NYC

Hipster, Can You Spare a Dime?

What is up with these avant-guard artist-wanna be's and the socially aware who constantly complain about our government's lack of charity yet can't spare a dime for a homeless person?

I live pay check to pay check but I seldom turn down a request from someone who asks for money, unless I really just don't have it. But I see this happen all the time. On the subway especially. Commuters discussing the need for change suddenly turn into in-transit Helen Kellers if approached by the homeless. The argument that you don't want to give money because they'll spend it on alcohol or drugs fails miserably. You don't want to give money because you are just as tight-assed as our current administration. Even when you give money to a "proper"---and probably mismanaged---charity, there's no telling how that money will be allocated. I choose not to worry about how a homeless person uses the money. Whether you donate to a charity or give someone cash hand to hand, the money will probably not be used as it was intended, except in the rarest of cases. But the proper charity does give you a tax writer off. Oh, I get it!

Think about living on the streets. I imagine it consists of one goddamn nightmare of violence and pain after the next. Many of us claim to be close to it. So how can you refuse to give assistance, even if it is going to be used for a bit of hallucinogenic or Night Train fueled escape? Hell, take the time to buy someone some food, if it won't make you late for some Lower East Side Happy Hour.

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Temptations of The Flesh Cost Me My Room, or How Not Gettin' Any Will Get You Kicked to the Curb

If you read my previous blog A Christmas Suicide, Or Thoughts Of, you know that I was told on Christmas Eve that I must move out of the apartment I just finished moving into the night before.

Today, I got in touch with the woman who runs the roommate service. Her name is Margaret and she said the lady I rented the room from wants me out because I came home from a party early in the morning and she thinks this is unChristian like; therefore, she made up a lie (like a good Christian) about her family coming from Florida to live in the room that I was renting. Now, I thought the family story sounded suspicious and to be honest, this makes more sense because I know she is religious. The only thing she told me when I moved in was that there was to be no smoking, drinking, or overnight guests, which quite frankly is fine with me or I wouldn't have taken the room. Being under pressure to write a book and all, I prefer things quiet. However, I didn't know that going to a holiday party/poetry reading was forbidden or that my life outside of the apartment would be monitored. This lady told Tony (see previous blog; he is the guy that made a pass at me and I slapped) that she fears I am an ungodly slut drunk.

Well. I hold very stong spiritual beliefs and I don't happen to think coming home late from a party is a violation of anything other than a false human made perception of sexual sin. (By the way: I didn't get laid at this shindig; perhaps when I finally move out, I'll have learned to say in Spanish, "If you have a son or know someone I can fuck, tell 'em about me!")

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untitled freelancer

here where you are is full of Santeria cigars waiting to be smoked in the kitchen and roses wrapped around the shower stall. you guess this is what you get when you rent a room from someone you don't know without even looking at the whole apartment bc you are so desperate for some place any place where you can shut a door and you need that quiet that a door gives to shut it so i shut it out you out while waiting for that dream place to open up. it's ok. you are on the list. just when you found out you had to leave the first place, you found out you were on that list, the no money list for a skyrise version of heaven. you are on the 80/20 train to St. Peter but there is trash on the tracks. trash on the tracks causes small fires, they say. little mini spurts of hell that cause your train to be delayed.

you knew it was going to be crazy when you got back and it has been. you are going on no sleep after a freelance experience writing about rugs for four or five days. well, they are good for hiding the bodies is all you have left to say.

the Saint Candles that are burning on top of the fridge give the apartment a soft glow. it is appropriate that you are writing a ghost book. today your phone died---couldn't be a power surge bc it wasn't plugged in. Jodie saw it. the screen was stuck on "goodbye". was Jodie willing you off of her couch? anyway, now it works, but you have to charge it in the kitchen with the spirits of the dead because it must be amongst its own kind. plus, you have no outlet in your room.