Happy Days....

Have accidentally stumbled into a relationship that doesn't require a constant suppression of inner-dialogue. Would write more about it, but I suspect this would be unwise. Best to leave well-enough alone...

I just spent an entire weekend doing almost nothing but wandering around and looking around. It was perfect. I believe people who are in the habit of labeling such moments call this "living in the now". Fortunately, I managed to avoid those people during my weekend, which is part of the reason it wasn't annoying.

Thompkins Square Park was full of thirty-something, used-to-party-artsy-wild-lower-east-siders and their open-minded-urban-ironic-t-shirt toddlers. I'm sure we all look forward to the smug "I grew up in the lower-east-side and remember when...." pseudo-intellectual hipster pricks these kids will inevitably grow up to become. For now, they play with soccer balls and use words they don't fully grasp in hopes of impressing their poet-dread-lock fathers. It was nice.

There is a Pakistani guy at the corner of Bowery and Bleeker just north of CBGB's who has a vending cart called Serendipity or Karma or something. The whole thing is decorated like one of those Cornucopias from Pilgrims Thanksgiving illustrations had exploded onto a hot-dog stand. Even a simple hotdog comes in a spinach tortilla, with soy-beans, turkey-bacon, tahini, green onions.... It's good but a little aromatically confusing. Meanwhile the proprieter (a really nice guy) seems to be suggesting subtly that he is of Native American descent with long braids on each side of his head and, for some reason, a Caribbean accent. It's there from like 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. many nights, although, don't hold me accountable, as it would seem things like rain or one two many joints will cause our culturally plural restaurateur to leave the shop in the garage for the evening.

Item... Punk is now gay. I'm not sure when this happened, but I've been noticing that most of the mohawks, army jackets and combat booted lower east siders are gayer than (insert obligatory homosexual cliché here). The mohawk is the new assless leather chaps.

New graffiti on my van every week. Fortunately the local Brooklyn graffiti artists seem to have limited their color pallet to white, and my van is white with the exception of the back door. It had been falling off, so I went to the junk-yard in Jamaica Queens and replaced it with a black door. Soon, however, thanks to this plague of monochromatic urban vandals, said black door will be white. Until that time, "Chico 49ers" has fended off the existential angst of his seemingly meaningless, disenfranchised life by advertising his earthly presence on the back of a 1990 Dodge Ramwagon that has been known to travel to the far reaches of the Upper West side (a place that would otherwise not be aware of said life-force).

I’ll write more from now on. I promise.