When Hell Freezes Over

Earlier this evening, two men passed by me on Mott Street, with one saying to the other:

"Landlords are just going to have to stop being greedy."

Yeah, right. Maybe this will happen when The Rapture arrives. Otherwise, I wouldn't advise holding your breath.

5:26 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Bar Sign du Jour

This one is out in front of Vasmay Lounge -- formerly a lesbian bar called Meow Mix, and before that a hole-in-the-wall bar called (yup) Vasmay Lounge -- on the corner of Houston and Suffolk Streets:

10 beers a day
Keeps the shakes away

I'll take this one on faith rather than resorting to the experimental method to find out if it's true.

1:33 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Anachronistic Graffiti

I was out in Hoboken at the Arts & Music Festival on Sunday. While waiting for the live music acts I wanted to see to begin playing I stopped into the Dunkin Donuts on the corner of 7th and Washington to use the men's room. And there I discovered that someone had written in felt pen on a poster over the towel dispenser: Down With the U.S.S.R.

My first reaction was: Huh? Wasn't it on November 9, 1989 that I was sitting in J's (a defunct jazz club at 98th & Broadway) after work, and some jarheads in the bar wanted to cut away from footage of the Berlin Wall coming down so they could watch Wheel of Fortune?

7:17 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Why You Should Vote for the Democratic Presidential Candidate, Whoever It Might Be

Some of you might think Hillary Clinton is a hideous monster. Others of you might think Barack Obama is a cheap hustler. But the shortcomings of the potential Democratic candidates don’t matter at all to me when I reflect that the opposing candidate is something infinitely more repugnant than either Barack or Hillary -- he’s a REPUBLICAN.

12:38 AM - 4 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Portrait of Barack W. Bush

My ink portrait of Barack W. Bush wouldn't upload to Myspace -- Rupert, did you have anything to do with this? -- but since it did upload to my Blogspot blog you can look at it there: http://broncwhite.blogspot.com/

8:45 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Perverse Fortune Cookie

This afternoon, at the end of a delightful lunch at New Green Bo (Shanghai-style) on Bayard Street, I was given a fortune cookie that instructed me to: "Do onto others as you wish others to do onto you."

2:32 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Barack W. Bush

An evil genie took hold of me yesterday morning while I was attempting to execute a copy of a drawing of Barack Obama that appeared in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. Instead of replicating Obama's broad, noble forehead and radiant eyes, my portrait clearly depicts the congenital white trash truncated forehead and beady eyes of George W. Bush. Apart from those features, the rest of the portrait resembles Barack Obama. Hence, the title "Barack W. Bush". I think my subconscious was influenced by a comment made by a friend over beers last Friday that Obama is "Republican lite".

I will post this in my Drawings folder as soon as I get myself to a scanner. The home office is a bit bare-bones at the moment...

Currently reading : Project for a Revolution in New York; A Novel. By Alain Robbe-Grillet Release date: June, 1972

7:51 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

"When the going gets weird..."

A friend of mine who is most decidedly not a weird person has of late been encountering a significant amount of weirdness in her work life and in her personal life. Hunter S. Thompson's classic statement about what weird people do when encountering weirdness -- "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" -- is not applicable in this situation. An applicable rewrite might be something along the lines of: "When the going gets weird, the non-weird just adapt." I was tempted to turn pro in my late teens and early twenties, but eventually decided that I was really more of an adapter.

Currently reading : Alexander Hamilton By Ron Chernow Release date: 26 April, 2004

5:50 PM - 3 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment

Job Search + Movies Made from Fantasy Novels

I started the job search on Wednesday by posting my resume on marketresearchcareers.com and teeing up my three references to the fact that I am now starting to look. On Thursday morning I received voicemail and email from a Smith Hanley recruiter, an English woman who I'm guessing is in her 40s or 50s and knows the industry well. After chatting for over 45 minutes, she said she was going to be sending my resume to nine companies (all of which we discussed), including Harris Interactive, GfK, TNS, IPSOS, DDC, and AC Nielsen. After that I decided to take the rest of the day off and went to the movies to see The Golden Compass. I loved it. This was a pleasant surprise, given that I fell asleep repeatedly during the first Lord of the Rings movie (and skipped the others) and absolutely hated the first Harry Potter movie, during which the ability to fall asleep would have been a minor blessing. His Dark Materials, the series of books of which The Golden Compass is the first volume, is more intellectually challenging than the Lord of the Rings books, and both more intellectually challenging and better written than the Harry Potter books, although I will admit to enjoying having read all three.

Currently reading : Iris Murdoch: A Life By Peter J. Conradi Release date: October, 2001

9:42 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Some Further Adventures of Brockden "Bronc" White

Long time readers of this blog may recall that the protagonist of my novel-in-progress is the controversial Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Brockden "Bronc" White, whose corpse was discovered in the men's room of Bowery Poetry Club after a particularly incendiary reading.

In a New Years Eve news flash, I am reporting to you that hardcopy of one of Bronc's most notorious poems, heretofore unpublished, has just been discovered by NYC Homicide Detective Marcello Scorcia. It was written in long-hand on a piece of notebook paper, and apparently tucked by Bronc inside the front cover of his bawdily autographed copy of The Calculus of Variation, a collection of poetry by Diane Di Prima. Note that the attribution is tentative pending confirmation by handwriting experts. After reading this poem you may have some insight into why many easily offended individuals have reacted in a strongly negative way to some of Bronc's writings:

Stinking Corpses – attributed to Brockden "Bronc" White

It's time to bury the stinking corpse of
(Insert your choice of Judaism, Christianity or Islam).
Face the facts: Civilization has never truly developed
very far in the Middle East. All of the combatants
in the so-called Holy Land have been behaving like intransigent
three-year olds in a sandbox for well over a thousand years now.
Isn't it time to put a stop to this madness?

2:59 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment