Brooklyn, New Orleans

- Brooklyn's between-81 and 71-square miles contains 2.5 million people.
- New Orleans' 180 square miles contains a little more than 1 million people.
- New York state contains between 5,000 and 4,000 black bears in the Adirondacks, 2,000 and 1,500 in the Catskills, and 500 and 300 in the Allegany region.
- Louisiana contains 1.5 million alligators and .5 million of which are on farms. They contain between 1,000 and 500 black bears.

Orange monkey.

Left flat foot hot burning hurt for no damn reason other than taking another step on the long walk of life. Now it's bothering for two days. Let's see a doc. Stick needles in my foot. Throats also soar. Damn shame. No damn reason. Dogs got gas. Had to switch his food. Argument with a Georgia boy 'bout Pearl Harbor. Who knew. Makoli revelations. He should've had some. Other than that not much more than a fight for your money and life, just what everybody else got themselves  into. Told I have no rights. Performed a mid level office sit-in. Now I'm changing tickets. Moving out. Still selling my shit. Got a couch. Various chairs. Bass guitar and amp. Plants and towels free. Yoga ball and mat. What else. . . we'll keep you updated. I pretend to sound so tortured. But I think anyone who reads this is dying a rather oblivious slow death. Compare your life to the tragic victims of . . . 

michael earl craig

michael earl craig puts on his whooping crane-costume and gets in the triker plane. two other people with whooping crane-costumes open the gate of a large mesh-net-cage and 10 whooping cranes come out into the feild. the person who opened the gate begins flapping the arms of it's costume. michael earl craig starts the engine of the triker. he speeds down the grass runway. the whooping cranes run after the triker. the triker takes off above the pine trees. the whooping cranes follow michael earl craig's triker in a 'V'. michael earl craig flies over tennessee. the whooping cranes move their wings up and down rapidly, and animatronic-ally. michael earl craig turns his head to look at a whooping crane as it accelerates alongside the triker. the whooping crane stops flapping it's wings and glides, for a moment staying even with the triker, then falling back into 'formation'. as michael earl craig turns his head back towards georgia he pauses to look at the sun which is halfway below the green mountains. the clouds look orange to michael earl craig. michael earl craig thinks 'the clouds aren't really orange.' then he thinks 'that was the first complete sentence my brain produced since i got in the striker and thought 'turn the engine on'.' michael earl craig begins to feel nervous that all the whooping cranes are still following him. then he thinks, 'what if i took off my whooping crane-costume helmet?' rhetorically. 'i want to take off my helmet and show the whooping cranes i am a human. i would just make a crazy face and shake my cheeks so that they flap on my gums, smacking.' michael earl craig looks at his arms and legs stretching out towards the foot and hand controls of the triker. he thinks 'i'm a stupid human. i don't want to show them my face because it's the face of a stupid human who can't think for itself. i'm a numb stupid human. i want to write this down. i want to write 'i'm stupid' in emotionally affected hand writing.' then michael earl craig sees a field of long grass. he feels an urge to urinate in the long grass. he tells himself 'i have to urinate.' he nose-dives the triker and pulls off a miraculous landing. the whooping cranes land in the feild behind the triker and stand around confused and energetic. michael earl craig takes off his whooping crane-costume helmet while facing away from the whooping cranes. he slowly turns his face towards the flock. michael earl craig walks towards the whooping cranes thinking 'i want to touch their necks with my neck.' he gets close to one whooping crane and it jumps into the air. the whooping crane spreads its wings and draws its clawed feet towards michael earl craig. michael earl craig puts his arms over his face like a boxer, but it is too late. the whooping cranes are too intolerant.

There was a city street lined only with red and clear plastic tents. Some of them long as a fog-horn bellow and others short as a pop. They were all smoking, cussing up plumes of harsh charcoal and seared fish skin. Inside the tents, flames burned in the make shift kitchen. Old women cooked and cleaned. People sat around, late in the night drinking the clear liquor, laughing and smoking. A metal rim around the fire cookers sat the people. Other tables were scattered about which were white plastic, defiled and scratched by shoes and the wind. Cooking smoke and tobacco smoke lined the meaty tenor throats of youngish boys with gelled hair. The girls' conversations progressed in a flute-ish harmony. They were flowing together with the smoke, the tent plastic and the wind. Everyone swirled up into the salt laden blackness and laughing so hard their feet did not recognize the floor.

The old kitchen women bleated like a lamb and served the grilled eel in red sauce with lettuce and raw garlic. A shot of Soju comes right after swallowing the meat and garlic wrapped in lettuce. The meat is sauced smoky, lettuce clean, garlic like a violin on fire and finally, the clear liquor disinfects. 

It brought all the people back down to business. Grunting, touching and nodding were commands and requests. All the mouths were slopping up like mop buckets. Fingers licked and supped tasted like alkaline battery acid. The senses were being pulled and knocked around. None fit well together as sunshine and floral fragrance might, but there was a carefree balance.

People channeled out of the tents dirty with money and in search of taxis. They were ungraceful, unsymmetrical, un-admiral, uncivil heaps of flesh.

A taxi arrived yellow and dutiful smelling of dead flowers. It hummed as people entered. 

All the people vanished into compartments, sat quietly and fuzzed off. 

should i have standards for things i 'like'

sometimes i think why do i like that thing?

do i like things because i just want to say i like them

i think i could easily be more into billiards if i wanted

or birding; i've been to bird sanctuaries.

i was getting food from a buffet one time and i was going

through the books i've read recently in my head

i thought i like all these books, all of them.

do i like these books because they're linked to other books i like through style, or period, or tone, or something else that describes a book?

i think i like books that deal with emotional problems - relationship, or substance abuse problems.

*

i think i should be more of an asshole.

there's no point to thinking about why something is good or you like it.

i think i'll be too vulnerable.

it'd be funny if i took the books i liked and put them up to peoples faces

and then punched the other side of them so that it gives them bloody noses.

i just thought that this post seems hormonal, or emotional.

assholes can be little bitches too. assholes are little bitches with things for show - muscles, clothes, engines and drive shafts, or money.

summer shooting

a white shirt dipped in green 3-d words with gray shadowed reliefs hangs from the cuffed suspects back. he says his cousin called him to help him with a beef. he says he can't fight and doesn't own a gun. the blue eyed homicide detective says everyone there knows him, everyone knows why he was there. the suspect moves his head up and down. his eyes are a little sad. he's leaning forward. the homicide detective with spiky hair blinks slowly. the blue eyed homicide detective has as a gold-ringed finger on his lips. the suspect says he did not shoot the victim. the spiky haired homicide detective leans forward, sliding his blue sleeved arms across the table. he says the suspect can make this easy or hard on himself. he says something very wrong happened and that they need to make it right. the suspect feels small and sad. he feels like he's been alienated. he cannot remember the rage that surged through him when he shot the cito in the apartment. you're cousins says you had the gun in your hand says the blue-eyed homicide detective. what i don't get is why you'd want to kill this man. with the amount of money we found in you're trunk what did you have to kill a man for says the spiky haired detective with a confused look on his face. the suspect looks at the other detective with a more confused face. he's leaning forward. he's cuffed still. his eyebrows arch like bridges over the black rivers of his eyes. his eyes get wet. he says but the ghosts officer. he shakes his head like he's pleading with the officers. the ghosts officer. it's a hundred degrees out there, kid says the blue eyed detective. you're lugging around farm equipment, half a million in cash, and you pull over in the projects and knock off some guy named cito for nothing? we have enough to keep you for the night, kid. people make mistakes, kid says the spiky haired officer. the detectives leave the room with their manila folders. the suspect puts his head down on the table. he sees the green 3-d letters with the gray shadows on his shirt. the summer is depressing he thinks.

Stacy and Rick

STACY SLEPT WITH RICK LAST FRIDAY. This weekend (it's Friday again) she goes to her friend's house who's having a party later. She drinks with the friend and other friends, knowing Rick will come there later. She had told Rick to come in school but he would have maybe come otherwise.

Stacy keeps looking at her friend's breasts in their shirts while they drink. The other girls are looking at the beer and the cards and each other's faces and anticipating about boys and penises and also maybe noticing each other's breasts but maybe not as much as Stacy. Stacy's friend who lives down the block from the house they are in flashes everyone her breasts like it's part of the drinking game but not really, just something she'd been thinking and knowing she'd do because it was entertaining to her. The flashing prompts the buzzed girls laughter. Stacy laughs but thinks they're all watching her laugh. Her self awareness turns to reassurance or acceptance, maybe comfort. She thinks 'they're probably thinking about breasts as much as I am'. Later, after more flashing, and a few spilled beer cans, they move out back to the porch because they are expecting more people to be arriving, because a few have already arrived - boys.

The boys who arrive don't do a good job talking to the girls. They talk to them like they are still in the hallways of school. Rick arrives an hour later when Stacy is drunk. A variety of personalities at who arrive in the mean time distract Stacy from Rick. Stacy feels excited to see people she didn't expect to see. One group, who Stacy can picture Rick telling them he had sex with Stacy even though they don't call each other or go over each other's houses for non-drinking things, had one interaction with her friend whose house it is and then sat on the top of the hill behind the lawn and passed a blunt back and forth. She feels good that she is part of their relaxed substance abusing night.

Ricks eyes are black and wide when they contact Stacy's. Rick thought about Stacy before he got to the party. He expected Stacy to want to have sex again but thought that he didn't care if he doesn't have sex with Stacy, he likes Stacy but will contemplate how to have sex when he's more drunk. Rick walks up on the porch and says Hi to Stacy's friend who's closest to the stairs. Rick says Hi to Stacy from the distance of the other end of the beerpong table. Rick is wearing a tight shirt that makes Stacy picture his naked, hairless chest. She thinks about his small nipples and then thinks about her friend's puffy wider nipples which she saw earlier. Stacy goes back to talking and drinking with her friends, looking at their breasts, seeing the beer spills soaked tightly over them; sometimes poking them and laughing in retaliation from other pokes. When a girl named Kim comes out of the darkness around the corner of the house with her friends behind her the night pauses shortly like bands are changing stage at a show. They observe the crowd and go straight to Rick and his friends. Stacy never talks to Rick or even thinks she will after this. She sees Rick and Kim kissing under the porch later.

Eventually, the kids from the hill come on the porch. They are more high than drunk, but a little drunk. Stacy and her friend whose house it is play two of them in beerpong. Stacy pushes her breasts together and pulls down her shirt to show a lot of cleavage to distract one of them who's wearing sunglasses and a backwards hat as he's about to throw a ping-pong ball. Stacy's friend pokes Stacy's left breast with her finger and the ball hits her hand on the way towards the cups. "That's interference," says the other kid. The other girls laugh and hold each other's arms. Their heads fly back in a frenzy. Their hairs are everywhere in the porch light as they shout 'nooooo' tauntingly at the boys. Stacy's friend says, 'What, you can't handle a little distraction?'

The boys beat Stacy and her friend and her friend goes down to the overly populated lawn. Stacy leans into the kid with the sunglasses and backwards hat while they're in the kitchen. They kiss and she leads him upstairs to her friend's room. They close the door and fall onto the bed in the darkness. He puts his tongue in her mouth and rubs her ---- through her jeans. He unbuttons her jeans and puts his finger in her vagina. While they have sex a ceramic lady bug the size of blue jay falls on Stacy's head from the headboard. The boy puts his cell phone light to her forehead while his penis is still inside her. "It's okay, I think," he pants. "It's bleeding but it's just a red line. The blood isn't coming out."

Lucid Dream

Lucid dreaming is being aware of your dreams while asleep, and controlling them.  I had been reading about it the past couple of nights.

This morning I was able to dream lucidly. Naturally, I chose to fly and have sex. 

I was having some other dream, about a distant cousin, whom I didn't know. It was his biography. He was on a boat, running from some thing. I was in some Parisian street when I realized it was a dream. I floated up. I was staring at a traffic light and made my way towards it by "swimming." I got close to the light, which was red, but found the swimming method sluggish and not all that effective. I tried using my mind. After several attempts and skimming the street a couple times, I shot up to a clock tower a couple blocks down. Then I was in black space. (I wasn't completely in control). I decided that it was a good time to have sex.  I saw a bed down below with a girl on it and came crashing down. 

I started thinking about another dream I had earlier about winning a wrestling tournament and lost focus. I wound up in a super market, back dreaming obliviously. Then I woke up. 

this is going on a website along with some other things by other people about NOLA volunteering

i remember seeing signs on campus for organized, one- or two-week trips to the disaster areas. a girl in class announced where you'd need to go to sign up and that anyone was eligible. it'd be over spring break. i told a roommate i wanted to go. i told someone else and they said if you're going to go some place go some place cool that's not fucked up. in the spring, in my public speaking class a student from tulane was introduced. the teacher said to help him out if he needed anything. i remember the question he asked after one of my speeches: 'so do you need to do anything to hike these mountains? or you just go and it's free.' i said 'yeah. you just go. you have to know where they are. you have to find the trail heads yourself.' during finals when i was walking into the library to study i saw a free standing cork board with pictures from the organized trips. a bunch of students had their arms around each other and were all smiling. there were fallen trees and destroyed houses behind them. the ocean was in some shots. they were doing work with gloves and buckets in other shots. 'i should have gone,' i said to myself. 'i can still go.'

in june, while working at my summer internship, i googled 'katrina volunteering,' or 'hurricane relief' - i can't remember for sure. a small non-profit came up first. the application looked easier than the habitat for humanity route. the people in the pictures seemed 'cool'. the questioning pointed towards cooking experience. i was wanted manual labor but applied anyway. my plane ticket was for the day after my internship ended. i stayed out with my friends until 4am the night before, drank beer, and smoked marijuana. i left the house while they chugged, danced and sang.

in new orleans my taxi cab driver had trouble finding camp hope. i didn't have good cellphone service. he showed me the water line on the houses. when i got to the front office of the elementary-school-turned-volunteer-compound (camp hope) there was a confusion about who i was volunteering for. there were three groups - e.c., habitat, and americorp. e.c. ran the kitchen. habitat and americorp did gutting throughout the parish. a woman wearing a cowboy hat and cowboy boots from e.c. showed me around. i put my things down on a cot in what used to be a classroom. i went to the kitchen and signed up to help with kitchen preparation. the kitchen was empty. two other new arrivals were shaving carrots. i went back to my cot and laid down because i was tired. i looked at the cement floor, at flies landing on it, and at the metal studs where the walls should be. wires snaked everywhere. an extension chord stretched into the middle of the room. i charged my cellphone. i thought 'everything is the same.'

i put on a bandanna and went to the kitchen. there were more people in there this time. more kept showing up. i helped with the salad. an americorp girl and i chopped things and put them in the salad containers. we worked up against the ipod stereo system while the rest of the kitchen hectically operated under the direction of a short girl wearing a bandanna and neat clothing. when dinner was all prepared, we carried and rolled it up to the gymnasium-turned-cafeteria. during this time i met a lot of the people that worked there, or i made eye contact with people and they must have thought: 'new person'. after dinner was ready i served food on the food line for about an hour. then someone took over for me. i sat at a table with some food. i stayed quiet and sat near the people i knew were also new. the people who had been there longer acted differently. they talked more, or ate very fast and went back to work - they talked to locals who they had friendships with. they looked comfortable in dirty clothes, had long hair, and carried themselves with the ease and pressure of routine. after i ate two plates at a moderate speed i returned to the serving line. a second wave of volunteers came to eat. a few straggling locals came to eat. then we just sat around behind the serving line and eventually no one else came.

we started hauling things back to the kitchen where the trays, bins, and pots had already started to pile up on tables near the dish pit. three people were working the dish pit. it could have been a younger guy who didn't get around to helping in the kitchen or a restless older woman or a random americorp person or a person like me who just felt comfortable and useful - in the beginning anyway. i helped wash while talking to the other people at each sink. the music had continued playing from dinner prep after being changed several times. someone put on paul simon very loud. the rest of the kitchen had been cleaned a little while after the dinner was sent off to the service line. around ten or eleven the kitchen was finally quiet and sat there waiting, desolate but comfortable... and random people would gather in it, or a single random person would come walking through looking for a cup, a snack. i learned that the kitchen would never really rest. i learned how different e.c. was from habitat and americorp though i was never really confused. people called each other baby, love, and were flirtations. or people were strangers.

in the days to come we'd be drinking in it. mixing of random flood liquor, sharing of foam cups of daiquiris happened frequently after hours during my two weeks. it was a good feeling when this was going on. sometimes when everyone wasn't joining it felt bad, excessive. for a few days there was actually a keg in one of the reefer trucks. half drunk off daiquiris i made my first phone call to a friend from home. i talked while lying in my tent in my classroom. i told them there were so many things i want to tell them about. it wasn't about destruction or anything because there wasn't much of that around. we had toured the 9th ward and things but to me inside camp hope was the most interesting. it felt good to be excited about something. when i returned two weeks later to my friends drinking and smoking to their mixed cds, as i had left them, i didn't have much to say. it wasn't worth describing at that moment anyway.

i worked in the kitchen most of the time. the days felt long. between meals i felt worthless. i never woke up early enough to help make breakfast but i got around to serving it and eating it; still, sometimes neither. taking part in making the meals was fun because they were such huge ordeals. sometimes we'd be short of help. you couldn't blame anyone. there was one time we ran short and had to act desperately. me and the person i helped make lunch with were at the back of the property smoking a joint with two other people. it had just down poured that morning. i felt bad being there, but i knew being high the rest of the day would be fun. there was a careless atmosphere in the mosquito tent. the couches and chairs we sat in were drenched. one person was pointing to something on a map to another person. one guy with long hair and tattoos was standing and telling a story that made me feel uncomfortable. a woman walked towards us from behind the reefers, calling out the person who was in charge of lunch. she was saying they were running out of food on the service line. we rushed into the kitchen and spread fish sticks out on five or six large baking sheets. he looked at me with red eyes and said, 'i'm so high.' i laughed. i thought 'whatever' and felt safe once the smell of the fish sticks reached us from the ovens.

there were different things too. we hung out on bourbon street one night - fifteen closer local bar we went to two different times. it was just past the giant oil refinery. the ominous, giant, evil oil refinery. there were ultimate frisbee games in the muddy field. one of the dogs got lost. we rode bikes to a near by park. a local gave us a tour of some of the areas of the native people, the islanos. we loaded and unloaded trucks of palates of food. we tried to catch an alligator with store bought chicken. we fished for crabs with store bought chicken and made a crab gumbo. i had lunch downtown and walked around the french quarter. i gutted a house with some habitat for humanity volunteers. some of the time i was bored. i'd walk through the kitchen, out back around the basketball courts and generators, around the reefers, through the empty hallways with graffiti on them, through the empty gymnasium-turned-dining-hall. at night sometimes i'd sit outside the hallway door and stare through the barbed wire fence into the woods smoking a cigarette or a joint. one night a few of the volunteers got a band together and jammed. that night i got into one of those conversations with this guy who just sort of hung around with the e.c. crowd. i still remember him saying 'control breeds more control, man. you see?!'

on my second to last night - maybe, i don't know - we went to the place called the warehouse just beyond the refinery. i had had a few drinks during the day already. it was one of those random nights when suddenly everyone is in a mood to celebrate. i think a few people were actually celebrating their birthdays. i could afford like two drinks then resorted to drinking neglected drinks on the tables and bars. other people were scrounging for drinks too. half of our crew danced on the dance floor. i sat at a table with a few people i hardly knew, smoking cigarettes. people were drunk, smiling, and hugging each other, dancing. one guy i had worked with unloading one of the trucks had been dancing with a beer bottle in each hand. his pants were sagging showing his tan-line and white butt. eventually some locals wearing football jerseys started a name calling match with him. it was over and the guy said he wanted to go home because he had to work early. i said i'd go with him. i felt depressed because i was leaving louisiana soon or wasn't drunk enough. before we could leave midnight came and someone else's birthday became important. the person was sleeping in a trailer outside until his son dragged him in. he danced on the dance floor with is bare feet while the crowd of kitchen workers sang into the microphones on the stage. as we rounded up to leave outside the bar, the man whose birthday it was hugged his son. his son said, 'i love you pops.' the man looked sad and red faced. girls with dreads i'd never seen before were standing around him, hugging him, saying, 'you're going to be fine,' and 'go to tennessee with laura and you're gonna get cleaned up and have a nice breakfast and you'll feel better.' i think he said he didn't want to leave or something. we crammed into an RV. the man's son, the guy who was dancing with two beers and some other people and i rode back towards camp. the man's son was telling a story about an old lady who trolled through flood waters in a fishing boat looking for her horses. one horse drowned and the other was shot by a sheriff where it was tied to a bridge safe from the storm waters. this story was disputed heavily during the ride. they were shouting over the music. i was fascinated until i decided i heard enough. i sat in the back across from a girl in a black and white patterned dress. she was smiling at me. i looked out at the refinery passing under the orange lights. i thought about all the bullshit everywhere. i felt relaxed.

i felt more and more eager to leave as my time came near. some people talked about extensions to their stays. i saw that some people weren't going to leave. i think i recognized an older guy who worked there for a month with his wife on the subway last fall. he got off in brooklyn, before me. i was surprised and happy to see the people i did when i returned to an e.c. kitchen (goin' home cafe) in the 9th ward eight months later. when i think about why i went there and did those things with those people i feel confused. i feel nostalgic. i think it helped me during periods of aimlessness. i don't know really.

Tears of a Clown.

With the help from my friend Dale I re-discovered the music of the 60s band "The Grass Roots." They are one of the most underrated bands of that period. I reckon because of all the great talent coming out at that time. 

Dale is one of the most passionate people I've met. He's always spilling his heart and tearing his hair out about some girl, or just madly drunk and fearlessly dancing. He has a tongue for fast food and cheap poison booze.

The other night we were at my apartment along with our friend Ook singing Beatles songs, laughing over whatever, and drinking beer. Dale's "future wife for the moment" called him up so she and a couple of her friends joined us. Dale is mad about this girl. Last week he was torn apart when she didn't respond to a text message. We went out for coffee and he explained she was the 'one.' How many times have you seen her, I asked. twice, he responded. 

So she came along with a couple friends, (one being an awesome singer/songwriter ala Damien Rice).  Dale suggested I play "Wait a Million Years" by Grass Roots so he could sing it. (This song he was listening to over and over when he was waiting for her message the other week). 

I started playing the intro and chords and Ook was laying down the bass. Dale comes in full blast belting out these words about 'waiting a million years for the girl to hold him' and whatnot. He was getting really theatrical, reaching out and making fists and beating his chest. The whole time his eyes were closed. I was pretty amazed, not by his singing per say, but just because other than fucking around with those Beatles tunes I've never heard him sing. But there he was, as if on stage in front of a million people.  I looked around the room. It was quite obvious he was singing for this girl. The lyrics leave nothing unturned about longing love. He's singing, practically falling over:

    "Pacing the floor, detest

     sweat pouring down my chest,

     still I can't love you less.

    Its worth all the pain and pride

   Baby, I just can't hide what I feel inside."

The girl looked pretty freaked out. But everybody clapped when it was over and Dale wiped his brow and smiled around. 

Some people get burned by that intensity. I had told him over coffee coming full on probably isn't for every girl. But thats his nature. I'm sure this drama will continue whenever she doesn't pick up a phone call and he will throw himself around an apartment and philosophize. She's moving to Australia in a couple months anyhow.  

Tragic hero English chum. You'll be missed. 

i did this this weekend

- grand central to beacon, crowded train, wall street guy, make-up-ed girls, dark skinned, distracted reader, guy punching things making noise that sounded like conductor, wrote in journal, read/sleep/read
- picked up by dad, ate curried couscous something from lifethyme, 'who will run the frog hospital?', slow ride, sleep, traffic, precipitation, sleep, called for directions
- aunt judy's ate food, drank wine, planned trip, slept on air mattress, woken up by squirrels in the walls, finished 'who will run the frog hospital?' by head lamp
- started 'quartet' by jean rhys, rented skies, skied to split rock, ate lunch, skied back (nice down hill at the end), skied onto lake champlain, stopped at bakery, fell asleep in front of stove reading, woke up, played with cats, ate dinner, drank beer, planned next day, laid on air mattress, read by head lamp, wrote in journal, read by headlamp, fell asleep, heard squirrels in walls, maybe dreamed
- woke up, drank coffee/ate pancakes, took pictures of birds/cats, skied to owls head peak, awesome downhill at the end (at times dangerous), returned skiis, drove to aunt diane's, ate ravioli, chips, drank cranberry juice, watched superbowl (first half), drove home