The Burg was in full swing this weekend.  Everything from riding in the backs of trucks while helping friends move to witnessing a cab jump the curb and hit a building on Bedford and an extensive amount of hanging out on roofs occurred:

The real fun, however, came on Memorial Day.  Promptly upon waking, my apartment’s crew touched base with my old friend Dustin’s and an entourage took off in separate cars for Riis Park (out in the Far Rockaways).  It’s an area of New York City that is completely not like any other part of the city.  Suburban, beautiful, bridges everywhere, waves, and backyards.  Best of all, we brought my roommate’s dog, Nico:

Here’s Phil and Brett, the other two people in our car.  Phil cowered in the back seat while Brett drove “like an 8-year old who got a hold of some Mountain Dew.”

After crossing “the ugliest bridge in New York,” we showed up to the beach and met up with Dustin, Laura, Celia, Simon, and Abel.  Some of whom are pictured here:

After a few hours of heavy wind, freezing water (which we did swim in), we headed back.  Little did we know, finding our way back to hipster-ville from the “real world” was as easy as following the signs along the road and the track bikes leading the way:

Strangely enough, somewhere in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, we found unfortunate historical practices still in full swing… and being propagated by a Reverand, no less!:

Mexico update soon.  I promise.

Certain names have been changed.  Hope no one is offended.

The night begins with coffee.  It is a ritual that I started years ago, back in undergrad.  Back then, we hardly slept.  About one hour after dinner, when I finally worked up the strength to be productive, there was a ritual that surrounded myself and the coffee pot in my room:

1. Rinse coffee pot.

2. Let the pot refill with water quickly, followed by slowly pouring the water into the machine.

3. Fill the machine with the proper amount of beans.  On an average evening, it’s a half-pot, so six scoops is enough.  Not-so-average evenings: 8 or 10 dependent upon both the amount of work that requires being done and the amount of hair-pulling you wish to subject yourself to.

4. Do not – I repeat – do not go back out into the living room.  Do not talk to anyone. Do not walk out to the bathroom, that can wait.  Do not answer your roommates when they ask you where all of the cream cheese went. You will risk getting sucked back into video games, alcohol, and the imitable other rituals: late-night pizza delivery, conversations about faux sexual experiences, and debates on such imperative topics as how to build a self-sustaining island out of 2-liter plastic bottles.  Do not leave the room.

5. Sit.

6. Breath.

7. Sip.

8. Work.

9. Repeat 5-8 until exhaustion.

This worked well because I had a unique setup.  The coffee machine wasn’t just in my room.  I owned a desk large enough that I could keep the coffee pot within reach at all times.  Computer; center.  Book I was reading; left.  Notes for homework; right.  Coffee pot and mug; far right.  Everything I needed was within arm’s reach: accessible, switched-on or held open with bookmarks or pens like paperweights.  Complete access, a microcosm.  Did I mention that the coffee pot was in my room?  Do not go into the living room.

There was also a soft scald of previously-spilt coffee on the hot plate.  It created a caffeinated stench that still reminds me more of morning-afters and watching Ferris Bueller’s Day Off with whoever had stayed over than its obvious meaning: at some point in the night, my hand had wavered.  I had missed.  There was so much missing that the smell became a part of the universe.

This worked well.  For a long time.  There were always assignments and things to look for meaning in.  If a story wasn’t due, a critique had to be written.  If a book didn’t have to be written about, it had to be read.  The weeknight provided time for all of the things that had nothing to do with the ball-kicking, girl-talking real world.

It was solace.  No matter how boring the work was.  No matter how frustrating.  No matter the caffeine-twitch.  It was solace.

Do not go into the living room.

The bedrooms we return to are no longer the palaces we kept in college.  We now do practical things like pay rent.  Vintage yellow lamps have been replaced by the perfectly-circular fluorescent light bulbs that cast sterile, hospital light across everything we own.  We have learned to live without.

The nights have become dense, too.  Those lavish and vapid openings that one could move about in freely before are crowded, crammed, squished like clowns in subway cars during rush hour.

There are still signs of childhood.  Nightly, before entering my room, my eyes cross paths with a stuffed figurine.  Made of purple yarn and stuffing with a tusk sticking out its front.  It is a narwhal, hand-crafted, a gift.  There is also a Bob Dylan figurine, again, hand-knit.  Plane ticket stubs litter the top of the desk, too.  Mostly to Chicago or back to New York.  The aberrations are the ones that clutter the most, though.  There is a return-flight stub from Paris to Chicago, a mark of a month of strange bewilderment and absolute wonder.  New York to Indianapolis, Indiana.  A 2-day trip to attend a funeral for a friend who passed at age 27.  And who can forget the trip to Las Vegas?  No trip could more properly define depression and profound excitement for life at the same time quite as well as a weekend in Vegas with a person you’ve just started dating who you know will leave you upon your return home.

These things fill up the empty world that once was so comforting.  They are reminders of blonde-haired girls and late-night conversations about how to compost more efficiently in the city.  The thought of that conversation drives eyes over to the desk I currently work at.  There is a stack of envelopes, pieces of paper, notices of credit information, billing statements – far past overdue – loan repayment documentation, and an angrily-scrawled letter from my mother that somehow begins with, “You should be ashamed” and ends with, “Thank you for being our son.”

The desk is unmanageable, a sea of guilt and carbon-printed mistakes so work is done in bed.  A  pile of pillows against my back, my computer delicately balanced on my knees, half-scrunched to my chest.

When it becomes too much, when the cats outside scream out in heat, when all three of us in the apartment have decided enough, we congregate outside of our cluttered, tiny worlds, first in front of the coffee pot again, then eventually in the living room where the lights of the city skyline stream in across our three faces.

“It’s only 2,” Mike tells me.  “Yeah.  I just can’t work anymore.”

He knows the drill and Amanda does, too.  She returns from where the coffee pot is with a bottle of whiskey and three empty glasses and Mike has already cued up a TiVo’d episode of The Office.  The windows are wide open and the cats only scream louder.  This is too predictable a situation, too comforting, to leave.  My only other option is to return to the Amazon-like bedroom at night.  I do not wish to stare at billing statements from collectors and loved ones anymore.

And there is a process for this ritual, too:

1. Pour yourself a few ounces into one of the mugs that Amanda hands you.

2. Lean back on the couch, look at whoever is sitting across from you, and make conversation.

3. Disregard the TV’s picture and the sound of canned laughter coming from the other side of the room.

4. When an awkward pause occurs, comment on what has JUST been said on the TV.  This keeps everyone moving forward.

5. Always.  Always turn the conversation inward.  Change the subject constantly to your current situation.  While you wish to stay informed of everyone’s goings on, the truth is you are drinking.  You are worried about you.  You have escaped from the jungle of your bedroom and you are free but freezing out here without the warmth of affirmation from work being done.

It’s another nightly ritual, the drinking, the talking, the self-involvement.  We are selfish and hungry and our fingers tap the glass of the coffee table with a vehemence that cannot be described as nervous or angst-filled, but rather with surging talent.  Talent that cannot escape because we are, again, doing real things like paying our bills.  And it is this talent that seeps out of the cracks in conversation.  Mike recites lighting setups he’s worked with throughout the day in a language foreign to me.  A born-conversationalist, Amanda talks about coffee as if it is something so much more than stained water, and the way she does so has me convinced she’s right.  But with all of us turning the conversations inward, nothing gets discussed and nothing gets hammered out quite right.  When cups are emptied and we stand up to return to our own drywall-encased jungles, there is the feeling of half-crushed eggs beneath our feet.

We are children in the city.  Very large children.  Very grown up children.  The movement back to those tiny rooms, to prepare for bed, forces the last five years into sharp focus.  It is with a whiskey-soaked brain that I will decide to stay up, to watch cartoons on the internet while laying in bed.  While the usual effects of drunkenness, the lulling of my head, the steadily more sloping posture, are in full force, so is my awareness in this tiny universe.  Somehow, I realize that tomorrow I must go to work.  I must wake up, go to work, come home, and continue writing and working.  There is a commercial on in between cartoons, for Coke, that a girl and I once both decided was incredibly annoying.  And I realize that I have to keep working to prove that she shouldn’t have left.  I have to keep working so that all those thousands of dollars spent on plane tickets mean something.  I have to keep working so that my mother doesn’t have to start letters with “You should be ashamed” anymore.  It’s crowded in here.  Keep working.

Do not go into the living room.  Keep working.

And for more Kermit action, here‘s a site made by someone with this absolutely brilliant idea: “Soon after the death of Jim Henson, Sad Kermit spiraled downward into a life of addiction, romance, and pain.  The songs and videos on this webpage shed light on Sad Kermit’s descent into his dark, hurting world.”

Sad Kermit

Yesterday morning, we awoke to an unusual amount of noise coming up from the Unknown Biker’s (a Puerto Rican biker bar across the street, nicest dudes ever).  To our delight, we found that it was the 35th anniversary of their biking club.  We also learned the origin of the empty plot of land next to the bar (where in the video below you’ll see tables set up).  Turns out that back when Williamsburg was one of the roughest neighborhoods in Brooklyn – a mere 15 years ago, pre-condo build/hipster migration, myself included – the lot had a building in it that was a crack house.  The original owner of Unknown Biker’s decided he didn’t want to raise his kids with that sort of thing around.  So he did the most logical thing: burnt it to the ground.

Needless to say, these guys rule.  Below you’ll see a video of the very beginning of the block party viewed from my roof (with cameos from my roommate Kris and friend Sophie), the display of motorcycles, and the skid mark left from a dude peeling out in the most epic way possible: by drawing a circle and cutting it in half with his rear wheel smoking out the whole time.  So gnarly.

But even at age twenty-five, something compels me to go out and throw my body around.  I’m coming out of a period where I actively tried to resist skating so that I could concentrate on my studies (grad school), but I now have a modicum of free time.  Again, I find myself drawn to skating.  Somehow, going out and exploring the city I live in while attempting to change the way I view everyday structures (as obstacles, not as objects) still has some sort of hold over me.It sounds infantile.  It feels infantile to say it (write it).  But hell, it’s still fun.  This is all before the amazing traveling situation that skating results in: being able to go to any major city in the world and, as long as you can find an internet connection, you can find a best friend, tour guide, and couch to sleep on.

This picture was recently featured one the ONEMagazine blog and it was taken by Josh Diaz:

And here’s one more recent picture and a few pictures from years past:

That’s not to say I haven’t been busy.  In the past three months I’ve moved to a new apartment, doubled the amount of freelancing I’m doing, taken on more responsibility at HeaveMedia, completed a massive Capstone project (resulting in my graduating from graduate school), gone to Las Vegas, gotten punched in the face in a bar in Midtown Manhattan, gotten a new bike, thrown numerous barbecues, interviewed a band in Boy George’s old apartment, gone home to Chicago twice, saw David Bowie cooking eggs, and gotten my tan on an obscene number of times on my new roof.

Given that I’ve done a lot, I want to write a bit about it all.  But why start at the beginning?  That’d be horrifically boring.  After all, isn’t this a blog about different ways of communicating?

So I’m going to write in reverse order, beginning with today.  After a while, I’ll begin a post letting you all know that we’re going back to normal blog format.  For now, have a look at the new High Line green space that opened a few days ago:

Myself and my friends John and Sophie entered at Gansevoort St., between 10th and 11th Avenues, technically in the Meatpacking District (where, these days, a whole different kind of meatpacking occurs).  Where once ships brought in all the goods Manhattan needs and sailors earned meager livings in the hardest of working conditions (see On The Waterfront), now exists nothing but exclusive clothing stores and enough pomposity, khaki capris on dudes, and designer sunglasses to kill Kanye.  Anyway…

Once up top, they’ve actually done a great job of turning the old elevated train tracks into a walkway and garden that will be wonderful for the enjoyment of all of New York… but mostly just the supremely rich and privileged that live in the area.  Nonetheless, it’s quite an interesting space, filled with great design and a refreshing way to repurpose the bygone transportation system.

The scene as soon as you get up onto the tracks:

Practice rails abound… too bad you’d never get away with skating here.

Tailored islands of plants

Benches/lounges that you can roll next to each other

The High Line snakes through buildings…

And under buildings

Sitting parks break up the green space.

With integrated benches.

They’re still working, it will eventually continue past 20th St.

There are also great views of the Hudson River… and Transformers posters.

Here’s another sitting area

Afterward, we went to pick up our friend, Bianca, from work (at Bespoke Chocolates).  Outside of the store was an “art piece” on the wall by artist “Fierce Pussy.”  It consisted of large prints of pages from lesbian erotic fiction blacked out, whited out, or otherwise censored to create the dirtiest meaning possible.

Detail

While nicely displayed, I don’t see the point.  Hyper-feminism?  Really?  It’s 2009.  I’d hope we could do something a little more cognizant of necessary dichotomies.