It's been a pretty busy couple of days. Not terribly interesting, but busy. The birthday was ok. Spent most of the 10th with Jen, walking around Brooklyn. Pleasant day out, and couldn't have asked for much more. Went to a bar with James late that night. Pretty standard stuff. Though a new bar. I wasn't feeling particularly celebratory or anything, but it was a fun birthday anyway.The next day, went and saw the movie Blow with Rodzilla. I'm not sure how I felt about it. it was entertaining while I was there, but it wasn't that good. Then went into the office to see about my non-existent check. It wasn't there. That's terribly frustrating, given my current money situation. Anyway, trying not to think about that, i came home and rode my bike around Prospect Park. I hadn't intended on riding all the way around it, but I wasn't really sure how to get back, since I didn't want to go against the one-way flow of traffic, so I just kept going around in hope that the trip around wouldn't be too long and would eventually lead me back to where I started. Which it did. So then I ate some pepperjack cheese, watched some of the movie First Knight starring Richard Gere and Sean Connery (which for some reason i must watch whenever I see its on), had a shower, and cleaned up the place. Then I sat around waiting for Rodzilla to show up so we could go out to a little birthday dinner. It was very pleasant. A nice birthday dinner. Me likey red wine.
We'll skip the drama.
Anyway, the next day, Rodzilla was scheduled to go down to her brother's place outside of Philadelphia so they could drive together back to their hometown of Allegany, NY, for Easter. But she had some chores to take care of that needed to be done, so she decided not to go till today. So instead we sat around in Cafe Orlin on St. Marks for something like three hours. We spent about two of those waiting for Jen and James. It's a nice little cafe with good coffee and good enough food. We split a satisfying goat cheese sandwich. Talked briefly about what she might do next year after her teaching job runs out. James and Jen finally showed up, had some coffee and food, had some interesting conversation, then we split. We walked a few hundred feet down St. Marks to the Holiday Cocktail Lounge. Rodzilla had some packing to do, so she headed home. The rest of us got inside, sat down, and I went to get three beers from the bar. A simple enough task. It took me about 20 minutes. The place was pretty empty, but the bartender was a drunken, rambling old man. He just kept singing along to whatever song was playing, and shouting at people, and just being your stereotypically drunk old fool. I felt kind of bad for him. i was in no real hurry, so i didn't want to interrupt him when he appeared to be having a good time. Still, after 15 minutes or so it became infuriating. "Can I get two Heineken Darks and one regular Heineken?!" i shouted that a few times, till finally he brought me one of the beers. Then more rambling about his son studying history or something, then something about some group of people he hated. For a while i thought he might be saying he hated Chinese people or something, because the last drunk old man i saw that was screaming a few days ago was going on about how much he hated Japs and pointing at me. Not that that sort of thing really bothers me. Anyway, after a few more minutes of me nodding and replying to everything with "great. hey, could I get one more of these and one regular Heineken?" he finally got me the second beer. Then more rambling. Then more answering everything with "Could I just get one more beer?" FINALLY he got me the beer, and I handed him 12 bucks. I probably could've given him 14 Israeli sheckles and he wouldn't have even noticed. I just tipped him a dollar per beer out of habit. When it takes you average 7 minutes per drink, you probably shouldn't make a lot in tips. but he seemed nice at heart. And I've always had a soft spot for old, drunken, crazy bartenders who work in little smoky bars on St. Marks. Anyway, after that, Rodzilla called and said he apartment was dark and deserted and scary, and that she was coming over. I thought maybe I should preorder her drink so that we'd have it 15 minutes later when she got there, but by then another bartender came on duty.
Anyhow, after that I went back to Rodzilla's place, urinated, had some Ramen noodles, and typed out a few cover letters, then hit the road back to Brooklyn.
Today Matt woke me up around noon. When he called, I was having a weird little dream, as I've been having all week. I was playing guitar and walking around this apartment complex that's in the East Village, between 1st ave and 2nd ave on 3rd street. Anyway, James was there, and it was bright and sunny. I had this great song to play, but then I just started playing the Lemonheads' "Into Your Arms," the first song I ever learned to play. Anyway, then the phone started ringing, and in my dream I tried to pick up the phone, reaching into thin air and then putting my hand to my head like I had a phone in it and saying "hello?" over and over. Anyway, then I woke up, got the phone for real, and it was Matt. He was calling to give me the day's itinerary and told me he was coming over in an hour. So he showed up, we played a bit of Nintendo, watched some Doug on Nickelodeon, and then we went up to Prospect Park to play frisbee golf. Beautiful day out. I did some sort of temporary nerve damage to my hand. Then came back here, where his shooting me in the head with a squirt gun quickly escalated into a heated battle. Anyway, after that silliness ended, we got in his car to meet James for coffee in the nice weather in the city. He like Cafe Orlin, so he wanted to meet there. Anyway, it was packed, so after meeting up with him and Jed, settled on this place Virage. Then back to B town.
My brother Geoff was thinking about going to Atlantic City, and I was planning on maybe going with him, but that's since fallen through. So it looks like another night hanging out in Brooklyn. Ain't nuthing wrong with that. Most likely assorted silliness here til around midnight or so, then to Great Lakes or some bar on 5th Avenue. So I guess I'll go get ready to go out. Though I'll probably be sitting around the apartment for the next hour and a half.
I just got back from Great Lakes. Jed's on the bathroom floor, and Matt's pleading "Jed, tell me a story. Tell me how you got here..." Matt and I came in, and while I got some water (for me, not Jed), Matt was yelling, "Greg, home here, you need to see this." Needless to say, we got several pictures of Jed on the floor, including the obligatory one of Matt on top of Jed. It's all very sick. Matt said "Be sure to get the mismatching socks that haven't been washed in nine weeks." Oh, it's all true. Also, it should be noted that those bathmats, at least one of them, comfortable as they may be to Jed, are among the dirtiest things in an apartment that seems to have a notorious reputation for being filthy.
So while I was sitting there in Great Lakes tonight, this Asian guy who was sitting at the bar kept motioning to me. At first i ignored him, since I only saw him out of the corner of my eye and I didn't think he was signaling me. Then a little bit later my glance wanders his way, and he's motioning me with his hands to come over. I freeze. He keeps gesturing at me. So after shooting him several quizzical looks I finally go over to the bar. He says "Can I buy you a drink?" And I say, "Um...I'm actually leaving after I finish the drink I have. But thanks." He said "I'm not gay. I just thought we should talk." He then said something about being Asian brothers or something.I just stepped away from the computer, came back, and saw matt had just typed:
And I'm like "Whaaaat?" And then next thing I know, I'm in the bathroom, with my Underoos around my ankles, experiencing the most paintful yet exhiliarating experience I've ever felt in my life. wow. That's really all I have to say about that. wow. I know, capitalization. One reply: "If you had the powerful experience I had this evening, you would understand about the complete irrelevance of punctuation." No really.
I'm a bit ashamed that that's his best approximation of me. I'm ashamed, but not sure why, exactly.
Anyway, the guy sort of made me really uncomfortable. He kept trying to make idle chit chat. He said "i've never seen you here before." And I said "well, i'm here probably once or twice a week." What I was really thinking was "So far you've said to me '"Can I buy you a drink?' 'I've never seen you here before,' and 'I'm not gay.' One of those things doesn't seem to jibe with the others." Then he asked me what I did and if I was chinese or japanese or korean, and why I hang out in bars. "to pick women up, right?" "Um... sometimes...?" "You can tell me. To pick women up, right?" "Uh, yeah, to pick women up." And he tells me how he hasn't had a lot of success picking women up. And I'm thinking, does he mean women or "women"? What was really bothering me was that he said he wasn't gay, when I really, really thought he was. If he had just said he was gay, I wouldn't have had a problem at all. It woulda been flattering. But in the context of not being gay, everything single thing he said really gave me the fucking creeps. Like "It always seems like it's easy to pick up women here. I mean, looking at them, they've all always got that lonely, desperate look in their eyes." And I'm like "Heh heh... yeah..." Then, awkward silence. Then "well, I'm going to go finish my drink there John, but nice talking to you." I was polite. Maybe he was just lonely and wanted to talk to someone, which I can understand. But he just went about it all wrong and gay. And the whole Asian brotherhood shit tweaks me out too. Maybe it's that i don't hang out with other Asians. Or maybe it's why I don't hang out with other Asians. can't we just be people, instead of being Asian brothers? Why should that automatically endear someone to me? Why should that be a determining factor in deciding "we should talk." I could almost understand it if we were in Wisconsin or Kentucky or some other neck of the woods where my kind ain't seen too often, but don't try to pull that shit in fucking New York. Anyway, i feel sort of bad for him, cause he was just trying to make friends. I guess. But you can't help it if certain things creep you out. And it was really, really creepy. So, for the record, as far as I can tell, I have no interest whatsoever in creepy asian guys.
While going back through this entry to add all the links and stuff, I found more of Matt's interjections. Don't blame me. Sure, I could have just deleted them and not mentioned them at all, but I wanted to reveal O'Brien for the true monster he is. "I name you Beast!"
" Then Matt O'Brien came over today. Not to be vulgar or anything but that guy honestly has the largest cock I've ever seen. Seriously. It's kind of scary. He's always kind of joked about it, but yesterday he actually whipped it out -- and I have to say, as a completely heterosexual guy -- it was pretty impressive. No really.
But enough about that."And some Snoop:
"I likes to party. I don't cause no trouble. I don't bother no body. I'm just some nigga on the mike. And when I rock upon the mike I rock the mike right."
Fuckin' O'Brien...
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