Forgives / encourages, tomato / tomato

He was Spanish and married and looked a little bit like Mark Ruffalo. She was tall and blonde, Brazilian and married. They talked about each others' spouses for a while and when she paid for his drinking they made out on the bar. 

New York is a city that forgives that kind of thing. And how does the song go?

Distance kills the best of intentions... 

Frank's No More: The Barbershop Quartet

I went to a barbershop today and would have given good money if you could have seen it. It was a perfect example of old-school barber's: the glass window on the front, checkered tiling on the floor and classic leather chairs lined up facing an endless speckless mirror.

The place used to be known as Frank's but Sal and Joe, who had always worked there, bought Frank out and are now their own bosses. They don't call it anything for now. It just is.

Sal (short for Salvatore) and Joe (a bastardisation of his name, Giuseppe) were talking about it with an old customer as I came in. Yes, Sal and Joe really dida speak lika this. Although, to be fair, it was mostly Joe who talked. Sal was busy with hot towels and soapy lather and this scarred face of mine.

Back in the good old days: Sal (front) and Frank (back), by http://belmontonian.com/

"Doesn't the wife mind you, Joe? Working six days a week?"
"Minda? Of course she mind." He had a thick raspy voice, like all the Italian guys do in all the old gangster movies. "But what, she needs me to go a shopping with her? She can not shop on her own?"

"And the grandkids?"
"The grandkids I see at night. They stay over the weekenda."

"But it's good for business? I guess if it's good for business, then it's alright. Gotta make sacrifices, right?"
"Good? It's a great. I make more money in two years than I made working for Frank. My whole lifa."

"Nice, Joe, nice!" Americans in general, and New Yorkers in particular, get really excited about money. This guy nearly jumped out of his chair. "How big is your turkey going to be this year? Huge, huh?"
"Bigga." Joe said and then punched the air and twisted his fist around, grumbling something in Italian beneath his long moustache. I didn't understand what he said, but thankfully, neither did the other guy.

"What's that, Joe?" He asked. At which point, Sal wiped the foam off the blade on a towel, leaned over me and translated:
"He's a going to stuff the turkey witha money."

One last stand on the stage

Dylan, photographed by John Cohen

"So I find it very strange that you had such contact with Bob Dylan but never played together, did you? Did you two ever get together to play?"

"There was one time," John Cohen started. "It was 1962 - the Cuban missile crisis."

"It took the Cuban missile crisis for you two to play together?" Nora Guthrie (Woody's daughter, Arlo's sister) said.

 "Literally did. I got home, saw what was happening on TV, and thought this is the end of the world. The thing was, I didn't want to die there all on my own. So I headed over to the Gaslight and Dylan was up on stage. I said, "hey lets play some songs," and he said "sure what you want to play?" I said "You're going to miss me when I'm gone." You see? It was ironic, there was going to be no one to miss us."

Magicians at the Border

"You sure you're not smuggling cocaine? Cocaine or ebola or something?"

"I'm positive."

He starts thumbing my passport, pulling out all the papers that had ended up there: a paper coin for good luck, ticket stubs from old flights, a witch-doctor's flyer.

"Ai, Karamba," he says, puts it down and gets back to my passport. "Is this from Laos? This stamp from Laos?"

He had this NYPD cop thing that made every question mark feel like a finger to the chest or lightbulb in the eyes. I'm thinking this might be a problem but I can't lie or anything, it's right there: LAOTIAN VISA. So I hesitate, but say 'yes, yes it is.' And he goes:

"It's a beautiful stamp." I thank my paper coins and breathe a little easier. "Only problem is it takes a whole page.
"What were you doing there?
"Visiting?
"Alone?
"So I guess you're adventurous?
"Do you sleep under palm trees and stuff?
"And this?" He asks waving the flyer. "Do you call Professor Karamba when you go to Laos? Everytime you fly?"

And out of nowhere he starts translating it. Word for word - almost.

"There are no problems without solution. Spiritualist and scientist. Great medium psychic. Helps solve problems big or small in 7 days like love, failure, depression, business, injustice, marriages." He stops and looks up genuinely impressed. "Oh, wow. He solves sexual impotence too."

Silverstein himself once remarked of his itinerant lifestyle, “Comfortable shoes and the freedom to leave are the two most important things in life.”

The Giving Tree at fifty, by Ruth Margalit in The New Yorker

An Angel at the Rue des Pittas

I asked God how on Earth do you write, or read, a speech for a child that doesn't speak yet. The answer came a lot quicker than I had imagined.

"Tell them we love José Mourinho! Can you tell them? Will you?"

Seems to me the special one has some fans upstairs.

Statue leads us to believe this has always been a welcoming street for the thirsty.

A musing on monkey attacks

There is a feeling I get sometimes when I'm with very old friends or with my closest kin in which they bring up old stories that I'd forgotten. An afternoon I spent lost in some distant island, the hiking of a small mountain through mists so thick we were virtually blind, the numerous times I've been attacked by mokeys (in pretty much every continent by now), threatened by dealers (in pretty much every continent, too) or the happy conversation we struck with the fucked up, doped-out wretched creature who was trying to rob us.

I'm not going to be coy about this, it's a good feeling. It strikes a chord in my broken harp.

It reminds me that I have forgotten more adventures than many people will get to live. I'm okay with that.

Waiting for the subway to arrive

The old american couple sat next to me, rubbing heavy, rusty knees. They had a bad case of touristic exhaustion: I could tell by the thousand yard stare with which they looked at the empty subway tracks. Somewhat unlikely, but true nonetheless, mexican music was playing on the PA.

They didn't finish each others' sentences: they took turns in saying words, so that it was virtually impossible to keep track of who was saying what.

"Porto was fascinating.
"Fascinating.
"it was an older city.
"You could feel it.
"This is more of a metropolis.
"It's all spread out.
"Less impressive.
"Sure am glad this is the end of the trip," She said. "If it wasn't!"

Then the train arrived and I couldn't really make out if he answered "I'm needing my shocks" or "need to change socks." I suppose one's just as likely as the other. I got on one carriage and they got on another.

I'm going to be very honest here: I liked the old couple and I was sorry to see them go. But that's life for you, I suppose.

photograph taken by Maria Furtado

I dreamt of a world where love had been outlawed. 

The sex was incredible.

Santa Apolonia, late at night

Please do not fead the pigeons with your empty dreams, your rage or your pity.

The pigeons hate your fucking pity.

Today's Pigeon, Immerman & Bagg

It's very strange, but also very true, that the more uncomfortable you get with who you are, the more people around you are comforted with the person you've become.

Restless.

Wild.

Keeps looking for old friends in new places.

Always running, flying, reaching for a higher high. A high that's never really good enough.  That insatiable hunger for a better tomorrow is as much a part of her genius as the anger with every crappy today.

w

by Lucas Croall

 Having either forced the door or a window, an individual crept into the apartment some time during the day. The cat, the coats, a camera, a silver necklace, a silver ring, the TV and the speakers were all left untouched.  These things were of no interest to our gentleman thief, who preferred to bag an old laptop, three bottles of wine and the complete works of Oscar Wilde and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. We're waiting for the police to arrive, and dying to read through what might be the best incident report in a long while.

Ou pela porta, ou por uma das janelas, hoje alguém nos entrou em casa. Ninguém tocou no gato, nos casacos, na camara, na cruz de prata, nos aneis, na televisão ou nas colunas. O que faltava cá em casa era: um computador antigo, três garrafas de vinho e as obras completas de Oscar Wilde e de Gabriel Garcia Maruqez. Estamos à espera de que chegue a polícia, e mortinhos por ler o relatório.

"I once saw British girls in Bangkok, wearing matching tank tops
pissed as farts in an expat bar where they drank lots" - Gramski

I Don't Like Your Crap Vegan Cakes (Wasted Rita stand)

To feel the bones shake inches deep in muscles that are soft and skin that is white.

To hear the heart beat to the rhythm of drum sticks.

To breathe in the smell of beer and smoke and bass riffs.

To drown in feedback.

Being in front of the stage, in between the speakers, on a good night is like being on life support:
you know you're only alive until they pull the plug.

Alive. 2014

And there we were, the three of us just after the sun had set and as that first, early darkness was dropping, with the infant in his trolley, the winds of Araby blowing like a lover's whisper in our ears, hot and husky and stealing away our breath and drying our throats, as all the cars in the country raced paste the Gulf Road, drinking contraband Cape champagne.

"Sparkling -."

Shush you. I won't ruin a perfectly good alliteration over some technicality. It occurred to me that it couldn't get much better than that. So I took an imaginary Polaroid picture and after they had all gone I stayed behind just a minute longer to see how it had turned out. Turns out it turned out alright. It really did.

Contraband Champagne,
written 50 weeks ago

I cracked again today, just like I cracked yesterday, and the day before that. It feels like I've been cracking for months. I have more cracks in me than dry firewood. You who always offered support, affection, and devotion hold out your hands for warmth. Like a spark in a fire, something crackles, snaps and bursts. I lash out at those that I can't keep away. The people that refuse to stay where they'll be safest. Truth is - and all cheap metaphors aside - I've been grumpy with my colleagues, angry at my friends, short-tempered with my family, and untrue to myself. 

I'm not ready to apologise yet, but I'm trying to change.

(-it's a twelve step program)