xtcian

lugging, schlepping, toting

11/30/04

our old apartment before the move

our old apartment tonight

I know that every single one of you reading this has been through a move, perhaps some of you have done it ten times in the last decade. You'll know this, then: there is no marrow-dragging bone tiredness that can possibly compare. The little tiny things you leave behind that you only notice when the initial husk of crap is stripped away, that's what kills ya.

It's the broom behind the door, the endless extension cords, the tiny stuffed animal that this girl gave you in college, the book that was holding up the television. Oh, and does anyone need any phone cord? We have 17.3 miles of it, all in eight-foot strips.

I've had it with my body. It's had it with me. I have one thing to say, however: our new place has really cool peepholes in the old mahogany doors.

sweepin' the clouds away

11/29/04

I would like to take this moment to say goodbye to an inanimate object. Yes, Apartment in Park Slope, this is our last night together. Tomorrow we are moving a few blocks away to a place that will better suit our needs, and you will provide a glorious home to another couple that needs your good vibes desperately.

When I came to you, I was totally inconsolable. I hadn't eaten in two weeks because of my paralyzing anxiety. I had seen you in the New York Times Real Estate Listings, and picked you because you were at least three miles from downtown Manhattan. The first night I spent under your roof I felt better, like a morphine drip to a patient in pain. You will forever represent recovery to me.

Curiously, as great as you are, not many of my friends ever got inside you. I suppose it was one of those "nesting" periods when I asked my girlfriend to marry me, and then we were engaged, then betrothed. The last place I lived, like any other East Village bachelor pad, was something of a lure. You, however, got me well past that insanity.

You, your stoop, and your neighborhood is what I thought new York was when I was a kid. Sesame Street pretended it was Manhattan - or Harlem, or something - but the minute I walked down Lincoln, I knew it was really about you and yours.

We won't be far; in fact, we'll try to walk by you a lot. Maybe your new tenants can get your toilet to work. Perhaps also they'll have better luck getting their wireless internet to go through the walls. Oh, and your floors weren't quite thick enough to drown out the guy snoring upstairs (although he must qualify for a some medals in that category).

You were built in 1888, and I once heard a story about a Peruvian family of six living in Tessa's office area. We are but a tiny slice - three years - of the hundreds of tenants who have broken bread here since the Gilded Age. Thanks for obliging us with your silent largesse.

Tessa, Chopes, our street, summer '04

why, it was delightful

2002

2003

2004

And how was yours?

Gee Otter - thanks!

11/23/04

Nobody will be on the internet for the next four days, so I have a few quick thanks to give before Thanksgiving.

- Thanks to my sister Michelle for letting me be the only one who could stop her crying when she was a baby.

- Thanks to my brother Sean for not freaking out when I got him what I wanted for his eighth birthday (a basketball).

- Thanks to my brother Steve for making me that cool robot costume powered by a six volt battery three Halloweens in a row.

- Thanks to my brother Kent for introducing me to the Odd Bodkins cartoons, the Beatles and XTC.

- Thanks to my dad for the orange Huffy 10-speed bike (Christmas 1979), and for letting me understand that artists are supposed to be paid too.

- Thanks to my mom for the new Peanuts cartoon books she left on my pillow every day after I was beat up at grade school.

- Thanks to Chip for moving back to Chapel Hill in 1991 when my world was falling apart, thanks to Bud for getting me through winter 1992 and his advice about baby powder, and to Jon Vaden for rescuing me that Christmas when my parents were throwing antiques at each other.

- Thanks to Salem for his Clinique 2 1/2 Scrubbing Lotion and his undying energy for all things, and thanks to Annie for our fireside (forced hot air blower) chats.

- Thanks to Scotty for his unwavering character and his excellent advice off the tee. Also to Lars for his endless curiosity and perfectionism.

- Thanks be to Jamie Block for our insane years (1987-2000) and our lucky years (2001-present). Thanks also to Kendall for my first kiss, and her abject loyalty.

- Thanks to Lindsay for his curmudgeonly enthusiasm and for doing everything six months before we do. Also to Matt, Clay and Jon Gray for refining my humor when I was getting complacent.

- Thanks to DB in SF for fighting all good fights, and to everyone from Carolina who has forgiven me for being such a clueless bastard whilst there.

- Thanks to Chapel Hill, New Orleans, Venice (CA) and New York City for lust, debauchery, hope and victory.

- Thanks to all of you who read this blog and have such amazing things to say (Caren, Kmeelyon, Oliver, the Canadian Clique, Piglet, Laurie, Andy, Andrew, Shannon, Tanya, Greg, Carla, flaco, cullen, bozoette, Brent, Kevin, Wendi) and everyone else who is sliding through my fingers because it's 1:51am. Also to the newcomers for being willing to adopt another blog.

- Thanks to the stunningly great people I have met because of my very significant other: the emotive, heartbreakingly great Laurie and George, the effervescent Nell and salt-of-earth Jesse, razor-sharp Virginia, omniscient Kelly, warm mothering Lorraine and Alex, steadfast Jason and Tim, and super sweet Lee and Suzanne. If you have read thus far and not seen your name, understand that it is only my fault, and I'll get you next Thanksgiving.

- But my most undying thanks belongs to the sweet love of my life, Tessa Valentine, who is just about the best thing that ever happened to anybody. She is the frosting, the gravy, the warm backrub on a cold night. Nothing is better than our families intermingling, nothing is nicer than the ability to love her, and nothing could express how Thankful I am that she was Given to liking me too.

Tessa and her chowder-headed date

don't spoil my day, I'm miles away

11/22/04

This diary was originally started to chart my daily feelings on the antidepressant Celexa. I did so for about a month, and then the blog itself started being so therapeutic that I stopped talking about my emotional health and started writing all this random bullshit so many of you are kind enough to read.

You've helped me through many problems (although nobody had a decent suggestion on how to keep my barn warm) and I must draw upon your collective wisdom once more: namely, how the fuck do any of you stay awake?

Looking back at the arc of my life, the one problem that has stood out since the age of six is that I never have enough energy to rock all day long. My rest state is more restier than your average rester. I recall the endless days in high school when I would invent word games just to get through the preening boredom of Western Civ class. Now I find myself dragging through the day like I was carrying bags of sand.

I have tried ginseng, but it gats forth very little. I suppose I could exercise more, but I feel like it's deeper than that. I have tried taking a little bit of Welbutrin in the morning, but all it seems to do is put an endless song loop in my head (usually "Hey Good Lookin'" or the "Facts of Life" theme, no lie).

I have ingested Coke until I got kidney stones. I was an early and proud adopter of Red Bull back in the mid-90s. Now I content myself with a 3-shot latté, which usually puts the wind in my sails for about an hour. The only thing that really works is three Extra Strength Excedrin, but can your liver take six of those a day?

In short, I ask you - how did you keep from falling asleep while reading this blog entry?

the sucker punch

11/21/04

The sports world is abuzz with the brawl/riot that took place between the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Pistons on Friday night, and if you haven't seen the pertinent videos, you can find some here (although the small screen doesn't quite do it justice). When I first saw it, it made me actually a little sick, probably from some holdover desire for every game to be like "Hoosiers" or perhaps one of Dean's random wins over Koach K.

Everyone's trying to figure out who to blame - Pistons fans, Ron Artest, etc. - but the smarmiest judgments came from the sportscasters, who not only condoned the beating up of random fans, but also tut-tutted with endless disgust, saying it was the darkest night of NBA hoops any of them had known.

Frankly, I think that's a bit disingenuous. I have never turned to the NBA for rational discourse, treatises on how to behave, or good basketball, for that matter. I've hated the pro game since I was a kid, because college was always more exciting. I'd rather watch Boise State play Montana than to sit through another Laker game.

The Pistons/Pacers brawl, to me, is the essence of the current American character. There is so much free-floating anger in this country that I'm surprised a massive arena riot hasn't already taken place.

The last four years have shown us that when it comes right down to it, we are not protected. We are on our own. There were no parachutes or magic slides out of the World Trade Center, there is no flu vaccine for your pregnant wife, and the power will fucking go out for half of America for days on end. Don't expect there to be a safety net, because there isn't one.

Now, I'm repulsed beyond reckoning that a 6'6" athlete weighing 250 is rushing into the stands to beat the living shit out of a 5'9" schlub because he might have been the one to throw a plastic cup of beer. But the Pacers, at that moment, were in a situation that appeared to have no safety net, and then they made a decision: to beat up everyone they could get their hands on.

I think Tessa's theory is correct: the number of violent murders with guns in this country is not the cause of a culture of fear (which was Michael Moore's hypothesis in "Bowling for Columbine"), it is because we are a culture that says, from the very top, that it is okay to kill our own.

The death penalty sets a subconscious precedent from above that sets in motion a wanton disregard for life all over. It's like having a parent who is a pathological liar; chances are you will be too.

The Pacers aren't just from poor neighborhoods where fighting was a regular survival technique - they've taken their cue from the highest sources in America. Our current administration has reacted to every threat by killing hundreds of thousands of people who happened to be in the wrong country when the towers came down. The litany of our international thuggery gets longer every day.

Now, I'm not saying George Bush was unleashing his inner monster through the body of Ron Artest on Friday night, but I am saying that this country is full of blind rage at a world they can no longer control.

And this is the basic difference between some Americans. Some use their basest emotions, which they misconstrue as some sort of inner truth, and unleash unchecked punishment on anyone who doesn't appear to agree with them. Others, on the other hand, would have walked out of the gym. You get hit with a beer? You're mad, but you don't throw roundhouse sucker punches at people a foot shorter than you.

Alone, surrounded, and feeling the pangs of a world without a safety net, I'm trying to be the latter. I'd like to formally withdraw.

o captain, my... whatever

11/18/04

Tessa and I were talking about high school today, a subject that has come up a lot lately, but in all honesty, I didn't mentally breach the subject of "high school" for about a decade. It is a place I had written off a long time ago, even though untold wonders were opened to me because of it.

To hear Tessa describe Choate, it sounds a little "Dead Poets Society" with some anorexia mixed in. The kids in her class, when they weren't doing blow or getting drunk on stolen bourbon, actually lusted after literature and had impromptu gab sessions about Theodore Dreiser. She said she could actually feel her own mind expanding as she and her best friends became more culturally literate with each gasping paragraph.

It also helped they were an hour from New York City, so a quick trip with a borrowed car could be arranged, and days filled with museums and nights filled with underage debauchery would be pursued. The pace nearly killed her - she graduated a year early just to get out - but Choate (also the prep school of JFK) was an exercise in Anything Goes™.

My prep school, conversely, was none of those things. Norfolk Academy is situated on a modestly ugly tract of land right off I-64 on the border between Norfolk and Virginia Beach. It was nowhere near the actual beach, if that's what you're asking.

My memories from there are always dark, cloudy, mixed with equal parts cluelessness and dread. We had a very tight clique of friends that I have waxed romantic about on these pages, but I never felt as though our heads were going to explode with a love for literature. We would go through little phases - a fondness for the David Bowie back catalogue, a serious dabble with the Tarot - but we never fancied Norfolk Academy a place where minds got expanded.

The whole culture of N.A. was an education of You'll Thank Us For This Later and This'll Hurt Me More Than It Hurts You. It didn't have the outright S&M of a military school, but our teachers fetishized how difficult their classes were, and nobody was ever nice to us (with notable exceptions).

I never felt any magic there, none of that "Dead Poets Society" coming-of-age mysticism, not even the ghosts of students who had first trudged the halls in 1728. It was all about getting into college, preferably an Ivy League. There was no being there and young, it was an exercise in getting you the fuck out.

You'd think a prep school chartered in 1680 would have an aura about it - shit, Edgar Allan Poe gave his last speech there. But you can't buy magic, I suppose - and being in Norfolk, Virginia is no easy sell either. Tessa could have taken a quick train to Manhattan from her school, but we were surrounded by miles of strip malls, car dealerships and Navy bases.

I realize I was mostly to blame for my own despair. I was utterly freaked out and painfully afraid of being noticed; in class, I probably said about ten words in four years, and I didn't kiss a girl until I was in college (hi, Special K!). Also, I was the luckiest son of a bitch alive. My family was let into the school at a vastly reduced rate because of our musicianship.

No Norfolk Academy means no Carolina, which means no life, and no words on this page. I have my entire current circumstance to thank for it.

But I do wish I'd had that first kiss at a snowy dance, I wish my friends and I had discovered Pynchon and blown our minds out in my Mom's Chevy Citation, I wish we could have gotten high on Neruda, stormed the East Village and drunk illegal Scotch on the corner of Avenue A and St. Marks. If our school hadn't been so fixated on our future, maybe we would have looked upon our past - and each other - with more fondness.

my fake I.D. picture, 1984

thanks for the pass --->

11/17/04

God knows 89% of you have no idea why this week is so special to some of us, but here's the scoop: the college basketball season finally started. I have had small infatuations with football, occasionally lapses into baseball, and I had a New York Cosmos jersey when I was a kid, but nothing has fully permeated my soul the way college basketball has.

You can go to all kinds of other places to hear rhapsodic prose about how college hoops games are the last true representation of "sport," how truly any team can win on any given night, and how there is no greater spectator sport (with the possible exception of a really bloody fight in hockey). All I can say is that I actually live and die - emotionally - with the fate of the University of North Carolina Tar Heels.

I've driven 27 hours just to see a conference game. I've flown 3,280 miles and back the same day; I've scalped in 15-degree weather; I've sat next to a Duke student in a game we lost. When I was 18, Kendall Croswell and Jon Vaden and I camped out in the mud overnight in mid-winter to get tickets to the first game in the Dean Dome.

The last few years, especially the rock-bottom nadir of 2001-2002, have been devastating. Our record was so bad one season (8-20) even teams like Davidson were feeling sorry for us. Decades of tradition were wiped out, and fans like me, who can't help their genetic predisposition to Carolina blue, felt trapped, heartbroken and in serious need of Al-Anon, like a trusted father had suddenly begun to beat us.

Our team has recruited well, got the best coach in college, and fought our way back into the rankings. And this week, all I can say is WE'RE FUCKING BACK, BABY!

Fuck the Sports Illustrated Cover Curse. If the Sox can win, anyone can. Plus, we were on the cover of SI at the beginning of the 1982 season, and we all know what happened then, don't we?

I said, DON'T WE???

freshman Michael Jordan nails the jumper against Georgetown

faux noose

11/16/04

When George W. Bush stole the election in the November of 2000, Tessa and I were so disgusted that we enacted a media blackout at our apartment that lasted ten full months. We watched no CNN, no Peter Jennings, surfed no news on the Web, not even the local news.

It was hard at first, but unsuckling from that teat became enjoyable, as we felt free from the pounding migraine of our country's machine. We knew our issues, we knew our faith, and if something big was going to happen, we'd find out eventually.

me, Tessa's mom Sandy and Tessa atop Mt. Greylock on 9/4/01

Boy, did we fucking ever. The next time Tessa turned on CNN, it was the morning of September 11, 2001 and people were streaming up our block covered in soot. That began a hypersensitivity to the news that stayed acute for three years. In fact, in the months following the WTC attacks, I'd casually turn on the TV just to make sure we weren't back to a 24-hour news situation (i.e., something else had been blown up).

My fixation on the news gradually drew me into a maelstrom of abject anxiety and depression, and, when that abated, the elections took over. It wasn't just national networks, it was DailyKos, Atrios, the Air America blogs and tons of other internet goodies that served to tantalize the possibility of change.

Now that has been dashed, utterly. I hate to be a pissed-off sour-grape sore loser, but I have no interest in going back to DailyKos and watching my fellow liberals eat their young. All of those breathless reports from each state showing a Kerry surge, the possibilities of a Democrat-controlled Senate, even the rousing spirits of Springsteen in Wisconsin and Eminem's video "Mosh" - it all seems grotesque and childish now.

And so T and I have begun another media blackout. No CNN on TV, only the casual glancing of headlines on Salon and Slate, and certainly no looking at the cover of the NY Post while getting on the subway. We'll still listen to "All Things Considered" (I have become very good at turning off the radio when Bush speaks and turning it back on just after he finishes) and the BBC World Service on the satellite, but the giant udders hanging from the fat belly of American Corporate News® is now giving forth naught but poisoned milk.

From now on, I'll get my information by osmosis only, through snippets of casual conversation from friendly sources. When the next American Disaster happens - hopefully far away from New York City - I'm sure we'll find out somehow. From this moment forward, I'll take my news the way I take my coffee: plucked, roasted, finely ground, pressed through a tiny hole and then sloshed with flavored syrup.

doddering constitutional

11/15/04

I have been up at my farm, by myself, for four straight days, without actually seeing another human except the water delivery guy and this other dude who was trying to sell the rest of his steaks. I have begun talking to the dog, asking him questions, taking his advice and discussing the plot holes in movies we're watching.

This is the "shoulder season" up here - the stretch of time after "leaf peeping" and before snowfall. And though we may be two hours from the most vibrant city on earth, up here, you might as well be on Neptune. It is cold, very cold, and nary a truck passes by on the highway. The sun sets at 4pm, and all you can hear are the geese flying overhead to warmer climes.

Jon asked me why I care about teenage pop music. That's probably why.

It's funny, how much of your internal dialogue remains dormant when you live with someone. Being married, you rarely draw upon your inner dialogue, but now I am getting re-acquainted with the inner self I invented to get me through grade school, then to get through three devastatingly lonely years in Los Angeles in the late '90s.

I'm beginning to suspect that this inner person is your companion for the last three years of your life, as you sit in a chair in an old folks' home, uninspired even to watch "Matlock." I making a note:

"Fill up life with tons of experiences so that 'inner self dialogue' and you will have lots to talk about when you're 97."

do mi so, fa la re, do re do

11/14/04

Not to obsess about pop music or anything (there are way better places for that) but there are a number of songs on the radio right now that are making me want to fuckin' puke. God knows I try to keep up with the horseshit that comes cascading from the anuses of Major Labels by listening to the Top 20 on 20 station on the XM Radio, but I often pay for my insolence with three-minute bursts of uncontrollable rage.

Allan Bloom once said that a student listening to a Walkman constituted an act of onanism so utterly self-involved that it was worthy of cultural derision. Being a big fan of my Walkman at the time, I thought he was full of shit. But Bloom never lived long enough to see the careers of Britney Spears, Ashlee Simpson and Lindsay Lohan, three women that would have made his body burst into flame with their gargantuan egos and self-obsession.

All three are so disingenuous it should be criminal. How dare Lindsay Lohan try to be the most famous teen actor on earth, star in three movies this year, fake not having a boob job, release a dreadful POP ALBUM, and then "write" a song called "Rumors," in which she coos "I'm sick of being followed... why can't they back up off me... can you please respect my privacy"? Is she fucking KIDDING?

We've come to expect anything out of Britney, but "My Prerogative" (which I'm assuming she can't spell) is unbelievable, worse than both her marriages. I thought the original was crap, too - and Bobby Brown showed what he could do to Whitney when he was allowed to exercise his, um, prerogative.

What exactly is Britney not allowed to do that she hasn't done already? Why is she singing a song explaining her prerogative, when she has already exhausted every nucleotide in every paparazzi trying to cover her next antic? This is a woman who gets more air time for her bullshit than anyone on earth, and now she's giving US the finger?

And now Ashlee Simpson. Poor, poor Ashlee Simpson. In "Shadow," she sings that she was "living in a nightmare" and "living in the shadow of someone else's dream," presumably, her sister Jessica (which reminds me of that line in Barcelona when Fred asks "What do you call what's above the subtext?" and Ted answers "The text.")

This is a 19-year-old that dared to call her album "Autobiography." Think about that for a minute.

She also fucked up her lip-synching on SNL and then blamed her band (very smooth) and then trotted her dad out to say she had acid reflux. Now, I've had acid reflux. Really bad. Sean's had it so bad that he has thrown up in the middle of the night. Yet there is no acid reflux so terrible that you can't sing your own silly songs. That was a LIE.

And as for being "stuck inside someone else's life and always being second best," let me tell you, Ashlee: nobody wanted to see Picasso's sister's painting either. I'm not aching to hear Paul McCartney's aunt's album, and I'm sure Robert DeNiro's cousin Vince is content with his car dealership. You've managed to get a hit album off your sister's notoriety, but worse, you've got a hit song about how you never had any hit songs because of your sister. Is the irony lost on everyone?

I'm strangely drawn to her, however - maybe it's the nose

Oh yeah, and Hoobastank is a really really stupid name for a band. I hate it. God, how I hate it. GOD I HATE THAT NAME.

what a good wife you would be

11/11/04

My friend Kelly - who is personally rebuilding lower Manhattan one meeting at time - just wrote to me and asked for my "top ten polyester song hits." Anyone who has spent any time in the car with me knows that I have a disturbingly annoying encyclopedic memory for every pop song written from 1970 to 1993 (and yes, I was barely born for the early ones).

This is largely due to having mono in 10th grade, when I was stuck at home for three weeks and did the following:
a) learned to juggle
b) memorized the entire "Top 40 Hits" book from Billboard Magazine.

Being a piano and violin dork, I became conscious of Top 40 music around 1980 with the release of "Xanadu" and Billy Joel's "Glass Houses," before retreating for years into the Beatles catalogue. But all of the weird little hits from the 1970s managed to sneak into my subconscious, where they now leap out to strangle unsuspecting victims on long road trips.

So I'll give you a rundown of my top 10 songs from that early era, when I was a kid strapped into my mom's Subaru, listening to AM radio as the windshield wipers pulsed through a thick Iowa sleet.

the Little River Band cruisin' to a venue near you!

Reminiscing - Little River Band
In 1978, John Lennon said that his favorite song ever was "Reminiscing," and this was coming from someone who wrote "Norwegian Wood." I think he was being a little hasty, but this lush favorite is a gorgeous exercise in excess jazz and heavy on the roto-toms. Must be listened to several times to be believed.

Moonlight Feels Right - Starbuck
No other time than 1976 could you have a marimba solo, or a band with eight members, for that matter. You think you don't know this song? Yes you do, the minute it gets to the chorus. And the lyrics? Stunningly greasy, as a man takes his date to the Chesapeake Bay and threatens to shove his tongue down her waiting throat.

You Are the Woman - Firefall
There is truly no song so gay, so unrelentingly twee as this. As soon as the flute solo starts, you feel sperm dying in your nads.

Things We Do For Love - 10cc
Complicated, with at least 25 chord changes making any cover band lose their mind, it's still a walk through the rain and the snow when there's no place to go. This song, like "Bohemian Rhapsody," must have driven the production engineer to a life of quaaludes.

Brandy - Looking Glass
Lindsay always complains that we do this song any time the Williams family gets together, but I think he's just jealous. Again, when else but 1972 can you have a #1 hit about a bar wench in coastal Oregon? And if you don't sing along with the "you're a fine girl" part, you need to have your blood doped.

I'd Really Love to See You Tonight - England Dan & John Ford Coley
I include this song because it typifies the 1970s attitude towards casual sex; I mean, the lead character "ain't talking about moving in" - he just wants to fuck your brains out! The lyrics are right dreadful, but the sentiment is appreciated.

Afternoon Delight - Starland Vocal Band
Speaking of fucking, I loved this song as a tot, but it was only a few years ago when I realized this was about porking your significant other during the daylight. Why wait until the middle of a cold dark night?

We Just Disagree - Dave Mason
I once met Mr. Mason at some party in California and told him he had the best lyrics of any song in the 1970s. Often when Tessa and I are arguing, the thought comes to mind: "There ain't no good guys, there ain't no bad guys. There's only you and me, and we just disagree." If the '70s left us with two philosophies, let it be harvest gold macramé plant hangers and that.

oh, and the members of Starbuck say HEY!

fort sumter, brooklyn

11/10/04

American Coastopia Fallout, Chapter XIV

On the evening of Election Day, a little more than a week ago, Tessa was on my lap, asleep after an hour of crying. I'd never seen her knocked out due to sadness, but there she was, and as I stared at the TV, Ohio wasn't getting any closer.

Sticking to my amended 2002 promise to write a blog every weekday, I was so enraged at the election results that nothing would come out. It was a sleeping sickness hardened by pure loathing, and I could only summon profanity.

So, to paraphrase my brother Kent, I decided to "try it wrong a different way," and wrote the Coastopia blog that had been knocking around in my head since June. It was all in good fun, with only a hint of the darkness that I actually felt, and I thought that it might get a few laughs from the usual suspects. Looking at it now, there's plenty of clunky language I'd change.

By Thursday, the comments - which usually top out around 40 - were already pushing 300. My blog quintupled in traffic, and over 24,000 people stopped by to see what the hell I was talking about. I made a few cute T-shirts (now a recommended gift at Cafepress!) which, if I'd put even a 50-cent markup on them, could have flown Tessa and me to California and back.

By Friday, the backlash had already begun, with screeds by a very disapproving Neal Pollack, tut-tuts from Air America, message boards calling me part of the problem, reams of conservatives telling me to fuck myself on my own website, and eventually a Washington Times article and an editorial, written, it must be assumed, before the onset of Google.

The Coastopia email, riddled with add-ons and occasionally sans my reference to Dook University (my favorite part!), circulated all over the internet as an anonymous letter. My brother Steve was infuriated because he wanted me to sell more shirts, but I was just happy to be part of the collective unconscious. Also, I got a very nice email from Rachel Dratch (on SNL) who happens to be a heroine of mine.

Today, I was invited by the awesome folks at NPR to do a Coastopia commentary on Morning Edition. It was a fabulous experience with superb professionals, and I haven't been that psyched to do something in a long time. I don't know when it's going to run, but once I find out, I'll tell you.

Here's the thing: I never wanted to be known as some twitching, leftist secessionist. My blog wasn't even the best secession meme, merely the first. I was just terribly heartbroken and angry, and when it came down to it, yes, I basically don't understand Bush supporters and I'd love to live in a place where their "morals" don't apply to me and mine.

Moreover, most of the conservatives I've discovered because of this experience seem to be angrier than ever. I've never met a worse bunch of sore winners in my life. They seem to be dancing around like Veruca Salt in "Willie Wonka," insane with greed because there's nothing left to wish for.

They get the Presidency, both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court, basically every media outlet, and they're furious at...my blog??? Stunning!

As for me and mine, we'll keep needling around the shoulder blades of American pop culture until we're either millionaires or deported. I don't mind being the bogeyman for a bunch of rabid right-wingers foaming at the thought of their country breaking in two.

At least we got a few of you to understand how unbelievably misguided we think you are, whether or not you agree. We think you're dangerous and cruel, and now you know it. You can dismiss this talk of secession as sour grapes, but I'd be careful sleeping with us in your closet.

two stories, high

11/9/04

The Moth is actually a cool idea in old Southern storytellin', transplanted up north to the hippest venues in literati-littered Manhattan. I love the Moth as a rule, but it can sometimes have the same effect as the 24 Hour Plays: the good stories are life-affirmingly fabulous, but the bad ones make you want to kill the person next to you, and then yourself.

The Moth benefit is always a good time, however, because there's only two stories (usually told by celebrities as to amp up the starfucking quotient) and there's a free bar that serves double drinks. In fact, I'm writing to you in the buzzy vacuum of two Glenfiddich "Zingers" and two Cape Cods.

First up tonight was John Cameron Mitchell - creator and star of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" - and his story was rather sweet, which surprised me. I thought he'd be a little more "A-gay," a term I only understood once I'd spent three years living a few blocks from Chelsea.

performing at the stunning old Stanford White bank on the Bowery

Then Ethan Hawke took the stage, and say what you want about his novels or the celebrity hoo-ha that accompanied his marriage and divorce from Uma, but the guy tells a good story. I had suspected he was smart from his recent movie choices (especially his fabulous turn in "Before Sunset") and he told a great ditty about his constant jealousy towards River Phoenix back when they were child actors. I eat that stuff up - he should write some non-fiction about the teen scene in 1980s moviemaking.

You conservatives still pounding away at last week's Coastopia blog will be happy to hear that the venue was full of much tearing out of hair, and gnashing of teeth due to last Tuesday's election. If you think I'm an asshole, you should hear what real New York intellectuals think of you.

Despite my newfound infamy as an anarchist secessionist, I grew up in the South, and tend to play the apologist when it comes up in conversation. But lately, I'm starting to see their point.

P.J. McStrapplebungus!

11/8/04

I know this is the beginning of my Crusty Old Fart® phase, but there are a few products that I used to love, and now are utterly useless to me. It used to be that you bought Crest toothpaste as a kid, and then you died with Crest toothpaste in the grave, but now, in the age of vicious "re-branding," certain American items have curiously begun to suck.

1. Chiclets - I mean, what the fuck happened to you, Chiclets? There used to be three kinds: the peppermint stuff, the package full of "Tiny Size" Chiclet pebbles, and my favorite, Chiclet Fruit Flavors.

Now they have yanked the fruit Chiclet flavors off the shelves and replaced it with "Citrus Samba" and "Strawberry Breeze" flavors, and what's worse, Wrigley has kicked the Chiclet idea in the nuts with "Strappleberry" and "Grapermelon" flavors, a relentlessly focus-grouped idea that Ann Humphreys and I would have invented in 1993 after a bottle of Jim Beam. Please, I'm all for the XXXTREME LIFESTYLE when it comes to my snowboarding out of helicopters, but leave my Chiclets alone, you bastards!

2. Magnetic Darts - Quick quiz: have ANY of you thrown a magnetic dart at the dart board and have it stick?

I didn't think so.

They already ruined parlor games like Foosball by putting three goalies at each end, and then they made the "bar size" pool table only 3 1/2 feet wide, and of course, they took my beloved JARTS off the market (too bad, I found some anyway), but now I see all these kids suffering through magnetic darts, and it's totally PATHETIC.

CNN - I remember the cee-razy mid-1990s when I actually used to turn to CNN for information, but that is one network in a serious case of the river in Egypt. I thought once Faux News trounced them in the ratings by a 3-1 margin, they'd regroup and go back to hard-hitting journalism in the name of the discerning Coastopian dollar, but they seem to be stuck between the vast blankness of Wolf Blitzer's cranium and the breathless exhortations of Paula Zahn's Laci Peterson fetish.

I know you all think Aaron Brown's an asshole, but he and Anderson Cooper are the only ones I can stomach on there. Can I make a request to bring back the 6'0" judo expert and gorgeous Amazonian Lynne Russell?

R.E.M. - When I saw R.E.M. play in Chapel Hill around 1990 or so, someone yelled "Superman!" at them, and then Stipe quipped, "We don't do requests, and I hate that song." THAT'S the band I want back.

The Democratic Party - Let's face it, there are a lot of people who just aren't going to vote for the Democratic Party anymore because, in the words of Tessa's mom's dentist, "I ain't gonna vote for all those losers."

Do you know what companies do when their business is tanking? You do what Datsun did: change your name to "Nissan." This is one case where some serious re-branding is in order. Drop the name "Democrat" and the donkey, and come up with a name that sounds like Trustworthy, Strong, Fun and Sexy.

The following are already taken:
Whigs
Beatrice
Volkswagen

...but I'm sure somebody can come up with something, right? Isn't that what we pay you Image Consultants for? Get your feet off my dining room table and come up with something, you bunch of liberal arts majors! AND STOP DRINKING ALL MY LOWERED-CARB COKE PRODUCTS!

full fathoms five

11/7/04

Longtime readers of this blog have heard me oft wax romantic about this little place we have a few hours north of New York City: bought in the craziness that surrounded Tessa's father's death, and the ringing of September 11th in our ears, it has become a restorative farmhouse for anyone who visits.

We're planning on putting in solar panels, so I went to the top of the roof to see how it was coming, and was struck by the intensity of the sunset. This place was built in 1818, but those 19th-century bastards sure knew a good view when they saw one.

One thing about standing on top of your own chimney and looking into the dying light of a non-daylight-saving-time day; if you're not careful, you can get violently depressed. The last week or so has offered nothing much in terms of hope, and I've been fighting a major blues that has taxed my Celexa to its diving depth.

So we needed a plan. We have come up with a two-prong strategy for the next four years, even though it sounds contradictory: we are going to immerse ourselves in finances and fiction. In short, we are going to try to make as much fucking money as we possibly can, and when we're not doing that, we're going to be Experiencing Works of Art™.

I frittered away the last ten months obsessing over presidential polls, refreshing the DailyKos website every ten minutes, and dithering with the electoral college map until I got my desired outcome. It left me full of heartbreak, and wishing I'd spent that time coming up with an AIDS vaccine.

Likewise, I had forgotten the beauty of the written word, the zing of an audience clicking with a character onstage, and the guilty pleasure of an amazing television show.

The money thing? That's easy. We're going to try and buffer ourselves from anything the Bush people throw our way. We're getting off the grid, both emotionally and physically - I don't consider myself an active member of the United States, and our decision to go solar was a way we could partially unsuckle from that teat.

The hybrid car costs a little more, but it's another way of unplugging. I mean, I'm not going to be some dirty-toenailed folk singer wearing a hemp manskirt singing songs about the Man; I'm just going to respectfully withdraw.

Now that we're trying to write for television, it offers a perfect opportunity to assume the life of other characters, and write ourselves a world we wouldn't mind living in. The producers of "The West Wing" must have culture shock when they get done with each season and realize Bartlett isn't actually the President.

As for me, I'm liking "Boston Legal," "Lost," "CSI: New York" and trying to get through "Desperate Housewives." We have to write a spec script for "CSI," and I'm looking forward to living in a fictional world for a while. I urge all of you to make lots of money and see lots of movies, or, better yet, ignore both me and the rest of the Web as you happily drown in your own internal dialogue.

aloha!

11/4/04

Boy, it's all fun and games until the conservatives start commenting on your blog, huh? We were all having a great time until the virtual vitriol came cascading down the pike, and now I can barely wade through all the comments and hate mail telling me to fuck off.

Is there any creature more of a control freak than a Republican? They want to keep women from having abortions, they want to outlaw half the content on the internet, they want to bloody well make sure fags don't get married - they even want to force the teenage human animal into abstinence. It must truly be exhausting to exert that much control.

And now, these people spend their time writing comments and personal emails telling us why we are losers and to take our lumps. To which I say, NO FUCKING DUH. Do you actually think that any of us were going to raise pitchforks and light torches and close down the border between Oregon and Idaho? It's just a comforting idea, you blithering ninnies. An imaginary place where those horrified with the election results can go, and perhaps, meet like-minded strangers. Or would you like to legislate our dreams too?

Some commenters raised the point that blogs like this only reinforce the notion that we are snooty Northerners or private school latté-sippers who look down upon the heathen dumbasses in Red States. Well, truth hurts, doesn't it? As I said before, my dialogue with these people has ended. The following are non-negotiable for me:

- gay people should have the ability to marry
- a woman should be able to have a safe, inexpensive abortion
- stem cells should be rigorously studied with no restrictions
- if we can put people on the Moon in nine years, we can be independent of foreign oil in seven
- people should fucking be nice to each other.

Now, I don't physically live in that country; I know that. But my spirit resides in American Coastopia, where these things can be true. I will zip through the Red States as quickly as possible, because those Americans make me physically ill.

In my American Coastopia, intellect is sexy. Nobody ever calls anyone else "ugly." Men get laid knowing the lyrics to songs by The Smiths, and women find their dream partner by mandatory pop quizzes. We have really good Scotch, and I will make girl drinks involving Kahlua.

I have met some incredible people over the last two days, and it has left me and my friends feeling not so terribly alone. If I see someone wearing the T-shirt in Brooklyn I will be overjoyed and probably buy them a meat pastry. The first book I worked on was about the unconscious brotherhood of Generation X, and I feel a tidal kinship with this one as well.

And you conservatives who can't stand to see us progressive types have a little fun after an election that devastated us? To paraphrase Billy Ocean, get out of our dreams, and get into your fucking car.

Oh yeah: Fairfax County, Charlottesville and Hawaii - YOU'RE IN!

hearty oatmeal for all

11/3/04

Love to all of the hundreds of you awesome folk who came to my blog for the first time yesterday or today; your comments turned a Historically Dreary Day into an awesome peek into your various lives. You guys rock. Except for that racist dude.

Some emails requested where to start with this blog, and I can recommend my top 25 as a good place to waste your company's bandwidth. Let me warn you now, I'm a total asshole and I occasionally look excruciatingly goofy, and yes, I know my wife is way too hot for someone with my love handles.

I'm proud that American Coastopia is going swimmingly, but a few people seem to want a better dialogue between us and the Old America, you know, learn to speak their language and try to meet halfway. I say fuck that. None of us in A.C. are going to baby-talk our way through the homo-hatin' hearts of some bowling club in Memphis. They can take our gays straight, with no chaser.

Likewise, I am not having some quilting bee from Orem, Utah have any say in our dedication to stem cell research - and I'm not having the Virginia Beach Women's Luncheon group choose the president that will endanger my wife on the New York subways in the name of "moral values." Fuck the lot of them. It is up to THEM to start thinking clearly, and when they behave like adults, then the members of American Coastopia will start giving them the time of day. We are through coddling these people.

A few of you mentioned that you'd like to join American Coastopia, but Northern Virginia, I'm sorry. The area around the Potomac Mills is just to depressing to annex right now, and you guys waste too much gas on I-95. We suggest moving to Maryland, or perhaps to the city itself, where our public transport rocks!

Several college towns - like Austin, TX and Madison, WI would like to join as well. Our theory is that as long as the airlifts are working, like they did in Berlin in 1960, we'd be delighted to have you.

The social theorist Richard Florida says that "three T's" make up the future of America: talent, technology and tolerance. In other words: universities, computing, and the casual acceptance of those unlike you. That defines Austin and Madison, and we'd also like to accept Boulder while we're at it.

And that leaves one more place for consideration. After a brief interview, we think you'll agree that she makes a brilliant addition to our new territory. Full of great people with a hardy get-it-done attitude, she is the land of 10,000 lakes and counting. Three thousand miles from any coast, please welcome her to American Coastopia:

the American Coastopia shirts are here!

American Coastopia!

11/2/04

Ladies and gentlemen, you needn't fret anymore. We have decided that we can't live in the United States anymore, because so many of you in the "heartland" are so full of shit. We were all going to move to various other countries, but then we thought - why should WE move?

We are tired of rednecks in Oklahoma picking the leader who will determine if it is safe for us to cross the Brooklyn Bridge. We are sick of homophobic knuckle-draggers in Wyoming contributing to the national debate on our gay marriages. So we have done the only thing we could.

We seceded.

May I present to you: AMERICAN COASTOPIA.

That's right, American Coastopia. The states of Washington, Oregon and California are joining us on one coast, and we will provide all of New England. In the middle of the country, we have taken Iowa and Illinois, mostly because we need the fine produce of Iowa's soil, and the museums in Chicago are fabulous.

What's with the other dots? Oh yes, we're taking Chapel Hill and Durham, North Carolina too. I'm not going to live in a country without the Tar Heels. (And Duke? You're being moved to Greensboro, just like Wake Forest was. Sorry! Assholes.)

The other dot is New Orleans, which you don't deserve. American Coastopia needs a place to gamble, and the locals want nothing to do with you. Sure, you can visit, but it isn't part of your country anymore.

I can sense your worry. Who will get all the banks? You can fucking have most of them, because we're taking downtown and midtown Manhattan back, turning the whole thing into a giant artist colony replete with movie studios and progressive think tanks. Wall Street and other financial institutions will be relocated to Charlotte, which we believe will suit your needs better. Frankly, the good folks in Manhattan are sick of being a terrorist target for your benefit.

A word about our politics. Abortions will be safe and legal in American Coastopia, and homosexual men and women will be free to marry at their discretion. We will have our own currency, and trade with any countries we want. Everyone will have health care. Everyone will have an identity card. Homelessness and unemployment will be virtually unknown. We believe in a meritocracy and a huge chasm between church and state. 100% of our cars will be hybrid by 2006.

Yes, we're taking all the people that ever created everything beautiful. Yes, we're taking all the funny people too. All the sculptors, architects, surgeons, philosophers, violinists and fishermen. You should have treated them better when you had them.

We have no pledge of allegiance, but I can say this: I am no longer from your United States of America. I belong to American Coastopia, the United States of My Friends, the Nation of Two: my wife and I. We hold our noses as we fly over you. We are sickened by the way you treat people that are different from you. The rest of the world despises America, and we don't want to be lumped in with you anymore.

Please, all of you who went to bed last night sick with worry, come to us. In American Coastopia, the light is always on, the hazelnut lattés are always hot, and we have a trundle bed for each and every one of you.

[ed. note: many emails asked for T-shirts, and we made these. Any profits go to our local school system]

if you pass GO, collect $200

11/1/04

We lie in the autumn-hued valley of Reading, Pennsylvania tonight, having gone through all the training on Election Protection that we can handle. I really like this little city; miles of stunning rowhouses span the hillsides, and remind me of that Emily Dickinson poem about the train:

I like to see it lap the Miles --
And lick the Valleys up --

Speaking of trains, I knew Reading, PA the same way every other kid in America did - it's one of the spots on the Monopoly game board. Understanding that we couldn't wear any pro-Kerry wear to the strictly non-partisan Election Protection events, I made a few shirts that reflected my pro-Reading sensibilities:

Everywhere I went tonight - the town hall, the Target, the Best Buy - the kids working the cash register wanted a shirt. If only I could get around the pesky licensing fees, I'd make a KILLING here, I tellsya!

The very long, hot meeting for EP put us on full alert for the long list of Republican shenanigans most people expect, if not here, then in the surrounding counties. Reading was so fucked up in 2000 that they have a government agent at each polling site this time, and the ballots are in Spanish as well. 22,000 new Hispanic voters - 10% of the total in this county - were registered this month, which has tilted the whole town to the good guys.

I have spent over three years on this blog, talking about kidney stones, Celexa, mediocre pop songs, my beloved Tar Heels and RTVMP (Radio, Television and Motion Pictures - which used to be a major at Carolina). Since November 2002, however, I have bored many of you with my sulfur-fueled, clench-fisted hyper-rants about how much I despise our current administration. I have not felt hopeful about America or Americans. Until tonight. I'll say it once, loud and clear:

Kerry landslide.

[ed. note: by "landslide," I meant "natural disaster"]