which was more shocking: her actions or the fact that he was going along with them. Usually, he could care less what my mother said. It felt like church: I remember being barely able to look him in his eyes. They were yellow, like his hair.
Like a tiger.
When he finished his apologies, my mother made him pick up the plastic shrapnel that was scattered across the street. I can still see her standing there, keeping watch over him while she raised her hands slowly, as if in a dream, and lit a new cigarette off her old one. Her toes curled over the edge of the smooth white curb and her shadow stretched out behind her like a skyscraper.
anti4ever
Dog on Wheels
by sterling
(On the river bridge up on the wall, looking down)
“Fucking hell!” I shouted over the roar of the wind.
(On the river bridge, to me a vision was shown)
“OK, I can hear you now,” TRUE said on the other end.
“No, you can’t.”
“Yes, I can. You sound like shit, though. Do you mind stepping away from the jet engine for a few? I’ve got stuff weighing on my mind.”
“It’s always about you. No matter what the time or the continent. Meanwhile, I have to beg to get you to listen to me.”
“You know that’s not the case, darlin.”
“Yes it is. So you’ve decided to come back. What do you want me to do, praise fucking Jesus or some shit?”
“Well that might be a start.” There was an explosion of static as the connection wavered again.
“You aren’t even a little bit happy,” she asked when it cleared. Her voice sounded nasal, as if she was sick or had been crying.
“Happy? Happy! Fuck happy. Where were you when I needed you?”
“I’m always there with you…in a way. You know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“C’mon, Sterling.”
“No,” I said. “You c’mon.”
No response. I felt my knees start to shake. I waited another couple of seconds.
“Typical,” I said, and slapped the phone shut. I pulled out a half crushed cigarette from my jeans pocket. After the first puff it hit me:
oh god, she’s coming back, she’s really coming back, oh god, oh god, what am i going to do, i’m so happy, i’m so scared, it’s too much, it’s all too much
I grabbed my face with both hands and shook my head back and forth, just like I did years ago when I was getting off the smack. Day Four was the worst: that's when I banged my head against the cement wall of the clink until blood came out of my ears and eyes.
(To my dog on wheels I'll tell my pleasures and woes
To my dog on wheels I'll tell my secrets and more
Then one day in spring I'll take him down to the road
Anything goes)
belleandsebastian
jennie
by TRUE
It's rare that I ever experience true desire. The full-blown, feel your heart beat in your throat kind of wanting. Lust for me is an itch and sex is a way of getting it scratched.
I don't itch very often--not in the spots that can be reached, at any rate.
I like to look. I like the things that stand out about people--their hair and their scars, their cleavage and their shoes. I appreciate the effort that certain individuals put into the way they look. I find nothing wrong with anyone who spends a lot of time in front of the mirror. It's just another way of filling up the hours in between eating and sleeping.
(i wouldn't mind becoming a little more vain, as I waste a lot of time standing around, doing compulsive pocket checks and farting like a dog)
The other night I found myself in a crowded club, cigarette between my lips as I scanned the room for buisness ops. Meanwhile, I let men buy me drinks and talk into my ear. One of them put his large, hairy hand over mine and asked what a sweet american girl like me was doing out all alone in big bad london town.
I moved my hand and took a sip of my drink. I told him truth be told I was shopping in a pet store, hoping against hope to find a certain rare breed of animal in one of the cages.
stereolabrat
via
new fire resistant treacher
(I'll have to remember to change his link on the prop list. Not tonight, though. I don't fuck with the template when I'm PMSing.)
It's rare that I ever experience true desire. The full-blown, feel your heart beat in your throat kind of wanting. Lust for me is an itch and sex is a way of getting it scratched.
I don't itch very often--not in the spots that can be reached, at any rate.
I like to look. I like the things that stand out about people--their hair and their scars, their cleavage and their shoes. I appreciate the effort that certain individuals put into the way they look. I find nothing wrong with anyone who spends a lot of time in front of the mirror. It's just another way of filling up the hours in between eating and sleeping.
(i wouldn't mind becoming a little more vain, as I waste a lot of time standing around, doing compulsive pocket checks and farting like a dog)
The other night I found myself in a crowded club, cigarette between my lips as I scanned the room for buisness ops. Meanwhile, I let men buy me drinks and talk into my ear. One of them put his large, hairy hand over mine and asked what a sweet american girl like me was doing out all alone in big bad london town.
I moved my hand and took a sip of my drink. I told him truth be told I was shopping in a pet store, hoping against hope to find a certain rare breed of animal in one of the cages.
stereolabrat
via
new fire resistant treacher
(I'll have to remember to change his link on the prop list. Not tonight, though. I don't fuck with the template when I'm PMSing.)
