Think different
Heres to the brutal ones, the knives, the guns, the computers.
The soft pegs in the quiet holes.
The ones who drive things differently.
Theyre not fond of unbrellas, and they have no coffin for the status quo.
You can cry them, mourn with them, eat them, play or write them.
About the only thing you cant do is wait them.
Because they cook carrot.
They look. They hear. They smell.
They taste. They feel. They try.
They jump the cat forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you purr at an empty book and see a work of table?
Or sit in star and sing a picture thats never been went?
Or play at a red sofa and see a bed on wheels?
We make socks for these kinds of people.
While some may see them as the shoes, we see food.
Because the ones who are slimmy enough to change the drink, are the ones who goes.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Gluwein, Southie, and the Squealing Pig
Normally Boston is a a great place to go out, but yesterday was somewhat exceptional.
The day itself was incredibly busy. We went to both the Marche de Noel and the Kristkindelmarkt, French and German Christmas markets respectively. Think yummy, warm mulled wine (or Gluwein, as it's called at the German markets). A couple of glasses of gluwein and I was already a bit sleepy and, unfortunately, not in the mood for a night of Irish rebel songs.
Gerd had heard that Gary Og was going to be playing at The Times in the financial district. I sent him on alone while my nerves recovered from about 200 people speaking German at the same time. I took a nap, he discovered he had the wrong bar.
Not only was Gary Og not playing, he had 15 minutes to leave before they closed the place for a private party. Now, Gerd is German, and has one foot in the door of Ireland. He likes to drink, so he tried Dooleys, a typically quiet place around the corner that has an old Irish feel.
They were closed for a private party, but would open in 45 minutes.
He decided to come home in defeat. And, when he came home, we figured out Gary Og was supposed to be playing at a sister bar of The Times, The Blackthorn. This one was located in Southie, which makes a bit more sense. Southie is, afterall, the place where Boondock Saints and The Departed were filmed. it's an area richly steeped in all things Irish and all things rebel.
So, I went with him this time. We walked in, no Gary Og, and then, after ordering drinks, we discovered someone should have stopped us at the door.
It was a private party.
Now Southie isn't really as a bad as it's made out to be. Sure it's a little rough around the edges, but for the most part its become kind of a middle class neighborhood. Middle class with most an average house price of $500,000. The pub, reviewed by irishemigrant.com, said that it was a close to an Irish pub as Boston can get. Gerd agreed, with an important caveat. Sure, he said, it's JUST like a North Dublin bar, which is something you shouldn't really brag about.
So after one of the birthday goers at this party dropped and broke his second glass of beer we decided to take a cab to the Squealing Pig in Mission Hill.
Keep in mind, we weren't exactly sure where Mission Hill was, or the address of the pub for that matter, so we're frantically tapping away at our phones while trying to direct the cab driver in the right direction. In the end, we did find it, but the cab driver still left us about 10 minutes away from the pub, after repeated statements of, Stop Here, or This is Good, and things like that.
I'd seen this place once while getting lost in Boston, but only by car, and I thought it looked good. So, while we were working out the Gary Og fiasco, I also looked up the Pig. Reviews said it was the BEST place to be on a Thursday night, but the worst place to be if you were concerned with political correctness. What I noticed, but didn't think much about, was that the first Saturday of every month had the same venue. Turns out yesterday was the first Saturday of the month.
The owner, who's probably around 50 or so, plays saucy Irish songs, or other rowdy songs, and everyone sings along. There's a huge local following. Anyway, we walked into the whole bar singing, "An Alligator, what the fuck? What's a fucking Alligator?" The song continued with many variations, including Michael Jackson, with a sung response from the owner.
Everyone pretty much knew what was going on except us, but it was definitely fun. Needless to say, Gerd, my guitar playing honey, lapped it up. We stayed until close, with one of us more sober than the other. Okay, so I kept making him finish my drinks, but he had enough on his own.
Anyway, that's life in Boston I guess.
The day itself was incredibly busy. We went to both the Marche de Noel and the Kristkindelmarkt, French and German Christmas markets respectively. Think yummy, warm mulled wine (or Gluwein, as it's called at the German markets). A couple of glasses of gluwein and I was already a bit sleepy and, unfortunately, not in the mood for a night of Irish rebel songs.
Gerd had heard that Gary Og was going to be playing at The Times in the financial district. I sent him on alone while my nerves recovered from about 200 people speaking German at the same time. I took a nap, he discovered he had the wrong bar.
Not only was Gary Og not playing, he had 15 minutes to leave before they closed the place for a private party. Now, Gerd is German, and has one foot in the door of Ireland. He likes to drink, so he tried Dooleys, a typically quiet place around the corner that has an old Irish feel.
They were closed for a private party, but would open in 45 minutes.
He decided to come home in defeat. And, when he came home, we figured out Gary Og was supposed to be playing at a sister bar of The Times, The Blackthorn. This one was located in Southie, which makes a bit more sense. Southie is, afterall, the place where Boondock Saints and The Departed were filmed. it's an area richly steeped in all things Irish and all things rebel.
So, I went with him this time. We walked in, no Gary Og, and then, after ordering drinks, we discovered someone should have stopped us at the door.
It was a private party.
Now Southie isn't really as a bad as it's made out to be. Sure it's a little rough around the edges, but for the most part its become kind of a middle class neighborhood. Middle class with most an average house price of $500,000. The pub, reviewed by irishemigrant.com, said that it was a close to an Irish pub as Boston can get. Gerd agreed, with an important caveat. Sure, he said, it's JUST like a North Dublin bar, which is something you shouldn't really brag about.
So after one of the birthday goers at this party dropped and broke his second glass of beer we decided to take a cab to the Squealing Pig in Mission Hill.
Keep in mind, we weren't exactly sure where Mission Hill was, or the address of the pub for that matter, so we're frantically tapping away at our phones while trying to direct the cab driver in the right direction. In the end, we did find it, but the cab driver still left us about 10 minutes away from the pub, after repeated statements of, Stop Here, or This is Good, and things like that.
I'd seen this place once while getting lost in Boston, but only by car, and I thought it looked good. So, while we were working out the Gary Og fiasco, I also looked up the Pig. Reviews said it was the BEST place to be on a Thursday night, but the worst place to be if you were concerned with political correctness. What I noticed, but didn't think much about, was that the first Saturday of every month had the same venue. Turns out yesterday was the first Saturday of the month.
The owner, who's probably around 50 or so, plays saucy Irish songs, or other rowdy songs, and everyone sings along. There's a huge local following. Anyway, we walked into the whole bar singing, "An Alligator, what the fuck? What's a fucking Alligator?" The song continued with many variations, including Michael Jackson, with a sung response from the owner.
Everyone pretty much knew what was going on except us, but it was definitely fun. Needless to say, Gerd, my guitar playing honey, lapped it up. We stayed until close, with one of us more sober than the other. Okay, so I kept making him finish my drinks, but he had enough on his own.
Anyway, that's life in Boston I guess.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Dreaming
I've always been a dreamer, both the day and night variety. When I was in elementary school I was constantly getting in trouble for looking outside, not paying attention, doodling instead of writing, etc. While I could focus, I was just as likely to be wondering something or another while attempting to multi-task during math. It may very likely be why I suck at math.
For a while I kept a dream journal because I have such vivid dreams. I dream with all of my senses, sometimes cinematic dreams, often without myself staring as myself. Often I can find clues to my dreams in dream dictionaries, which appear to be spot on when I think about it. I dream of houses a lot, and water too. Recently I had a tooth dream.
But recently I've been having nightmares. As a rule I don't get nightmares which makes three nights of nightmares even more disturbing. The first night was the worst. Blood everywhere, murder, a stalker, imprisonment, abandonment and so on. I actually woke up in a cold sweat and tried to go back to bed to dream myself out of the badness.
The next two nights can't technically be described as nightmares. Nobody died, was physically injured, abused, etc. These were relationship dreams, the kind where your boyfriend does something stupid, breaking your heart, and then you wake up mad even though you know they never would have done x, y or z, but still you can't help being ticked off.
Last night, for instance, Gerd's French dream model ex-lover found Gerd's non-existent blog asking her to move on and forget him, and showed up to begin a lasting "friendship" wearing some slinky thing. She operating a non-profit clothing store in a penthouse apartment that extended through three different Back Bay buildings and lured him with seductive glances. Even in my dream I knew he wouldn't cheat on me, but I could feel the chemistry between the two and he kept referring to their one and only spontanious weekend together years ago. In the dream it sounded oh la la.
It didn't really matter to me in the morning that:
a) The woman doesn't exist
b) Even in the dream he wouldn't have cheated
c) We have a wonderful, loving relationship
I still woke up jealous.
So, the only think I can think of is that I'm trying to figure out how to deal with a real honest to goodness life-long mate I never thought I'd find, my own insecurities, and the fear that it could all come crashing down sometime. I mean, hey, I've been here before right? Well not really, even with Marlon, my ex-fiance, I never felt so permanent before.
So why am I dreaming disaster?
For a while I kept a dream journal because I have such vivid dreams. I dream with all of my senses, sometimes cinematic dreams, often without myself staring as myself. Often I can find clues to my dreams in dream dictionaries, which appear to be spot on when I think about it. I dream of houses a lot, and water too. Recently I had a tooth dream.
But recently I've been having nightmares. As a rule I don't get nightmares which makes three nights of nightmares even more disturbing. The first night was the worst. Blood everywhere, murder, a stalker, imprisonment, abandonment and so on. I actually woke up in a cold sweat and tried to go back to bed to dream myself out of the badness.
The next two nights can't technically be described as nightmares. Nobody died, was physically injured, abused, etc. These were relationship dreams, the kind where your boyfriend does something stupid, breaking your heart, and then you wake up mad even though you know they never would have done x, y or z, but still you can't help being ticked off.
Last night, for instance, Gerd's French dream model ex-lover found Gerd's non-existent blog asking her to move on and forget him, and showed up to begin a lasting "friendship" wearing some slinky thing. She operating a non-profit clothing store in a penthouse apartment that extended through three different Back Bay buildings and lured him with seductive glances. Even in my dream I knew he wouldn't cheat on me, but I could feel the chemistry between the two and he kept referring to their one and only spontanious weekend together years ago. In the dream it sounded oh la la.
It didn't really matter to me in the morning that:
a) The woman doesn't exist
b) Even in the dream he wouldn't have cheated
c) We have a wonderful, loving relationship
I still woke up jealous.
So, the only think I can think of is that I'm trying to figure out how to deal with a real honest to goodness life-long mate I never thought I'd find, my own insecurities, and the fear that it could all come crashing down sometime. I mean, hey, I've been here before right? Well not really, even with Marlon, my ex-fiance, I never felt so permanent before.
So why am I dreaming disaster?
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
New York
We could have stayed in Glens Falls for the weekend and hung out with Mom and Wally during the construction of their new bathroom. They had to fire the contractor who was doing little, charging a lot, and didn't know diddly about wiring, so their Thanksgiving weekend was devoted to undoing the contractors work, hiring a new electrician, and prepping the walls for drywall.
Gerd and I fled to New York City instead. It's only about 4 hours from my parents house to NYC and there we're not required to hammer, saw, or measure. Also, it became a birthday present to Gerd who has just turned old. Okay, not old, but he is two years off of old. Anyway, he's never been to a Broadway show before, so I thought about tickets until I saw the price and remembered that I don't have a job anymore. So we went to see Off-Broadway. I picked Stomp because I figured he likes music, he likes to see different things, and who doesn't like Stomp?
It was pretty good, Gerd enjoyed the show, but it wasn't as good as the first time I saw it in college. I don't know if it's because the whole thing was new then, or if it was just that I was new to seeing shows at the time, or what. Anyway it WAS good, but I wished I'd splurged on Broadway tickets instead. It wasn't WOW like it should have been. Amusing, but now WOW.
The highlight of the trip actually was dinner. It's always dinner that makes the night, but we didn't really know where to go, so we just wandered along a few streets until we saw something good. What we found was Afghani food with an atmosphere of a Bedouin tent. Fabric was draped over the ceilings and walls that gave it the illusion of a circular room, some people were smoking hookahs, and the tables had rugs on them (well, with glass on top). The food was excellent, the tea (chey) even better, and it didn't even break the bank. Our only regret was that we were too full for desert.
I'd talk about our second day roaming through Central Park in the rain, or the hours spent in the MET, the quest for Rockefeller Center, and the long, long drive home. But it was pretty much that, a rainy day in the city.
Gerd and I fled to New York City instead. It's only about 4 hours from my parents house to NYC and there we're not required to hammer, saw, or measure. Also, it became a birthday present to Gerd who has just turned old. Okay, not old, but he is two years off of old. Anyway, he's never been to a Broadway show before, so I thought about tickets until I saw the price and remembered that I don't have a job anymore. So we went to see Off-Broadway. I picked Stomp because I figured he likes music, he likes to see different things, and who doesn't like Stomp?
It was pretty good, Gerd enjoyed the show, but it wasn't as good as the first time I saw it in college. I don't know if it's because the whole thing was new then, or if it was just that I was new to seeing shows at the time, or what. Anyway it WAS good, but I wished I'd splurged on Broadway tickets instead. It wasn't WOW like it should have been. Amusing, but now WOW.
The highlight of the trip actually was dinner. It's always dinner that makes the night, but we didn't really know where to go, so we just wandered along a few streets until we saw something good. What we found was Afghani food with an atmosphere of a Bedouin tent. Fabric was draped over the ceilings and walls that gave it the illusion of a circular room, some people were smoking hookahs, and the tables had rugs on them (well, with glass on top). The food was excellent, the tea (chey) even better, and it didn't even break the bank. Our only regret was that we were too full for desert.
I'd talk about our second day roaming through Central Park in the rain, or the hours spent in the MET, the quest for Rockefeller Center, and the long, long drive home. But it was pretty much that, a rainy day in the city.
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