The Final Act
October – December 1993
(5-minute read)
Misfit
Something tells me there’s more...While I’m pretty sure there’s not. Enough of logic. Follow your bliss. Embrace the unknown. Wave to the man on the corner. Be friendly and truthful in the city.
Wear high heels and splash around in the rain. Devour your dessert first. Invite a stranger to lunch. Offer a poem to those who beg. Wear a bodysuit to the beach. Eat fried rice and chocolate Jiminy crickets. Jump up and down when someone beckons. Follow your bliss. Follow your bliss.
I reckon it’s Tuesday, b/c yesterday I wore a different oxford shirt – meaning, it’s not Monday. It’s not Wednesday b/c I don’t believe I had enough clean laundry for 3 working days.
What I find is that I’m not an established writer, or any kind of writer, or a filmmaker, or a graphic designer or coder. I don’t really fit any mold.
Flourishing Art
Guerilla art. Art needs to be entwined with public life. Mime should be breaking out in a restaurant center. Ballet bursting onto a basketball court. Whistling on an elevator. Poetry dribbling at an ATM machine or on the outer hull of a ship. In lines, while waiting for movie tickets or a restroom or for table service or while killing time on the train and bus.
Art must infiltrate. Break out of the studios, the museums, the galleries, the theaters, the “art centers.” Art must spread everywhere. The possibilities are limitless. Let’s break out.
Art may flourish if it’s planted.
Castro Scene
It’s around noon in the Duboce Triangle at Noe and 15th. A bare chested man wearing an open leather vest, a jester hat, and felt-leopard pants sits in a director’s chair listening to low volume classical music. The jester sells flowers. Next to him, a nipple-pierced man stretches, laid out on the sidewalk bench.
Another barefoot dude in a red sweatshirt and baggy cuffed jeans smokes a butt standing on the corner across the street. Then a teenager pulls right over the curb in a red Ford Probe. Two Asian seniors climb precariously into the car as it peels away.
Jordan Retires
October 6
Some days I just want to get lost at an arcade forever. Inspiration is nothing more than a moment’s erection. It doesn’t last.
I guess good ideas last. I guess it’s just me. I go down. Blame it on REM. Most depressing song ever – Everybody Hurts. Haven’t been the same since.
It’s a sad day in the sports world. Jordan’s retired #23. “The desire to play is not there anymore.” He says he has nothing left to prove. My throat dries as my breath stops and my mouth holds agape.
I write from somewhere central, as if an invisible axis runs through the center of my body. Through this pole, all my energy and feelings are channeled onto the page.
I had a similar experience viewing Jim Seibert’s film at the Art Institute. He took the viewer through a wind tunnel that seemed to excavate my body. Inexplicable. Experimental film. (shrug)
Cloudless day, heavy cotton T-shirt temperature, mild hair-ruffling breeze. Girlfriend ends her period today or tomorrow. Much unwritten lately. The typical questions arise I s’pose: What do I want to do? What should I be doing? What will I be doing?
I know I should be enjoying the present, but MORE always seems to hover over me and peck at my neck.
Love Haight Party
Leah throws a party on Pierce Street, across from the Full House park. In the hallway, a dude is lying on the floor as a woman lifts up her dress and dances in bikini underwear over him. Others are feeling each other up.
A guy is licking a woman’s hands and feet until he’s slapped away. People are passed out under the bed. Kegs and cases are emptied as fast as they’re received. Bras have vanished. Belly buttons are exposed. Provocative outfits prevail.
Celebrity deaths
November 1
Welcome to Nob Hill Cafe. A beautiful dame waits in the doorway. I have nothing to say but can’t look away. So we just smile.
Affected by death of River Phoenix and Federico Fellini in one day – double whammie. Damn.
Guy was yelling at a boy in the street just now; he never listens, evidently.
Vesuvio’s
Smokers’ haven – Vesuvios. Relentless attack on clean clothing. Drugs found in River Phoenix during autopsy: heroin, morphine, valium, coke and an over-the-counter antihistamine. Did he have allergies? Fuck an A, River! Beyond Len Bias.
My Hurricane is neither weak nor delicious. I figured she wouldn’t know the ingredients. Kind of like a paralegal not knowing what an affidavit is. Not easy, but it’s your job to know what you serve. No? So recalled rum, vodka, and grapefruit – blaaa!! I know she’s going to screw it up.
The story I want to tell, the script I want to shoot is nowhere in sight. One booth ahead sits anorexia in a Greenpeace sweatshirt. She funnels Sweet-n-Low into her latte through the straw, then sucks it back up and repeats for every sip.
Guerillas in Action
Posted a flyer at NYU film department bulletin for my Guerillas on HoHo’s script. Awaiting reply from local rags on No. Beach piece. At work, accumulating interest in my writings. Guerilla compositions in action – posting in men’s bathroom and circulating at select offices.
Dad Advice
Dad called. Wants to send me religious articles. “I think you’re like me. I think you want to do something meaningful and help the world. Am I right in saying that?”
“Dad, (Connecticut Congressman) Chris Shays once told me a plumber’s work is meaningful. It’s not what you do that’s meaningful. It’s how you do it. It’s about excelling at what interests you. It’s about being the best you.“
I think this reply threw him off his train of thought.
Pretty guerilla-consumed lately. I don’t know what that means except that I’m searching more and more for alternative ways, socially accepted or not. It’s a way of life really.
The Screenplay
November
Theme of HoHos – It’s who you are, not what you do. This realization doesn’t really bring relief when you’re wasting away in the workplace. As much as I feel like I’m somebody first, I feel my wings are clipped while shuffling docs at the firm.
A Fight About Perfection or Something
Last week Liz and I fought on our anniversary. We screamed at each other how much we loved each other.
Liz had been making imperatives: “I want you to change the message on your machine.” And, “I want a hug in bed,” after I was already up and heading out the door.
Me: “Whatever I do is never enough. You’re always pushing for some perfect ideal.”
Liz: “I’m tired of feeling like I have to constantly prove to you that you fulfill me completely. If I’m such a perfectionist, then you must be perfect.”
She pops my brainfart as I pause to decode what’s been said…
Liz: “Because I’m with YOU. You must be perfect, because I like being with you, I love you!”
Meanwhile tears fill the room.
Me: “Well, I like being with you too but not when you make demands on me. I won’t stand for it. I resist. I resist demanding behavior. I’m just saying, the more you demand, the more I’ll continue resisting…Maybe I just have to be more in the moment and not worry about whether you’re pleased or not. I just shouldn’t care about you…No, that doesn’t sound right.”
She stares at the Golden Grahams box throughout my monolog as if she’s thoroughly reading every ingredient and kid trivia question during our now silent breakfast.
As she butters her toast, I remark, “I thought you didn’t want buttered toast.”
“No, I just didn’t want yours. I’m mad at you.”
Mad at the World
December
I adore, the screaming lunatic on the highway bridge in Hal Hartley’s Trust. My whole, my whole life is pent up emotion and expression like that. You wouldn’t know that, but given the routine employment structure and the discomfort with society…go figure.
Boogie in Blue
This bar is hopping. Place is a hole where locals dance with their cigarettes in hand and stamp them out on the floor. Bigger butts hog the dance floor where one guy swings with every gal who waits their turn.
Where conservative women let loose in their dance movements. Where trashed sophomores are still yelling over the hush in between songs.
Stray Cats influence. Boogie in blue fun.
Where the brightest light in the house is the Genuine Draft Miller sign. Where some tire belly dip, overdips his date, breaking her back.
Where drunkards make a scene of themselves delivering sick lines, pointing at people. Where women relish in diabolic pleasure of rejecting men from proceeding on to the dance floor.
Where White Russians cream a layer of ooze on the brain allowing the Kahlua to slide around on top.
Where the men outnumber the women 20:9 to see a band called the Bachelors. In North Beach. Where a girl gives her friend a dollar, like in church, to tip the cuuuuuuute bassist.
Where are we? Where else? The Saloon on Grant Avenue.
