Death by Elevator Muzak

I hope I never have one of those voices on the train that no one wants to listen to. You know exactly the cacophony I'm talking about. it's roughly three hours since you magicianed your way into bed but by the grace of God and a Jamaican cabbie named Francois, and now you're turning around with bloodshot eyes still smelling smoke in your hair and whiskey between your unshowered, sandaled toes. And then, after an arduous white-knuckled battle to make it to the train, you secure a seat and are immediately rendered helpless by the go-getter, Southern-drawled miscreant across from you on the already over-crowded train. Unwillingly, you are resigned to listen to her outline the details of her eggshell wedding dress and commiserate over the glory days of her Cotillion dress that she'll never fit into ever again.

This is not hell, exactly, but it's a pretty good approximation.

This babbling Southern belle has even her best friend staring down the walls of the train in search of the emergency brake, valiantly trying to obscure her yawning into the sleeve of her dress while feigning interest in yet another in a series of mind-blowingly banal recollections of the latest meeting with the wedding caterer and another lament over how this brat's fiance will simply never understand the importance of a well-thought out seating chart.

Little does this halfwit know that her "best friend" is dying inside because she slept with said fiance after a wild night in college where she let her hair down and karaoked "Mustang Sally" at full tilt at a Hooters in Indiana. For as much as said friend has tried to eat her way to bottom of a bucket of buffalo wings and swilled countless Genny Lights in an attempt to ease the pain of potentially hurting her friend, she secretly eats and drinks to rationalize why this twerp gets to get married while she's stuck at her administrative desk sneaking peeks at who recently viewed her online dating profile. Sorry, JockJammer39, she may be desperate, but not that desperate.

The only thing that can possibly increase the heat on this inferno in which you find yourself is when some mongoloid tourist even more touched than this girl makes their way onto the train and recognizes that shrill accent as "home" and asks for directions. From one fanny pack to another, an interrogation that should have lasted 30 seconds is now the soundtrack from Harlem to Brooklyn. Death by elevator muzak would be sweeter.

Where is Francois? Sweet, sweet Francois? Apathetic, muted, silent Francois!

Thinking about a friend

Just a little piece that I wrote in six minutes while waiting on my best friend to find me in the Village the other day.

I’m going to meet Lindsay right now. I don’t understand why I love her so much. I guess I envy her. I imagine I look at her and think, “What was I doing at 23?” To be working in arguably the best restaurant in the country with such minimal experience, a raspy voice, and a steady rotation of two dresses, one pair of ripped leggings, and a giant seahorse tattoo on her arm is truly something to be marveled. Her energy and lust for, as she puts it, “people to show up and not suck” is contagious. Around her, I never want “to suck.” I aspire to be at the top of my game socially – witty, charming, intelligent, open to any and all prospects that could result in “AMAZING.”

With her, I feel outside my own mind. It’s as though we were little children speaking some language we invented ourselves to avoid adults that would chastise us for being lewd, crude, and lascivious. Our pig-Latin sonata heralds arias on pickled ramps and quail eggs done to perfection, grits not being gritty enough and settling for hominy, and that bar that was just a step up from the diviest place we’ve ever encountered to elevate us to sheer ecstasy. I love our language, and I love our song. The soundtrack of our friendship brings a shit-eating grin to my face. Memories of my shoebox apartment in Somerville, MA: waking up with no shirts on, swilling Jameson and dancing on my futon to “Kansas City” and “New Violence” while laughing until our throats were dry and hoarse, in desperate need for another Jameson to quell our drought.

I hate that this is starting to read like an epithet, but ours is the kind of flame that burns so hard and fierce that it comes with the mystery of the Maccabees how it is able to sustain such warmth for so long.

I'll Get to You When I Get to You

This came to me while riding the A train on the one of the hottest days of the summer. It's short because so was my trip. Only had to go three stops, but I've stopped a few more times to read through it. Thank you to Harlem for being a constant source of amazement.


I'll get to you when I get to you.

Right now, I'm with him, and he's a swimming pool in a gated community in New Jersey on August 13th.

He is the aluminum hotel pans my neighbors fill with macaroni and cheese, collards, and buttermilk fried chicken.

I'll get to you when I get to you, but right now, I'm with him.

He is the open fire hydrant on my street where children wade and waddle with new feet, making like Sisyphus against the pressure of his outpouring.

I, too, attempt to reach the source. I come so close, then assuage myself with having at the very least been cooled by his touch as the sun burns the asphalt around me.

I'll get to you when I get to you, but right now, I'm happy he's with me.
7-27-10

Surprises Still Happen

It's been a while since I've been caught me off guard. I'm usually pretty tuned in to my surroundings and life's general order of events. However, moving to New York and ingratiating myself with several new people has afforded me several opportunities to be surprised. This is one of the first poems I've written in years, and while it began as prose I quickly began to realize that often the beauty of poetry is that is encourages the space between words so much more than any other form of writing. It appreciates the "beat." So here's a little "beat" in my life that continues to resonate with me long after it actually happened.

Surprises Still Happen - 7/15/10

Love hit me hard in my stomach on McKibbin Street,

My body taut with sweetbreads and baconaise, lubricated with cava.

He was squat, and squatting.

We had been both praising and agonizing the gentrification of Brooklyn when suddenly, he stopped.

In a basement apartment of “the dorms,” there was a merry band of hipsters playing Fleet Foxes on their couch with the windows to the street flung open, 40 ounce Budweiser bottles strewn around the room like Santeria.

And from the street, he harmonized with them.

He broke their spell.

They heard him.

It was beautiful.

They heard one another.

And while they sang, I was the only one who heard them. And I was lucky.

And then, it was over.

Music, in my life, often functions as a bookmark to dogear moments I want never to forget. As my memory deteriorates and the pages of my thoughts begin to yellow and dry out, there are songs that breathe color back into my reverie.

I see that night not as black, but rather Chartreuse, not simply because we drank, but because we were it.

We were Carthusian monks, each of us filled with half the recipe of a dish neither of us had ever prepared.

And that night, we feasted.

And that night, we sang.

And that night, we were sated.

Welcome to Crumb X Crumb

I guess this has been long overdue. To be perfectly honest, I don't really understand the purpose of a blog other than to provide an arena for the entire world to critique you. Ideally, Crumb X Crumb will function more to allow me an opportunity to catalog my foibles and adventures as I embark on this new series of truths in my life. I hope you enjoy it, whomever "you" may be.