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I’m standing on a street corner, and a small Chinese prostitute is grabbing my arm.

“Do you want massage?” she asked.

“No thanks.” I said.

“Only two thousand yen. Come now, we go to second floor.”

“Seriously I’m good.” I replied.

Beside me, the same thing was happening to Rob. The two ladies were tiny, with intense eyes and relatively cute features. They were very aggressive, but finally we got away.

This is how the night started to wind down in Roppongi.

THREE HOURS EARLIER:..

I’m sitting in a pasta shop somewhere in Shibuya, chatting to a dancer that looks like a perfect ten model. Her name is Jeri,  and she’s in town for a dancing gig at  a club later on, somewhere in Roppongi. She is easily the hottest woman I’ve met since I’ve been to Tokyo.  She’s very friendly, and chatting to her is a pleasure. She reminds me of a dancer I saw when I went to club Womb a few months prior, but this is her first time in Japan.

“I’m from L.A, but the scene is really good here. I might come back.” She says.

She’s wearing a summer straw hat, a white skirt, and a tank top that reveals her voluptuous figure. She’s tanned and unblemished. Later Rob would tell me she’s mixed with a few things, but he couldn’t remember what exactly.

“I did this show,” she said. “With a  Japanese group called the MANEATERS.”

“Sounds bizarre.” I said with a laugh.

Jeri, Rob and I chat about traveling and our adventures, for a few minutes. “What are you guys doing tonight?” she says. “Maybe Roppongi or here in Shibuya.” Rob says to her. “I’m performing tonight at the Gallery in Roppongi.” She says. “You guys should check it out.”

Jeri was a professional Go-Go dancer.  Initially, Rob was confused.  “Is Go-Go dancing stripping?” he asked.

“No, its not.” She said.

I have to admit, I didn’t really know the difference either. But I was guessing Go-Go dancers were the hot girls who danced on elevated platforms in large clubs all over the world.

I got her number and she left. As she stood up, I was surprised to see how petite she was. She disappeared soon after, as Rob and I talked about what to eat. “Wow, what are the odds of meeting a girl like her randomly like that?” I said.
“I guess that’s  Tokyo for you.” Rob replied with a laugh.

Rob had come to Tokyo on a mission. To see the sights, go to a few museums and eat at a revolving sushi restaurant in Shibuya. We had no idea where it was. To describe Shibuya is to try and describe an endless concert with thousands of fans roaming the streets all the time, every day. Each time I travel to Shibuya, for a few minutes I feel a buzz in my head. So many people, so many lives and so many things happening at once really aren’t a part of my basic biological makeup I believe. When I’m there, I want to be a hunter-gatherer again, farming in the mountain with a gang of scruffy kids behind me gathering wood.

Rob asks someone where the restaurant is. The guy he asks is African, and like almost all the West Africans I’ve seen in Tokyo, he works in the area, promoting clubs or bars. He tells us where the restaurant is, a place where all the Sushi costs one hundred and twenty yen a piece. We step in, and Rob squeals with excitement. “We doing it son! Tokyo!”

A man in a chef’s hat points to a sign at the reception area. “You must eat at least seven dishes.” It read. “That’s cool with me.” I said.

We were ushered to a few seats around the back, and as we walked past the crowd a face stood out:  A small guy with a thick head of black hair and a very scruffy beard. I immediately recognized him as Jason Schwartzman, the actor. As we walked to our seat I rested my hand on his shoulder. “Hey man, are you a professional actor?” I said. “Why yes I am.” He replied. “Awesome, I love your work man!” I said while walking away. “Thank you.” He said with a smile.

The sushi at the bar was wicked delicious and I ended eating eight plates. Rob had nine. Beside me, a few feet away, Schwartzman was still hanging out in the restaurant. He was with  a slim blonde woman with delicate features; his wife. I went over. I chit-chatted with them for a while about Tokyo. He was in town to check out the opening of “Opening Ceremony”, a large store that has branches in New York and Los Angeles. “It’s opening Sunday. You should check it out, the store is going to be pretty amazing.”

Rob, who was behind me said: “Opening Sunday? Is that the name of the store?”

“No.” Jason said with a laugh. “The store is Opening Ceremony and it’s opening on Sunday.”

“Wow, the opening ceremony for Opening Ceremony is on Sunday when it opens.” I said.

We all laughed. Schwartzman was cool, and I snapped some pictures and got a video shout out for my webseries Marcus Bird :Jamaican in Japan . He was there with this wife, designer Brady Cunningham founder of eco-friendly clothing line, Souvenir.<>.

We said our goodbyes and he told me he’d checkout my website. This is one of the moments when I realized I needed a business card. I said peace, and he left the restaurant.

ONE HOUR LATER

Rob and I are in Gas panic. Blood red lights flood the room and people dance in the shadows. I explained to Rob that I’m a night owl, and that I feed on the night energy of Tokyo. He told me that since there are language barriers and it being a new country, he thought he’d rather see more terrain and sights that necessarily try to chat to women. This opinion changed rapidly when we started clubbing.

Inside GAS PANIC, cute girls were dancing, but it was the music that really set things off. Contemporary hip-hop blasted through speakers I couldn’t see, and the place was jumping. Cute Japanese girls with hair processed to look curly did Atlanta dances like they were born in America. Rob watched with amazement. One girl in particular, in pink overalls really understood the rhythm. I had seen Japanese girls dance before, to reggae and hip-hop, but I could understand Rob’s feelings. This was his first time EVER seeing Japanese people dance like black people.
“It’s sad man.” He said to me.” That these people try so hard to look like us, and so many black people don’t even love themselves.”

I looked at the girls as he said this. One wore an Atlanta cap with hip-hop jeans on. They all had curly hair and sang along to every T.I song that came over the airwaves. But they barely spoke English, if any. It was amazing. We hung out for a little while longer, getting the vibe started. Then we headed to Roppongi.

TWENTY FIVE MINUTES LATER

Tokyo has an endless stream of beautiful women walking the streets. Every minute or two, Rob and I would see women that made us stop, or at least take a peek. He was starting to see what people were talking about in regards to Tokyo.  It’s one thing to see a cute girl every now and then, but in hours we had seen thousands.

We are on the train, and two girls in front of me are looking at my feet and saying something about my shoes. “Big eh? “I say in Japanese. One giggles but pretends not to hear me. She’s been eyeing me since we got on the train in Shibuya. Our stop isn’t far away and it seems the girls aren’t going to our stop. I exit the train terminal and see a face I recognize. It’s a tall, gorgeous woman I met two weeks before. Miki.

I walk over to her and she greets me with a squeal of excitement. Her long, gorgeous arms wrap around me for a moment. I feel her strength. She immediately decides to come with us wherever we are going. We dump our stuff in a locker and head out. Club 911 is the next stop.

In minutes, Rob takes over a little corner near the top bar. Ladies are dancing and smiling, and I’m watching Miki do Samba to a Justin Timberlake song. She is really, really sexy. She sips on a drink and flashes a quiet smile at me every now and then. She’s the kind of woman that I like. Tall and strong, beautiful and fearless on the dance floor. The club is packed, but after a while I start to get antsy. 911 is really small, and in an hour, it starts to turn into a sausage fest. I want Miki to head to a spot called Bar 57 with us, but she says she has to surf in the morning. A little guy the size of her drink hanging beside her says otherwise to me, but I decide to leave. An older Japanese woman was feeling Rob.

“One more drink, and that’d probably be it.” He said with a laugh.

“Well I’m glad you didn’t have that drink.” I replied with a  smile.

Bar 57 was closing when we reached. It seemed like a hot spot, with expensive drinks, a nice interior and high ceilings. The stragglers were all in designer dresses and high heels. I liked the feel of the place. Maybe next time. We went back to the strip.

FIVE MINUTES LATER

We headed back down the strip. Every few feet a young African man would come up to us, offering us exclusive admission to a club or a strip bar. We went to Club 99 near Odeon and went upstairs. Drunk Japanese girls were dancing on the bar top, but like most places in Tokyo, you get ushered towards the bar first. They say free entry, but if you don’t buy a drink you get kicked out. The spot was a bit lame and we headed out.

The prostitutes found us again somehow and kept pleading with us to get a massage. “Jesus Christ.” These women are persistent.” I said. One of them was actually pretty cute, but knowing what her day job was…

TEN MINUTES LATER

We are hanging in front of a bar near the McDonald’s. I’m on my phone, trying to find out where The Rippongi Gallery is to see if I can catch a bit of Jeri’s performance, but none of the Africans on the strip seem to know where it is. It feels like a put on. “Do you see that?” Rob says.

I glance up and the two girls, now about twenty feet away, are looking back at us.

“Should  we talk to them? “ I said.

“You better take one for the team because I’m not.” Robert said.

I saw what he was talking about. Of the two girls, one was blimp-sized. I took at deep sigh and waved for them to come back. They giggled and kept walking, but as they got further away looked back more. Eventually, they returned. They wore matching black and white outfits and wore gray backpacks. A little odd. The bigger one started asking us a range of questions. “You guys kept looking back at us, so we were wondering what was going on.” I said to the larger one. “I’m sorry, my sister here was interested in you, but she doesn’t speak English.”

“Oh?” I replied. “What language does she speak?”

“Greek.” The girl replied.

“Do you need Windex?” Rob said immediately.

The girl gave him a strange look.
“I’m joking, I’m joking. I know that statement was mad ignorant.” Rob said with a laugh. I started laughing too, but it would be an entire day before I remembered that Windex reference came from the hit movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

The girl introduced herself as Athena and her sister as Mina. What was weird about Mina was that she progressively got better at English within minutes of meeting us. Rob made a joke about Atlanta and she laughed. I made a joke that required certain knowledge of American pop humor and bad English grammar and she laughed. Then she started speaking.

“I’m thirty-five.” She said.

We balked.

“Impossible!” I said.

I paused as three tall, leathery Japanese drag queens stormed past. The sisters asked us If we wanted to hang out. I said okay, but I really wasn’t feeling like taking one for the team. We walked towards a bar called Vi-bar, a bar I went to the day before. The girls became quiet, and it felt a little weird. After we stepped inside, a man came to me and asked me what I’m drinking. “One minute.” I said to him. I turned to Rob.

“Dude, you think these girls are hustling us?” I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. Their accent changes, the weird backpacks, the greek names and everything felt wrong. “Let’s bounce.” Rob said. “Cool.” We headed back out to the madness of Roppongi at four thirty a.m

At the top of the strip, a smooth talking guy named Joe came up to us. He spun a fabulous tale about a strip club where we could drink all we want for thirty bucks and be dazzled and dazed by exotic dancers. I’m not a strip club guy, but the night was going so many places I said, “what the hell.” Rob was in agreement but we entered under a simple condition. If we didn’t like the spot, we’d leave, if we did we’d have to pay.

We walked back down the strip and stopped at a bar. I laughed. It was the same place the two “greek” girls had taken us to before. This time we went upstairs. A shady looking poster of a naked woman was at the door. We walked in, and it was empty, save a line of strippers standing in file facing us. It was a weird feeling, coming into the small, empty strip club with all the dancers watching us. One of the strippers was really hot. She had some sort of brazilian look about her. The rest weren’t so appealing. We thanked the staff and left.

Back outside, we walked back to the top of the strip and sat on a road barrier. The streets were still packed, but we knew the night was over. As we waited for the light to change, a pair of small hands grabbed me. It was the prostitute! Rob and I started laughing again. “Sorry, we go now. Back to hotel.” Rob said. We started crossing the street and one of them said, “I come to hotel with you!”

We laughed and turned around.

The night was over.

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I’m at a Rubix cube party.
We all know the Rubix cube. It was a genius little device invented in the early 70’s by the Hungarian architecture dude. You spin the faces, line up the squares and make the colors match. We know how it works. At this party, we are the colors, and by the night’s end, we must be wearing one color of clothing. In a sense, we are squares on the cube.
Earlier in the evening, I was happily munching on Chicken Tibs at a local Ethiopian restaurant. I was eating with a good friend of mine. We spoke frankly about the diatribes of broken relationships, growth and Sean Penn’s new Movie, “Milk”.
Afterwards, we stepped out into the darkness of DC’s winter cold, and I bid her adieu. Then I hopped on the 70 bus towards Columbia heights. I spent the trip listening to dancehall, and watching the dark blobs that represent rowhouses go past in a dull blur.
I was sitting quietly, (like most people in the bus), but I was listening to sexually charged, uber-voilent dancehall music. I’m sure my hipster pants and trucker hat hid that fact nicely.
It’s really cold when I exit the bus to head towards the party, but there is something oddly stimulating about it.
Maybe it’s the feeling of the wind biting my fingertips, the little brown leaves that rustle above me whenever a gust of wind flashes by, or the fact that I’m underdressed. My fingers are burning me, and my jacket (stylish as it is) has no outer pockets for me to slip my fingers into.
I walk fast.
When I reach the party, there is no one milling outside. This makes perfect sense. Even the smokers are happily huddled inside, accepting warmth instead of tiny doses of nicotine, cyanide and a dozen other harmful chemicals.
As I step in, a guy wearing red tights, and a red dress walks past. His eyes are glassy with alcohol, and he has a wry smile. “I need your hat!” he says to a girl walking nearby. She is wearing dark leather pants, a red hat and a suede Jacket that looks straight out of a vampire movie. She chuckles and disappears into the small crowd of people occupying the space.
I personally am out of place with my outfit. I’m technically wearing full black, (even though I wore a yellow shirt to throw my outfit off) but I am determined to find matching yellow pants. I see one person dressed in yellow, a short girl with dark features. She is wearing what appears to be a yellow jacket around her waist, webbed yellow shoes, yellow stockings, a yellow hat and a yellow shirt. I groan, as I have nothing to trade. The idea of taking off my pants right there to put some yellow tights on isn’t stimulating yet. I need to get some alcohol.
I meet and greet the hosts, and I find out it’s a birthday party. I was invited by a girl I know, Ash, and she is decked out in a full red outfit; large red shirt that reads “Ameican Heritage”, red tights and a  red baseball cap. At some point later on in the night she will be completely blue, complete with a blue wig. “Would you like some whiskey?” she says to me as I step inside.
For a moment I pause, and my mind flashes back to Halloween weekend a month prior. I saw a blur of people, faces and felt the heat of different bars and houses on my face, then I remember waking up and not knowing where I was.
“I think I’ll get a beer.” I say with a smile. Ash starts talking to the girl in the full yellow. Behind me, a guy says. “She (yellow girl) looks like a creature from Final Fantasy.”
I spend the next ten minutes trying to remember what creature she  looked like. I was never a huge Final Fantasy fan, but I knew a few of the creatures.
When I was in high school and Playstation (not Playstaion two or three, not even PSOne… PLAYSTATION) was all the rage, when Final Fantasy seven came out, it was lauded as one of the greatest RPG’s of all time. I didn’t have a Playstation, I had an N64, and I forever regretted not feeding on the frenzies of my school mates. I wished I could have huddled under the tree where the nerds hung out and read backstory on the FF universe, talk about little creatures and boss fights and escape in that world of fantasy. Instead, I played games like Bomberman 64 and Turok. I’m thinking about this as i walk through the kitchen looking a cup, then a word pops into my head:
Chocobo.
That’s the thing the girl in the yellow looks like. It’s a little bird sort of creature. I walk down a narrow hallway and through six active conversations. Outside is  a keg, and I get a drink. The temperature feels like its dropped another six degrees, and I hurry up and go inside. After my first beer, I’m determined to get some yellow pants.
The music isn’t very inspiring. It sounds like slow lounge music mixed in with upbeat country or old pop songs. No one is dancing yet. I see the birthday boy (who I incorrectly called “Jesse” for most of the night) and say hello. He is wearing a hodgepodge of colors. He has an orange shirt on, tiny blue shorts and black socks, and he has an orange bandana tied on his head. “So, you are twenty five eh?” I say. “Yeah, maybe in a week it will hit me and I’ll either be like “oh god!” or “oh yeah!” He says with a laugh. “I’ve been there,” I say. “I’m definitely in the “oh god!” stage right now.”
He disappears down the same long hallway with two girls and I eye some cake. Lately I’ve been avoiding a lot of pastry, and I don’t feel like digging into a suger-laced cake while I’m drinking. Ash is standing beside two more girls who are working the Rubix. One is wearing full blue regalia and has a blue wig on. She does Madonna style poses as cameras flash in the background.
I smile and survey the rest of the party. It’s a weird mix. Some people are dressed very normal, in the usually array of jeans and jackets. Then there are a few hardcore guys, who I call the “Rubix dudes”.
For some reason, they are all wearing dresses, and I think their oufits were elaborate plans engineered by the women at the party (they are in the majority). One guy is about six foot three and wearing a green skirt, a green halter top, what looks like a shiny set of green leaves on a string around his neck and (I think) a green necklace. Another fellow, who I later find out is Mark, is wearing small,orange boy-underwear, what look  like orange tassles around his waist, and a v-neck orange shirt (above a green one) complemented by a knit orange hat. He has sharp eyes, a playfully expressive face,a moustache and goatee. He looks like Robin Hood, if Robin Hood left Nottingham to join the broadway cast of Mama Mia! And ended up doing West Side Story instead.
There are a few other guys who enthusiastically get into the Rubix-mode, but the guy that took the cake was a short, broad-chested fellow wearing a full white female outfit. It was his manliness—hairy chest and broad flat features—that made his outfit the funniest. A tiny white haltertop barley fit on his chest and he wore a small white dress, and what looked like a white hairnet…. Or head tie, I’m not familiar with what all forms of female clothing are called.
They Rubix dudes were constantly taking pictures, smiling and laughing. I was on my second beer now, but I didn’t feel like clothes swapping that much. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I wanted to get my yellow pants. I started talking to Mr. T, a friendly-faced guy with a classic Midwest disposition. Ash told me he was apparently, a rubix cube expert.
We started discussing the dynamics near the front entrance. By this time I was on beer number four or five and sipping on a Bacardi ginger ale. Needless to say, talking about the concepts behind multiple planes and matching edges were lost on me. The music changed, and I started dancing with Ash.
At some point, I start a conversation with the tallest women at the party. One looks Scandinavian, and one looks German. I mention this to them.
“Hah! One laughs. I’m Swedish.” She says. “I’m German.” The other replies.
We talk for a few minutes about their amazing athletic abilities. (The swede did decathalon, long jump, high jump, 200M ,800M and deep sea shark hunting). The German did shotput, discus and javelin. (I guessed discus correctly).
Then the German speaks about one year of celibacy, and its implications as it relates to meeting people for “who they are.” I smile as she says this. “I wanted to know how it felt you know? To just not experience that for a year.”
I laugh, and say.”Most people know that feels for a good ten, fifteen years. I think they are too aware of celibacy.”
“Ten? Try twenty!” The Swede says with a laugh.
Ash is now in blue mode, and is dancing amongst friends, laughing and taking pictures. I wear the wig for a few minutes.
I go to the kitchen, and talk to two girls wearing black trucker hats. “What do your hats say?” I ask, squinting to read the writing on them. “Hah! You though it was Japanese didn’t you?” one of the girls says.
In fact, I didn’t think that, because I can read some Japanese. I was thinking it was some kind of Arabic language (and in my defense, the girls both had that “dark-ish” look. Long black hair, sharp dark brown eyes. Which means they could have Persian ancestry or just be from Manhattan.)
“It’s a hat our friend made. Its actually in English.” She points out what it says, and it becomes as clear as day. “ohhh….” I say. Then I look down, and see that she is wearing YELLOW PANTS.
“I said I’d get some yellow pants tonight.” I say seriously. “You have what I want.”
She swaps pants with me, and we snap pictures with her friend, who also has the pants on. Technically, they are little boy shorts, but I rather refer to them as pants.
I parade around in the pants for a while, and smile broadly. Ash comes over, she rubs her small hands across the small of my back. “I see you got your yellow pants.” She said. “Yes I’m a happy camper!” I reply.
I spend the next few minutes taking pictures of all the other emasculated men, including those I’ve named the White Russian, the Green Giant, Robinson Hood and the Black Tight. Outside where the keg is, people are huddled around a grill, talking about nothing in particular. I snap a few more pictures and go back inside.
The girls in the trucker hats are heading out, and I return the yellow pants. The party is beginning to thin out, and everyone is heading to wonderland. I feel a twinge of regret as I head out with Ash and Mr. T to wonderland. I was hoping I could wear my yellow pants there.

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People always ask a person who’s almost died, “What were you thinking about just before the moment happened?” With a small level of certainty, I can (sort of but not really) answer this question.

 
Sometimes when I go to Adams Morgan, my mind runs on my ex-girlfriend, who lives in the area. Last night was a particularly boring affair, with me hopping from bar to bar and talking to no one. Like most nights when I’m in Adams Morgan, I take the bus home. When my cell phone displayed the magic time of 1:30, I decide to leave.

 
Strangely, the street is blocked off on one side, allowing traffic to leave the 18th street strip, but not come into it. I watch a bus rumble by slowly, and wonder if it is ever going to come back. I pace around for a few moments, watching people float by in various states of inebriation. An older African-American lady is sitting at the bus stop, with a small plastic bag in her hand. A few feet in front of her, with her arms folded is a tough-looking Caucasian woman. The tough-looking lady is standing and the other woman is sitting down. I lean against a part of the support structure of the bus stop.
So far I’ve been distracting myself by watching people, but for a quick second, I wonder what my ex-girlfriend is doing. Is she sleeping blissfully? Warm in someone’s arms? Or not even home? This thought passed through my head for a fleeting moment, then…

Shots rang out.

There were four or five shots. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! This was no more than ten feet from where I was standing. In that area, people scattered like cockroaches in a room when the light comes on. A few people, not sure what to do, simply stood up, like deer caught in the headlights. Some immediately hit the deck, and others streaked across the now empty street. Strangely, I didn’t move. I was leaning on the post, sort of looking straight up at nothing when I hear the first shot. Then I looked beside me and saw the clamor of activity. Most likely someone had been shot. The noises sounded dull and directed. Somewhere, only a few feet away, a person was probably dead. Only moments before, I had almost walked right there out of sheer idleness.

 
I jogged a few feet away from the bus stop to Columbia road, near the ATM. That was probably a bad idea, because that’s where the noise came from. The gun-toting maniacs were probably running to Columbia Road as well, where the melee might continue.

A few dark bodies fled from the alley, and it seemed that every officer was now brandishing their weapons. A few officers fly out of the alleyway and run down a dark street, holding their guns. As I looked around, an odd quiet hit the air.

People who are genuinely frightened don’t lament or weep. They stand in shock, wondering what just happened, realizing their mortality. One wrong move and a stray bullet could end your life, or severely injure you. The cops looked edgy.

A person running a little too frantically was liable to be chased, and probably beaten I presumed. While observing all of this, I realized that I was the only person standing up (along with the police officer). Everyone else was hiding behind a wall, or lying on the ground. Even this guy I had jogged past, (he was at the second bus stop that faced Columbia Road holding his bike) was crouching on the ground, looking around warily.

The officer looked at me with indifference. I was standing there with my hands in my pockets, surveying the area. The shots didn’t frighten me. A part of me “felt” as if I should be frightened, but the trembling chaos didn’t enter me. I just think I’m one of those people that doesn’t frighten easily.

Once in Jamaica, I was almost hit in a head on collision by a SUV twice the size of my vehicle. It was driving directly towards me with no headlights on. The SUV hopped over an island in the road, and it was only 50/50 that I chose to swerve right and the vehicle went left. Shortly after, a police car came blaring down the road, chasing the vehicle. I didn’t feel frightened at that point either, but seconds after the cars disappeared, my left leg began trembling violently. I was afraid in some way, I just didn’t feel it immediately.

Tonight, or last night was different. I realized that should a shootout happen, a stray bullet could hit me, but that eventuality didn’t make much sense to me. Though I was near the epicenter of the event, and only feet away from where the shooting started, I was standing near all the police cars and heavily armed officers.

After a moment, I walked towards the crosswalk that leads to the McDonalds on the other side of the street. The African-American woman from before was lying on the ground with two young Caucasian women. She was crying from sheer fright. She was inconsolable. I don’t blame her. If I was ten feet away, she was no less than five feet. The two girls held her hand.

“It’s okay. They weren’t trying to shoot you.” The girls said.
One of them, a blonde with tear filled eyes kept looking on me. I recognized her, but I didn’t know from where. They told the lady she would be all right. I couldn’t hear exactly what the woman was saying, but it seemed she thought they were shooting at her, and she was also worried about how she would get home. The two girls said they would pay for a cab so that she could reach home.
I was standing there, watching them with my arms folded. They were crying and seriously frightened, and it must have seemed odd for me to be standing there so stoically. Maybe I will wake up tomorrow and wonder why I wasn’t frightened, and why the tear filled eyes of those three women on the ground didn’t move me to even say anything.

I wanted to say “The worst is over.” And touch the woman’s shoulder, and reassure the girls that they were safe because the police were right behind them, as were the police cars. But I didn’t say anything. I watched them in their humanity, consoling each other in the way that people do in a time of crisis.

 
I felt a piercing vulnerability at that point. I sensed that if I had been walking by there (as I almost did) or if I had been idly traipsing around, I could have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Bad luck, bad timing. It seems fit that minutes before this event happened, I ran into someone I knew and followed that person to a bar for a few minutes. If I didn’t, who knows?

 

The girls still haven’t gotten up. They are freaked out and scared half to death, and are still lying awkwardly on the ground. The older lady is still moaning and wiping her eyes.
For a fleeting moment I get a powerful urge to call my ex-girlfriend. For some reason, some aspect of the event made me think of going over to her place to take refuge. She was only a few blocks away I thought, and I’ll be safe there. I wanted to say to her, “Wow, can you believe that I was standing right by a place where some shots rang out?” A part of me saw myself going over there, standing by her door as she rushes out in the hallway and gives me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek, thankful that I am alive and well.

But then I realized what I was thinking just before this all happened. I was wondering if she was sleeping blissfully, if she was in the arms of someone else, or even home at all. It dawned on me there was no reason to call her, and there was also no place for me to go but my apartment.
Maybe the event didn’t frighten me in a way that made me run for dear life, or hide on the ground, quivering like a small animal, but for a second it took me back to a point in my life, when I felt I had a retreat, a safe haven from the world, in the arms of someone else. Maybe that’s the real scary part of the entire thing, the fact that I completely forgot that I was no longer with her and we no longer spoke, but hearing a few shots echo in my ears, and sensing my mortality, I felt a desire to see her and speak to her that seemed instinctive, dredged up from the recesses of my being that blasted me face-first back into the past.

In these situations, it is a great thing to reassure yourself that you exist by receiving loving words from someone else. A hug from a friend, a sigh of relief over a phone call, or a naturally heartfelt embrace, like the one shared by the three ladies lying on the ground. My desire to speak with my ex most likely represented my instinctive feeling to remind myself that I exist, and that I didn’t have to travel home alone to deal with the situation. Or maybe I just wanted someone to share the event with. Who knows.

I took one last look at the three ladies lying on the ground, and crossed the street. I hailed a cab and hopped in. “What happened around here?” the driver said. “Some shots rang out.” I replied.
“Really?” he said with an incredulous smile. “Yes, really.” I said.
“Where was it?” he asked. “

“Right by the bus stop. It was like five shots.” I said.

“Wow!” he said almost with too much excitement.

“Yeah, I was right there. “ I said, almost not even believing those words.
I told him where I lived and quietly watched the dark buildings go by in a blur as the cab drove to my apartment. I wondered again about that flash of desire to call my ex, and why it seemed so instinctive. As the darkness of the city loomed at me from the windows of the cab, I knew I didn’t really have a safe haven. All I had was my own thoughts to console me, and the emptiness of my bedroom. I thanked the cab driver, tipped him and went inside, immediately greeted by the darkness of my apartment.

 

****

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I’m leaning against a wall.

Above me strobe light casts a spasmodic, reverberating glow of multicolored light on pale bodies, all dancing to the frantic beat of The Killers. I’m in a club near Avenue C, a place called 40 C, and I’m standing quietly, watching everything and nothing.
As I close my eyes, I imagine myself running hand in hand with the girl of my dreams through a mystical meadow, naked and insouciant, as our body parts flap in the breeze like tissue paper caught under a car tire. This hasn’t been my first stop tonight. But for some reason, it feels like the thousandth stop in so many nights of my life.
An hour and a half earlier, I passed through a bar. As I walked in, a girl grabbed me by the arm. “Let’s get out of here.” She said. I sized her up briefly. She was tall, blonde, with dark piercing eyes, a long almost hawkish nose, and thin yet protruding lips. “I’m thinking of heading to this bar across the street,” I said. This wasn’t a lie—even thogh I’d just went into this bar for no more than thirty seconds—the bar across the street had better light and cuter girls.
She starts following me and then her eyes pop open like someone pulled the light switch in her head. “I have to find my friend.” She says. “When you see her, you’ll be amazed. She’s the most beautiful girl ever. She is amazing.”
This reference made me pause. Number one, why was this girl pitching her friend to me, and number two, why would I find this girl attractive? or even beautiful? Thoughts immediately came to mind of a tall, hideous woman, with sharp grating teeth and meaty breath. This thought flew away pretty quickly. We move through the thick crowd, wet with the smell of beer and sweat and went to the bar. There, I saw a girl with a head of large curls with dark features. Like her friend, she had piercing eyes. But I didn’t find her that attractive. Her friend (who remains nameless) says something to her and then grabs my arm again and heads towards the door. Then, a tall guy who looks like Mowgli from Jungle book (if Mowgli had grown up and started modeling for Armani) grabs “the beauty” and starts talking to her. We all go outside as a group and the friend (blondie) repeats the beautiful friend pitch. “Isn’t my friend the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen?” she said.
I look briefly at her friend, and she gives me a look that can only be described as “eww”. I find this repulsive. “Hey lady, I didn’t say you were beautiful!” They say they are heading to some bar up the street. Mowgli gives me an uneasy look and grabs the “beautiful” girl around the waist.
I have known this group of people for all of three or four minutes. They leave, I don’t follow them.

As they leave, two cute girls walk past me to go into the bar. One of them girl rests her hand on my shoulder. “g’night fabulous.” She says nocomittaly, and disappears down a pair of dark steps. I’m tempted to follow her inside and say hello, but I decide not to. I have no energy to do this. My social desires to interact with people occasionally get scooped out like old moldy ice cream and tossed into a back alley somewhere.
I have a quick drink at a bar across the street, a place called Max Fish, and watch people play pool. At some point I realize all I do these days is people watching, walking around like a wraith, all but invisible, if it weren’t for this pesky thing called a body I’m wrapped up in.
I end up at this spot where a guy I know asks me what I’m trying to do.
“What kind of girls do you like?” he asks. “Women.” I reply with a smirk. “But generally, tall ones, with interesting dispositions, but generally girls who like me.” I say this with a smirk as well.
“Well you need to head to Nublue, a spot on Avenue C between seventh and eighth.” He said. This was coming from a guy who owned a bar in the area—mandatory ponytail included—and I thought about it. Avenue C was a good ten minute walk from where I was, and this place might not even be jumping. But face with another boring night of the same ol’ bars in the LES I decided to go. I walk slowly past a few clubs, seeing throngs of people outside talking, smoking and laughing.
When I reach Avenue C, I’m in a blank zone. I walked a block too far and ended up almost on Avenue D, had to sneak a tinkle in front of a bush (directly in front of what I think was a church), and then felt annoyed by the time I reached where I was supposed to be. I stop at a place labeled 40C, and ask a few girls in the line if this is NuBlue. “No,” a cute girl with platinum blonde hair says. The guy checking IDs, a flaming guy with straightened hair and pants that would make Dave Navarro blush tells me NuBlue (which, up to this point I believe is spelled “New Blue”) is a block down the road. When I reach, a (obviously black) bouncer sits in a cheap plastic chair, and gives me an indifferent look. Admission is ten bucks, and I don’t feel like making the investment. I ask him what kind of music is playing inside, and he says Brazilian and house. I’m still not tempted.
A few guys come out and tell me there are very few ladies inside. At 40C, the line was chock full of little indie chicks. I head to 40C.
This brings me back to me leaning on the DJ booth. After paying five bucks to get into the spot, I become lost in the noise around me. The girls here are dressed very nicely, but they aren’t any friendlier than girls anywhere else. Lots of guys with Pete Wentz hairstyles, float around with big smiles on their faces. It seems everyone has black hair, tight pants and an “interesting” fashion sense. I see one other black guy in the entire place, a man that looks like he’s in his forties sporting a head of thick locks and a sharp jacket. The music is very good, but this doesn’t inspire me to dance. I stand near one of the bathrooms for a few minutes, watching people interact. The indie crowd always fascinates me. People are more energetic and lively. The occassions are trumped up with energy and riddled with a hazy sense of the status quo. Everyone knows how to dress, people dance for the sake of dancing and the DJ looks like Edward Scissorhands. I can’t say it was surreal, but in some way it was cool.
At some point a song plays that I can’t name that takes me back to Barcelona. For a split second, I’m there beside my then-girlfriend, happy and blissful without a fucking care in the world. Then I blink, and I’m back on the dance floor, somewhere off Avenue C.
At some point, I end up leaning on the DJ booth disinterestedly staring at the people dancing in front of me. I find how sad this image must look—the tall (other) black guy in the indie club standing in the most obvious place in the club staring at nothing—and I think someone else notices it too. A girl beside me says something, and I realize it’s the girl I had spoken to earlier in the line. “Hey, didn’t you ask me earlier if this was NuBlue?” she says. I give a stilted response and entertain light conversation. She introduces me to her friends, but my social radar doesn’t’ inspire me to keep talking. She is cute, verily so, in a nice black skirt. She reminds me of Brittany Murphy, but that comparison doesn’t make me feel anything. She’s with two other friends and I my energy is low. I suddenly feel like sleeping, and lean against the DJ booth once more.
At some point, a woman talks to me. “I can hook you up with any guy or girl you want.” She says with a smile on her face. I’m not sure if should be flattered or wonder if I’m projecting a bisexual vibe. I ask her why she’s good at this sort of thing. “I’m freshly divorced,” she says, her eerie smile never losing its brilliance, “and I’m happy!”
I take this into consideration, nod, and lean against the wall again. I see the blonde and her friends leaving. She waves to me, and somewhere inside me, I curse briefly. The chick liked me.
After another ten minutes I leave. The music was getting better and the DJ was amped up, but I didn’t feel like staying, even after he shouted “Okay you sexy motherfuckers start moving! Two for one drinks for the next hour!”
When I went out side, ironically it was raining. It was fitting, as if the earth was aligned to my somber mood. I spend five minutes standing in a group of people that curse a lot. A drunk girl kept bouncing into me. She was literally inches away from me and acted like I wasn’t there, and in that moment, I felt truly invisible. There I was, standing in a group of seven people, all talking around me, while I watched light reflect on falling raindrops on Avenue C.
I say screw it, and head out into the rain. By the time I reach my pizza place for my ritual slice, I’m soaked. I walk inside with a wet head of hair and a light chill running up my back. I wolf down the slice and go home.
Another wonderful night.

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I’m standing in the middle of a club, a hot place known as the Darkroom on the Lower East Side, and I’m not trying to hookup with girls. I’m trying to construct a narrative.

As weird as that sounds, sometimes I venture out, nicely dressed (usually with a tie or some odd accessory to accompany me) and I just stand up in bars, watching people interact and seeing the pluses and minuses of our social debacle. Since most of the bars I venture to mostly have white patrons, there is the inevitable observation about dancing, the odd hookups here and there and drinking. For most people it seems, alcohol is an escape from their problems, but not just that. It is an escape from reason. Not only are senses dulled, but also rational decisions.
“Maybe that guy sorta looks like Freddy Prinze after six drinks.” She says to herself. Maybe she doesn’t say this.
On nights like these, I watch the sharks float around—the guys that will talk to ANY chick—and I see how successful they are. They usually aren’t.

A quick grab of the waist, a stilted dance and a whisper in the ear of “Can I call you sometime?” never works. This might work if the girl is extremely drunk, but she’ll never answer the phone. You’ll call until your fingers are riddled with Carpal.

I haven’t felt like blogging for several weeks. I’m back in that mental void again. This week, I’ve had three or four dreams about an ex-girlfriend of mine that I really want to forget, and I’ve even had the unpleasant experience of being awake while my body is asleep. I have no idea what this means for me psychologically, but it was fucking frightening. I was dreaming that I was in my Grandmother’s house in Jamaica, which I have dubbed “The Palace”, and I walk home, to my apartment in NYC. (Hey it’s a dream, Jamaica and New York are a thought apart). When I reach back, I lay on the couch (where incidentally I am sleeping) and then I open my eyes. Only, I can’t move. The only thing I “think” I can move are my eyebrows, which do nothing to keep me awake.

Then I close my eyes again, and I’m immediately plunged back into a dream world. Only this time, I sense something very sinister watching me. I open the door to my apartment and the hallyway is eerily black. In the darkness, with my limited vision, I can see something moving in the background. Something dangerous. I run back to the couch and lay down.

Again, I open my eyes. I can’t move. All I can move are my eyebrows. I can’t scream and everything around me is still. It was frightening and weird. Until finally, I was able to get up, the 1,000 pound weight off my chest and the presence gone… for now.

I haven’t blogged in a while because I’ve falled into the aforementioned void. A funk which messes me up from time to time. I’m sort of enjoying New York, but I’ve been spending a few hours in the day visiting my Aunt in the hospital. This is a mentally taxing exercise. I hate hosptials, and I think going to one every single day is beginning to make me feel wired and filled with images of death.
Either way, tonight was the first night I went out in a while.
I haven’t felt the need to go out and try to meet people. I normally find this an annoying and disturbing process. Like many Friday nights, in the clubs I went to, there were large groups of girls dancing in tight circles, cock-blocking left and right. I was observing this of course, since I was constructing a narrative.
Inevitably, I met people. A small, very cute blonde wearing a white hat pulled me to the side at one point, but danced around me mostly. Her name was Amy. At some point her friend who was aptly named Mandy, (and also very blonde) said they were lovers. I believed them. In fact, for most of the night a majority of the girls in the club were dancing with each other, which lead me to think they might all be lesbians, or just fucking strange.
At another club, I met a girl named Milan. She was very cute. Like 30% cuter than Ashley simpson. I saw her reject a few guys. All my conversation with her was random. I was standing near her and lamented on hearing the “M.I.A” song for the tenth time that night. This comment peaked her interest, and she spoke to me for a little ewhile. But then, her two blonde friends (she was a brunette) left, so she was gone. Fleetingly.

I honestly don’t have much writing juice in me these days. I think I’ve said enough about my ex-girlfriend. I think I’ve said enough about the odd social situations I find myself in (good or bad) , and I think I’ve said enough about certain things I want to achieve.
I could write about the dozens of women I’ve met and kissed and messed with, but to what end? I’m no happier than a guy who failed his bar exam after three years of school and countless hours of studying.
I want to write for writing’s sake, like most writers, but that seems lame. No point writing unless on has an audience correct? Whoever reads my blog never posts. I somewhat do this as a personal reference for myself, but I also do it to stimulate the people around me.
I can’t say New York sucks, but I think I personally suck in New York at this point in time. That’s a joke by the way.

A part of me wants to talk about the Russian girl I met on the Subway, the Russian I met in Union Square and the Russian I met at this bar called Pianos. Or the three Aussies, the Swiss chick, the Candadians and the Infamous English. I could talk about how much i’m still in love with someone who has no desire to even seen me. But why? Why talk about your life if you are talking to yourself…
Alas. Such is life. Tortured dreams, and tortured events. Tomorrow its back to the hospital. May I have mental strength….

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I’ve been searching for inspiration lately, and no I didn’t find it in the face of a beautiful woman.

I’ve been floating in between that head space most artistic people reach at some point in their lives. In inevitable top o’ the mountain. We hear the sonorous voice that could be any number of black actors ask us that question: “What are you doing?”

(if aforementioned sonorous voice said “What is real?” then it would be Laurence Fishburne. He was also Mr. deep voice in Fantastic Four two. Betcha didn’t know that!)

My only achievement this week was completely frightening a cute girl in a bookstore named Abby. There she was, walking around with a cute yellow bag, looking for books. There I was, looking for a new book to read with a great excuse to say hello. I’ll scratch the details, but the conversation ended with me asking for her opinion on something. Not her number.

She reminded me that this city is a place for artists. She’s the third girl i’ve met who works in an art gallery, but the first who actually looks like a piece of art. She reminded me of a little porcelain doll. The kind that have organs, and studied Art History in North Carolina. Yes, I frightened her, with my high-energy Jamaican wit and obvious comfort with myself. That ladies and single reader of this blog, is the most frightening thing to a woman, the idea that a man is comfortable with himself. Especially if he isn’t forty-something and flush with mutual funds and crazy levels of disposable income.

Frightening miss A didn’t bother me that much. I was actually glad I frightened her in some ways. I was glad that I came off a little too happy, too endearing, because the truth is I haven’t felt like that in days. I was experience what my friends and i like to call “frownzing”.

Frownsing: (adj. frown-zing) the act of, or activities related to frowning. Contemplating life, being generally jaded, or driven to watch porn. Facilitates lower states of energy, higher solitary presence at movie theatres and the Taco Bell line. Watching Sex and the City.

So not only was I happy to have met a cutie like Abby, I was happy to scare her away. It justified in my mind that my reality was doing the right thing. I was projecting an air of confidence I didn’t have, even if the cute girl who works at the art gallery MIGHT have given me her number if i had just turned down the man-juice a notch.

Randomly, but not coincidentally, after I left the book store carefully protecting my copy of Lost World, I leaned against a wall and started talking to my friend on the phone. We were talking about the usual madness. Women, success, money, not having either of the three, you know the deal. At some point, Abby walked past–wearing a black shawl or something–but it was her. I saw her look at me, then look forward.

I made no attempt to say hello, or “de-man-ize” myself by saying. “Hey Abby!”. I could just as easily do that by shouting “Hey Abbot!” for no reason, and i’d draw more stares. Abby walked off into the distance, reasonably tall and attractive, gone to probably manically paint in some studio apartment somewhere. Then I turned around and resumed my conversation.

The abbey thing reminds me of something. One of the key features of New York is women, women women. In fact this phenomenon can become a little bit annoying. Not the fact that the city is filled with beauties, but the fact that they walk so bloody fast. By the time you stop a girl to say hello, she’s half a block away. Its that bad.

In the last few days, I’ve been sharing my apartment with super-author Michael Crichton. He’s been in my bed, on my floor and once or twice in my bathroom. I’ve been reading a few of his books. I just read Next and Jurassic Park, and I grabbed Lost World yesterday. I’m not sure if I’m the laziest book reader ever–I don’t like searching through books hoping i don’t find a lemon–or if I’m just in a dinosaur/genetics mode right now. Either way, I need to feed my mind so I can start up my writing process. I need to kick start myself like an aging guitarist needs coke before a show. I need that high.

I think six to eight good books should get me writing again. Earlier this year, I read about fifteen or twenty books in the month of January, and not only did I write some of my most interesting blogs, but I was writing constantly. Ideas came from the depth of my insides, and spilled onto my keyboard into MS word and on dozens of tiny scraps of paper. I need that again. Time to contribute to the creative commons. I can “frownz” later

On a side note, this “scary” side of myself is pretty humorous. I went to a bar on Monday night and some girl started talking to me. A few minutes later the shortest Asian guy i’ve ever seen pats me on the back and tries to tell me to lay off the chick. (I didn’t even know her name). I didn’t find the event funny until two days later, when I remember some random dude asking me about his Russian friend who was visiting town. “You can see where i’m going with this right?” he says to me. It was hilarious. Not only was he cock-blocking me from a girl who’s name I didn’t know. But he was also being semi-threating about this girl, who spoke to ME and whom I didn’t even remember.

.Maybe I really am scary

.Maybe I walk into places and people wonder who the f*ck is this maverick come to steal and impregnate our women! On Karaoke night nonetheless.

I wish.

Cheers to better days and less cock-blocking from dudes.

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I’m looking at a girl who looks like female version of Alan Rickman.

I’m in the subway station at the 2nd Ave stop, Lower East side New York. I’ve been traipsing around these points every other day for the last three weeks i’ve been here, and the stories are numerous. But i’m not feeling happy. Something is grinding at my insides–the little voids in this social vacuum we call our daily existence. For all intents and purposes I should feel good. But I’m not 100%.

This makes sense in an odd kind of way.

I got the emotional wind kicked out of me recently, and certain aspects of it re-entered my consciousness, just at the point when I didn’t need it. I was on the phone with my sister last night trying to work out the meaning of pointless communication.

“What’s the point of keeping in touch with people who aren’t interested in seeing you?” I said.

“Well, ” she responded. “I don’t know how to answer that.

“And why is it that when i’m far away from certain people they become so interested in what i’m up to… but if i’m in the area they are like ghosts in my life?”

“Well,” she said.” I don’t know how to answer that one either.”

I can’t answer it myself. Its become a tired routine, between myself and my significant others. I can be in their periphery, a stone’s throw away and I don’t hear anything. My cell phone becomes dead weight, and i wake up early on Saturday mornings feeling like a horny Grizzly bear in a land filled with male Shrews.

I can’t bother to try and rationalize the circumstances, the events, the back story or the whatevers. I’ve come to realize like most people, that most things don’t matter. What matters is what you want with your life, what you choose to take from it, and everything else is just… scenery.

Scenery like a long car ride from state to state. You look at it, occasionally something grabs your eye, sometimes you might stop for a while and get engaged with something, or you might stop for a long time before you get to your final stop. But its all fluff. Its all jibber jabber.

What matters is the end result. Sort of.

I haven’t felt like writing humorous anecdotes about the girls i’ve met in New York, and now there are too many to write about properly. This city is pretty fun–I’ve partied on a Monday–but at the same time it has the “vacuum” that all major cities have. That quiet divide in between what you have to do, and what you want to do. Everyone is busy, everyone is working, but sometimes in between the work and the train rides, the little conversations with the person standing in line to grab a Subway sandwidch, or helping the man across the street, everything stops. Then you remember you are painfully alone.

You can disguise this sensation in some ways. You can play loud music, read books, go running. Fool yourself into feeling a sense of company by sitting in the presence of others in Parks, or going to the movies.. but there are those days when you can’t fool yourself. This sadly, has been happening more often over the last several months than I like.

Its not a depressing feeling, because its a reality. If a guy doesn’t have a girl friend and maybe two people he speaks to every now and then its a little social conundrum. Especially for a guy who has no trouble meeting and interacting with people. Its like life’s antithesis to the “cool guy”.

But I’m rambling. ( I will never… EVER say “I digress”. I hate those two words. *brrrr*)

Do I want the flashing lights? Do I want the smiles of recognition from the masses? Do I want to be known?

I dunno. I’m a simple guy. Sometimes I just want to know that certain people close to me have a vested interested in me. That’s a start.

I’m afraid of become one of those super jaded people who roam through life always thinking a little devil is following them around and watching all their positive circumstances then they poke a broom in your back and shout out “YOU’RE FUCKED LITTLE MAN!”

Alas, I think i’m already there. Feeling jaded isn’t feeling depressed. Its reading the news and not feeling anything when people go missing. Not worrying about tomorrow even if people are going to start wailing on you with terrorist fist-jabs, and thinking every woman you meet will eventually screw you. (not in that way pervs!).

I should take notes from good old Shakes:

“… take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them?” Okay this barely relates to what i’m saying, but I love a good Shakes quote.

The only solace I can take from the burgeoning jadedness that is life, is to realize I have ample writing fodder. I don’t have to be the only one feeling empty and floating around “this mortal coil”, so can my characters! and I can make them screw (not in that way) the chicks too! Sweet eh? The pen can give sweet revenge… but that’s a nerdy fantasy that never helps anyone, especially if the chicks that screw you (we’ve been over this) don’t read your books. Lost cause dudes and babes. Lost cause.

But i’ll figure it out. I’ll reteach myself to twiddle my thumbs with glee if it means buying a huge f-ing box of chocolate and a teddy bear the size of my ex-girlfriend and loads of anime to take me back to my innocent teen years.

Till then, the humorous anecdotes will continue I guess… with a morose undertone.

Cheers to unexpected e-mails.

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SometimesIjustWannaRant

I just noticed something funny about Megatron.
In the recent hit movie “Transformers” there is a scene where Megatron says to Disney-uber star Shia LeBouff, “Run boy!”. I had issues with this. I think he should have said, “Run fleshy man-thing!” or he should have screeched in Deceptagarble, truly making those around him quake in fear.
Either way, I haven’t been writing much lately. This makes sense to me. For the last seven weeks I have been going non-stop. Trip to France, Berlin, and now the ultimate destination: New York.
As a writer, there are the inevitable conflicts which arise in these situations.
Do I (a) go out every night in the city that never sleeps, chasing tall, blonde women for pure sport? Or do I (b) get inundated in the daytime park scene that usually leads to meeting tall, blonde women? Or do I (c) become a true New York ‘artist’, and make a splash on the underground scene in such a way that it will eventually attract droves of tall, blonde women? As you can see, in New York, there is no escape from the TBW’s!

So far, that’s my main observation. There is tall EVERYBODY here. Tall Asian women, tall blonde women seemingly from the highlands of some Eastern-European formerly-soviet-something country, tall guys, tall buildings, tall cups of coffee. It is all here.
I like the buzz—that feeling of never sleeping and existing in a twilight state. I felt this way last night. My last memories are of talking to my cousin late at night about purpose in life, while trying to decide if I should go out or not as hot brunettes kept walking past. (they were Oh-Soooooo fashionable). But, when I woke up this morning, I felt like I was in a different place. I half expected a little garden gnome to be sitting on my bed, and then a voice from that other place would be like, “Let’s go Buddy.”

I’d say, “Wait, where are we going? I need to go to work.” The gnome would be like. “Fuck work, let’s partaaaay!”. Then the gnome and I would head to numerous strip clubs, go on a shopping spree, buy his and his g-strings for our debut at the “oldies night” in a shady part of the East Village and then end up on a boat to China, singing praises to the two Ukranian women who decided to tag along(they don’t’ speak any English of course) and I would play guitar all the way to….

Beijing, where angry protestors would think I was somehow connected to the torch runners and eviscerate me in some Chinese back alley and then issue an apology the next day because they thought my guitar was a torch…. Or a harp. I think harps are banned in China too.

I’m ranting. On purpose.

.
I’m still reeling from the fallout of a “sort of “ heartbreak-but-not-really situation. My creative insides are spinning all around as I think of relationships of the past and I look towards the future. New York may have millions of nubile women, (and those who really like messing around in public places) but sometimes, standing betwixt people on the train to work, or just walking through a massive crowd on a Friday at Union Square, I float away and then it’s just me… and her.

Who is she?

Maybe she’s that person I’ve always wanted. Or maybe it’s a version of myself that’s a woman, I dunno. But there she is, standing there, tall and regal, smiling at me. Her eyes tell me that she loves me, and her body responds with touches, kisses and dirty feels. She is mine and I am hers. Then the image ripples and fades, and the real world returns. I’m standing in the middle of a crowd that I don’t’ know. Faces of all hues and compositions walk past, and there, I am truly alone.
That’s when the Gnome appears again, and we raid a Borders book store and argue with women wearing tattoos about the “destruction of the female temple” or some junk.
At this point the gnome would say, “Let’s hit up a strip club.” Then I’d say “No, we have to end this relationship. Its not healthy.” The gnome would then say, “Wow. I really thought we had something here. All those moments shopping, stripping and us in the g-strings getting grabbed by those senile old women who think we were theie boyfriends from the 1930’s. Those moments meant something to me.”
The gnome would want to cry but he couldn’t, simply because he’s a figment of my imagination. I’d go back to reading my books about global warming and start worrying about having a family that will eventually burn—not in God’s hellfire—but man’s sunfire.

.
Then I wake up, and my rant is blissfully over. I go to the kitchen and make tasteless eggs and eat them with equally tasteless bread. I look to the sky when I walk outside and say, “today, will be a good day.”

Then I stub my toe on a hydrant and shout. “ Ooooohhh fuckkk!!!”

.
Happy Camping.

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Two doorstops away from me, is a doggy gym.

This is officially the life that I am living. I’m in the middle of Manhattan, where the median income is a bazillion dollars, and everyone has their own personal driver, Cartier dining set and of course, a talking Gorilla. Welcome to the land of the wealthy, or at least the area of the wealthy. If I wasn’t fortunate to be set up in my digs rent free, I’d be living much farther than a stones throw away from where I work. In fact, most of the people I speak to where I work don’t live in Manhattan. I guess that’s reserved for people with the title “Vice President of…” but even so, they might not have a talking Gorilla.
I’m approaching my fifth day in New York, and I’ve made a critical error…
I WENT SHOPPING!
“Oh the horror.” I said to myself, looking at my shiny, really cheap blazer. “I’ve done it, I’ve broken the deal.” I say this because I planned to be really conservative during my time here. No t-shirts, no new shoes, nothing I think I don’t need. I’ve become a frugal man over the years… my biggest expense in the last two years (other than spending thousands on a trip to Europe) was my Ipod Touch, which I really and truly thought was a way to have wireless e-mail on the go. Unfortunately, the wireless generation are all internet savvy. The first thing people seem to do as they setup their internet connections is to completely secure it. Sure, my Ipod will pickup the 30 or so networks around me, but none are EVER free. If they are, I kid you not, its slower than my old 14400 baud modem that used to screech like a banshee having sex whenever I tried to connect to the internet.
So yes, I bought something. It wasn’t something I really needed, nor something I really desired. What I actually need is a sweater. The office where I work gets cold, and with a vending machine full of 25 cent sodas (yes I said 25 cents ) I can drink all the Ginger Ale I want. Naturally this soda is chilly, so after two ( I haven’t passed two in a day yet) I start to feel quite bristling. I like the word ‘bristling’…. I’m going to try and popularize it.
So yes, I went shopping, but I didn’t go ape-crazy and start frothing at the mouth looking for good deals. I reasoned to myself the blazer is cheap, fits and is highly wearable. If someone left me to my own devices I would wear either a plain black, brown or dark blue shirt every day of the week, with some nice designer jeans. I’m not picky. Me dressing up is me wearing a black, brown, or dark blue shirt with artsy, glittery designs on the front. It’s a huge step up.
Back to the doggy gym. I actually haven’t look inside, and I didn’t let the words “Doggy Gym” register in my mind. I really took note when a man walking past me looked at the sign, then me, then back to the sign, then me again, then smiled, stopped and looked inside. Apparently, it’s a place where the elites leave their little poodles and shitzus to run around idly while they work on wall street. I doubt I’ll be checking it out.

I like the energy here so far. I think its starting to grow on me. I know on almost any given night, I can find something to catch my attention for a few hours. The weekends must be insane here. I can’t even imagine what the fourth of July is going to be like. Now if I could find a meal that’s under 7 dollars in this area, I might be in business.
Also, I feel pretty short in New York. Surprisingly I didn’t feel as short in Germany (for reasons I can’t explain, since most of the guys I met were taller than me ) but here I think it’s the buildings. They are so tightly packed beside one another and so high that maybe my perspective is skewed. Also there are many, many tall women here. In my shoes I’m supposed to be around 6’2 and many people I walk past are taller than me. I remember people saying that when people are your height they seem just a little taller than you. Am I then, a tall-seeming person? Who knows.
As I write this, I’m supposed to be preparing to head out to the lower East side, which apparently, is a good spot on Thursday nights. I also hear its artistic, a tad cheaper on the side of drinks, and as one friend described, “the girls free up”. That’s a Jamaican term ladies and gentlemen, which I’m sure you can figure out the mean ing based on context.
If I don’t head out, I might just sleep. Last night I had not desire to go anywhere, or even eat for that matter. After spending nearly 20 dollars on three cans of tuna, two packs of spaghetti and a jar of tomato sauce, I’d had enough of New York for that day. I went to sleep at 7 and woke up at 4:25 a.m. Then I slept again until 8:45. Thanks a lot New York prices!
I wrote a long, petulant blog the other night about a situation I recently experienced with an ex-girlfriend of mine, but I couldn’t bother to post it. Maybe one day, but not now. I can’t bother to project those feelings into the universe. Better to chat about my little shenanigans in New York than to dissect the platitudes of losing love.
So here’s to the First Thursday in New York! * feeble shout *

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Its Sunday afternoon. I just woke up with my head in my hands. I’m fully dressed, in my outfit from the night before. I hear room door open, and my roommate walks in and starts using his computer.

 

I vaguely remember a moment a few hours before.  I—

Burst into the room, obviously drunk and I struggle to take  off my shoes. My roommate, a Japanese dude named Yoshi, asks the obvious question: “Are you allright?” he says. “I’m fine.” I reply, then I flop into bed. A few seconds after hopping into bed, I feel like my head is spinning and I run to the bathroom. Yes, Berlin was that good.

This blog is in two parts: Day and Night.

DAY

For me, the day was somewhat introspective. A friend of mine was in Berlin for a few hours and I hung out with her. We shared a meal at a Vietnamese place near Weinmeisterstralle and chit-chatted about life. We traveled on the train a bit, took some pictures and talked about humanity and monogamy. She explained to me that her brother had been recently cheated on by his girlfriend of three years, and he was a mess. I said “damn,” to myself when I hear that, but that’s life. Who can really trust anyone?

Either way, after I said my goodbyes to her I hung out in Alexanderplatz for a little while. The best way to describe the place:

The area is the size of a stadium with no stadium. For a stretch of roughly half a mile, is nothing but pavement. Two massive buildings are on this concrete tundra, and people look like ants as they walk to and fro. It is almost like staring at infinity, or God’s empty paddling pool, its that big.

 

Yeah… so I was sitting there for a while just thinking about my life. Here I am in Berlin, sitting by myself. I’ve achieved a great goal by coming here, and I feel happy to be here, but my mind runs on many other things.  Occasionally, I think about my ex-girlfriend and wonder what she’s doing. I wonder if she’s sleeping alone, or with someone,  or taking a shower in the middle of a summer morning. I want to talk to her, but I’ve been afraid to call her lately. I don’t like feeling needy. I need to disconnect a bit. A statement I came up with for a book I’m working on has become a theme for me of late, especially since I’ve been traveling. This was supposed to be a statement in  a movie or something…. But basically two people are talking, and one person says. “You don’t know what love is like.” And one says,” Love can eat you, and love can sting you, but you’ll never know how small the world is until you are in love.”

This statement hit me profoundly (even though I came up with it). You can travel thousands of miles away from someone, but all you need is a thought to put them right beside you.

I didn’t mention it in my blogs when I was in France, but one night was really bad for me. A few years ago one of my best friends died, and  it has  affected me to this day. When I was in France, one on night in particular, I remember a conversation we had. “We are going to Japan.” He said, “We’ll travel, we’ll do it.” We had made plans to go to Europe as well, traveling, having fun sight seeing and living it up. That will never happen. I don’t know why that night in France that realization hi me so hard. In the middle of everything I was doing I started to feel like I was losing it—I wanted to network, to get into parties and have fun, but all I could think about was my friend.

Now I’m in Berlin, one of the places we might have traveled to. I don’t feel bad today, (not in the way I did in France) but sitting in this massive, expansive place can make a person think about things.

Sometimes I want to just forget everything I left behind. My past, my old apartment in DC, my past thoughts and memories. I didn’t’ really want to travel thousands of miles to sit and think about things I can’t change. I guess this is the real spice of life, sitting in a foreign country thinking about all things Marcus.

I also think about my family. I wonder what they are doing, how things are in Jamaica, and if they have any idea what I’m doing in Germany. I think of the future, a possible family of my own… and the next step for in my life. I think on these things for a while, then, I realize I need a drink. Fast.

 

NIGHT

I’m at the beach, in the middle of Berlin.

I’m near Freidrickstralle, an area that reminds me of bad b-movies with great art direction. I’m meeting up with the English girl I met the day before, and some of her friends.  On my way to meet them, I waited at the wrong street for a while. I saw a Pub Crawl taking place. Seeing all those tourists walking to a bar was like watching a 2008 American pilgrimage.  I’m sitting on my bike sipping a beer—I still havent’ realized I’m in the wrong place yet—and I talk to a few fellow standing by the road. When they hear I’m from Jamaica, they seem to be in shock. “Dude, why are you in Berlin?” they say. I try to answer this question when another guy comes up and he also asks me the same question. Why are you in Berlin?

Eventually, I meet up with the guys. They suggest we go to this place called “The Beach”.

This place is like a dream, I’m serious. A huge shadowy building is in front, and almost all of its surface is covered in graffiti, in the shadwos and in the lights, are people, walking through sand, yes, sand and sitting on benches, under tents, drinking and laughing.

What’s dream like about the place is that (a) we have this huge old German building creating the perfect spooky grunge backdrop. (b) we have sand in the middle of a big city, plus trees and beach chairs (c) graffiti makes the area seem dangerous, but its all very chill.

I half expect to see a six foot seven German man in a leather jacket covered with trinkets point to me and then I get tossed out by a few smaller but equally swarthy cronies on the street. I would lay on the ground for a moment gathering my senses when a huge boot would kick me in the ribs and someone would shout in a BAD accent, “Go back to zer Amerika!”

Of course that didn’t happen.  At this point I’m starting to feel a good buzz since I was pre-gaming (alone…sad I know) earlier. Liquid confidence gives me the balls to approach random German people, which I’ve found isn’t a pleasant experience. Germans seem friendly during the day, but at night it’s a whole different story. I see two Slovak looking ladies sitting down and I say my one liner:

“Halo, vie geht es inen?” (Hi, how are you?)

The give me a look that makes me feel like a wisp of grass that accidentally landed on the table. I say “whatever” and find my group. Vanessa is with her long time high school friend Rich and they seem to be getting very chummy. I get a few signals that I’m not supposed to be there when she keeps asking me which girls I want to talk to.

I’m not worried… this is Germany baby! I head over to a small bar where there is  a large group of VERY blonde women. I BS and get a drink and initiate some conversation with two of them. They are from the Czech republic! They speak perfect English. It turns out they are on a class trip to Berlin and they will be here until Monday. I met a Monica, Martina, Elle and someone else. They were all tall, pale and almost platinum blonde. “We are from Prague.” Martina said.  I want to go to Prague now.

I joke around with the ladies for a little while and get a few nasty looks from some of the Czech fellows sitting nearby. I dub the ladies, “The Czech Republics”.

After I chat with the ladies for a while I go back to Vanessa and crew. Massive, the Italian with an Aussie accent is part of the group now. He recommends buying drinks at a corner shop outside to save cash. I agree and follow him. A bottle of Beck’s twice the size of the one I bought in the company of the Czech girls for 3 euros is 1.50 at the stand. I talk to Massive for a few moments about German girls. He too agrees they are kind of hard to meet, but once you get in, oh boy!

At this point I’m probably drunk. I can’t tell for certain, but I started doing some crazy things. I get annoyed with Vanessa for a reason I can’t remember and spend the next hour in the company of the Czech Republics. Unfortunately, I met the teacher of the students (Monica) and breaking in to that group seems like a very shady exercise. The girls were 18 and 19 respectively. Plus massive German guys swarmed around, full of that “I am very tall and very strong” swagger.

I give up on the Czech Republics and head outside for another beer. This time I’m walking alone. The street is buzzing with life. I get a different beer, this one is a Berliner. The lady working the stand looks like a seasoned participant in life. She is in her late forties to early fifties, heavy set with red patches from overexposure to the sun and a hard face. She cracks it open. “Danke.” I say.

I’m walking back to The Beach and I see a tall attractive girl eating some pizza. I make conversation and she tells me about a club she’s going to.  “You should come.” She says.  A fellow pops up, a shorter guy (shorter than me, meaning VERY short by German standards) and this is Benny. At some point I whisper to the girl (who’s name is Marie) and ask her if Benny is her boyfriend. She laughs, a cute, twinkling German laugh. “He is too little!” she says, pointing at him. Benny hears the statement and smirks. Another guy comes along, also shorter than me. He is Yohan. Yohan gives me some vodka to sip on.

The adventure begins.

We take a turn off the main road, Oranienburgerstralle and go up a dark, quiet street. I’m definitely drunk now, and just going along for the ride. I learn that Marie spent one year in London, which explains her good English. She said she just finished school… high school! She’s 19. The group stops at gate that looks like it was stolen from the Bram Stoker’s Dracula prop set.  Two men in black jackets speak in hushed tones to Yohan and Benny. They check their IDs and wave us in. I’m looking for my ID, but I realize I left it back at the hotel. The bouncer waves me in. I follow the group through a very dark parking lot and we enter what looks like an apartment building. After walking up a small flight of stairs, I can hear the music pounding through the walls. House music!

I ask Marie how much is the entrance fee. “Its about six euros.” She says. I nod after she says this, and I turn to the bouncer. “Halo my friend!” I say with a big smile. He is short, but very muscular. “Mi name ist Marcus, from Jamaica, first time in Berlin!” I say. “Thomas.” He says, shaking my hand. “I am happy to be here!” I say with more energy. Then I turn back to the group. The guys paid, and I look at Thomas and he waves me in. Free entrance baby!

 

Two things happen at this point. First, I feel amazed. I’m in a real German club now. There were no tourists in this place. The interior of this building resembled a mini cathedral. There were several dance floors all packed with people. The air was hot and wet.

 

The second thing that happens is I lose the group. I was following Marie around for a few minutes, then she disappeared. After that, I was on my own. I think, and I emphasize, think  I bought another drink at this point but I can’t be sure. I vaguely remember having a conversation with a German guy who happily proclaimed he was 197 cm tall (probably like 6’6). The music was good, but I couldn’t really dance. I was people watching. I was inside, but I felt exposed. I’m this drunk Jamaican guy running around with a polo shirt with a tie on! This is where the night gets blurry.

So I lost the group and listened to some underground music for a while. I don’t think I attempted to talk to anyone seriously. I said hello to a few girls, but I needed some air. All the beer and Vodka was getting to me now.

I’m directed to an exit that puts me on a street I don’t know. The sky is a purplish-blue. Damn, its almost daybreak. I’m not walking straight and I’m lost in the middle of Berlin! I curse a little and stop almost everyone that walks past me:

“Ver is der Frederickstrasse?” I say. (Where is Frederick street?)

People point me in the right direction, but I walk around in a daze for a good twenty minute before I find “The beach” again. I go inside but everyone is gone. No Czech Republics, no English crew. I unlock my bike from the entrance of the beach and start riding home. I don’t know why, but I’m hit with an overwhelming desire to call my ex-girlfriend. For that moment, her voice was the only thing I wanted to hear. I think that desire saved me.

I could barely ride the bike straight and I had about a three mile stretch from where I was to my hotel. This mind you, is through winding roads and streets, between underpasses, ten lane roads, and over routes where these large (and deathly quiet) tram cars drive. Dangerous.

I fuel myself with thoughts of my ex, and this keeps me semi-sober for a while. Twice, I crash the bike. The first time, I almost rode into a wall and a did a poor braking exercise. The second time I had a full wipeout about two hundred feet from my hotel. Even though the sun is starting to rise, it’s still very dark. To get to my hotel I had to navigate through a narrow path filled with lots of trees and hedges. I was doing a good job. “yes, I’m almost there!” I said gleefully. In moments I would be inside my room, on Skype talking to the one person whose voice I wanted to hear. Then, I lost my equilibrium.

My front tire hit a hedge and the bike shifted into the hedge. I braked up, but badly and I fell to the ground. Now I’m on my back and the world is spinning. I try to get up but I can’t, I’m too wasted. I laugh.

“I’m in Germany!” I say to myself with a weak chuckle. I lay there for a minute or so, catching my breath. I think of calling my ex again, and I find a second wind. I get up and finish the ride to the hotel. I lock the bike outside and walk to my room. All I want to do is sleep, but somehow I take my laptop from its case and open it up. (The next morning I would see the laptop on the kitchen table and wonder how it got there). I call my ex but I’m not successful. She doesn’t answer the phone.

At this point the blog begins.

I flop into bed fully dressed hoping to sleep. The Berliner and Becks I drank don’t want to stay inside me, so I run to the bathroom. I go into the room and fall asleep immediately.

Wicked night.