I just peed my already shitty pants

Holy shit. Its true. They've been down there all along. Just waiting. My worst fears have been realized. On film.

trying to let the news build

Jake left on Monday and things are back to boring here, although I feel a bit refreshed.

The Strand is the coolest place ever though. I spilled coffee in the rather delicate rare book room, but my shoe caught the entire dollop of liquid and no one noticed. But it turned my shoe from white to gross. So I guess it kind of balances out.

holy shit...that was close

At certain businesses, employees receive awards or badges of distinction commemorating their years of service. If one enjoys where they work, this can be a nice pat on the back. However, when one works for a dead end job at a lifeless corporation, that golden watch can become a deadly shackle. A scarlet letter declaring your convalescence to your dead-eyed taskmasters. In my case it is a scarlet lanyard shouting 5 years. I was to receive mine in one month.

But no longer. I have dodged this bullet with comparative seconds to spare. I now work at a bookstore called the Strand. This bookstore is, to use the Garlance of our times, chrons.

I can't remember feeling happier.

In addition, my friend Jake is now in town and we have been having the time! Jake, myself, and Mazal went out last night and drank until we couldn't. Today was recovery from last night but tomorrow we will be fresh again, and we can take Sunday getting better from that. The circle of life.

My god I feel good.

listening to Belle & Sebastian makes me feel British and not-lonely

"Week-ends" are more like "fun-starts"! Right?!

Keith came into the city on Sunday and we drank until the unified language hypothisi were bandied about as though we were Derrida and Bool at a campus mixer. That was fun. Although Jamie's presence was missed, as she was in the clutches of the corporate monolith which looms large in both of our-so-called-lives. Oh how that monolith clutches. With big square hands. Clutch, monolith, clutch...

Monday, I went to the 13 & God show which was so sweet all my teeth fell out on the dance floor. They played their entire album, and some new songs while I drank some of the most expensive beer I have ever had. I felt so good after the show I went out and got faced. Then I showed up to work at seven in the morning looking haggard and still smelling a little like fun. But the best part is that my hangover was so mild, it barely even registered. Even my post late night anxiety was favorably mild.

Now I am back at the grosstead, in my alloted cleanliness annex. I am really starting to warm up to this place.

Shit, I even have things to look forward to!: The J-Kob will be coming in a couple of days, AND The Ultimates #8 comes out tommorrow.

Also, from here on in the whole tip title thing will be dropped. It was a stupid conceit that I upheld for far longer than I should have.

Tip# 18: I am a walking grotesquerie

Did you know that you can get zits on your lips? I mean serious whitehead zits. And they hurt.

Tip# 17: $18.50 & God

I feel good. I just bought a ticket to the 13 & God show on Monday. I never thought I'd get to see them. For those of you who don't know, check them out at anticon.com . It is worth it and you will love them. Unfortunately my 13 & God CD is still in the hands of a friend in SLC. He'll get his...













13 & God. Greatest Berkeley-Norway experimental ambient hip-hop group since Tele-Sjkorrd '78.

I lose sight of the fact that I am in New York sometimes. For instance just this evening, a Thursday, I am missing Regina Spektor, Blackalicious, Aesop Rock, and The Arcade Fire to name a few. But it doesn't concern me, because they will all play again soon within months, if not weeks or days. Its kind of nice.

-ecrest out!

Tip# 16A: Late-Breaking Heart

Shit.

I just realized that I failed the disgracefully easy author matching quiz on the application for The Strand bookstore. I just second guessed myself right into more corporate bookstore purgatory. Fuck. So close.

Tip# 16: A Century of Fakers

Jokes not to make during a foolishly self-important team meeting:
-Whispering "I Love You" to a coworker three feet away.
-Suggesting that a merchandising "swat team" instead be referred to as an "assault force."
-Contributing nothing else to the entire proceeding (best joke of all).

Business speak seriously depresses me. Not kidding. Hearing words like "proactive" used without a thick shellac of irony is an instant reminder not only of my own cowardly collusion within an organization that promotes the grotesque proliferation of blind greed and hateful corporate manipulation, but also of the crushing collapse of the world at large into a drooling cesspool of unthinking pleasuredrones.

The apartment's getting better though. Much cleaner, and I have a bed now. Still don't like to leave my room though. I'm safest alone.

Neurosis is creeping back in. Welcome home friend.

"You'll never get ahead givin' head to the man.''
-Bobby Conn

Tip# 15: Fahrenheit 45-Fun?!!

So my house has now become a passive-aggressive version of Melrose Place, and I am not involved in it one bit. I am like the blond AIDs guy that no one would talk to/or about because his character was token and boring. The Turk won't leave and the Bostonian and his ladyfriend are surely non-plussed. I just nod and hide in my room. His quaint foreign hygiene standards are getting out of hand. It would seem that leaving detrius like most people shed skin cells is factory standard for this guy.

Gotta go to bed early tonight so that I can wake up at 5:30 and be to work on time. Working at a corporate bookstore is so crappy I wish I was illiterate. I must defect. Jump ship. Soon, very soon...

If I had an ipod Nano I would be happier. Seriously. Look at that thing. Its like a cute little musical suppository. I would shove that thing so far up my ass I wouldn't need headphones.

Tip# 14: Guinness, Gunts and Growth

I'll say it again: The Upright Citizen's Brigade improv shows will make your eyes hemorrhage with laughter. A gunt, anal beads, rape with silly string, and some seriously bewildered Jews from Minnesota. Beat that for five bucks.

My new shoes are so white, I'm blind and strangers think I'm Louis Farrakhan.

And to whatever drunken saint handed me an unopened bottle of Guinness on the subway should be held on high like the indy rock guardian angel he is.

Finally, I am trying to regrow a healthy facial forest of fortitude (akin to a beard of solitude with less bands and friends) for the winter. I think the humidity is helping because it is coming in grossly.

Tip # 13: Let me clear the eric...

Two things.

One: My last blog entry was not actually in response to any sort of personal tragedy or case of bad luck, but in fact my reaction to the entire Biloxi situation. I did not make that clear. It was not as eloquent as I would have liked, and served no purpose other than to make myself feel better (which, in this case is more ineffectual than anything I have ever done for anyone, and downright selfishly insulting to the actual victims of the tragedy). I have tried to write something about these events and found each attempt to be more trite and privileged than the last. I don't know what to say about what has happened in the South. I would like to say that my government's inactions and homicidally bureaucratic blunders in the past weeks have been the last straw for me, but the truth is that even if I owned a gun I would not have raised it against them. I wish the best for those struggling to survive (many tragically misrepresented as "looters"). I am also slightly impressed by the usually hurtful news media for going out on various limbs and generally reporting this event as the horrifying, subtlely sanctioned massacre it truly is. If I knew html I would post links to the number of amazing articles and clips that show the daring journalistic integrity that was seemingly erased with the Twin Towers. But I don't, so look for yourselves. I have not yet donated blood or money to a relief effort.

Two: This may be a shift in tone, but hey, its my blog... Also concerning the last few entries, it would seem that I have turned into the same sort of whiny blogger that I despised when I began blogging. I'm sorry. I was taking life seriously again. I will try and avoid that sort of uselessness in the future. I think I forgot how to have fun for a bit there. I must make it a point to relearn that important art.


"I tell you even a half-dead man hates to be alive and not be able to see any sense to it."
-Noel Constant (to his son, Malachi)

Tip #12: Primal Scream Therapy

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! FUCK! AHHHHH!!! AHHHHHHH! AHHHHHH!!! SHITFUCKFUCK! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! WHY???!!! JUST FUCKING WHY???!!!! AHHHHHHH!!!

Although the weather was nice today, and I had a lovely and downright Tolkeinesque stroll through Central Park. I was like a hobbit with a cigarette on a quest to the end of the park.

Tip #11 Awkward machines with strange engines

So, with everything sucking with more voracity than an internet film star, a ray of light managed to shine on me anyhow. Even though it was night time.

Reggie (of the Full Effect) bought me a shot tonight. Even if he didn't know it. Awesome.

Then, after wandering for a while, Mazal calls, and I go meet her and some awesome friend of hers who is into literary theory and jokes, and has those cool movie eyes that people talk about. Then I listened to some jams on the subway home at 4:00 AM. Empty car + enebreation + serious tunes = ONE MAN SUBWAY DANCE PARTY!!!!

Not a bad night. Sometimes New York is way fun.

"...something like a circus or a sewer..."
-Lou Reed

Tip# 10: Blogging is hard when you don't have a life

Beginning today I have three days off. I have no idea what to do. Which actually feels pretty sweet. Maybe I'll get drunk. Somewhere new.

More or less interestingly, I got a free CD player today. It is no ipod, but it works. Although it did not come with those cool white headphones that separate the boho chic from the boho weak. And what a fabulously ironic status symbol those things have become. A striking visual metaphor for the thin white line that separates the bourgeoisie from the proles dangling down the same toned chests that used to feature diamonds and gold to the same effect. And they hold like, a million songs. I want one so bad, thinking of it makes me pee a little.

But at least I have a soundtrack again. And my awesome-dumpy-chunky headphones. I look like a homeless DJ. MC Needz 2 Eat.

Tip #9: The Baxter

The Baxter is the coolest movie around. Many happy returns Mr. Showalter, you have once again taken the coal of despair and made of it a diamond of temporary elation. Not as zany as Wet Hot American Summer, but with 73% more heartwarming, and 100% more New York.














Michelle Williams (or suitable doppleganger), make room in your world girl...

Also, shout out to the NYPD 6th Precinct. Sitting in their underfunded hellhole of a station for three hours just to fill out a five minute form was awesome. I know that their job is one of the toughest around, but watching twenty cops mill around the station like gossipy sharks, while I "hold on for a second" sucks.

Returning to pleasantries, Jamie and Keith were again able to save me from complete solitary refinement by coming into town and proceeding to be the coolest people in the universe. They are so New York it hurts. Luckily they allow me to siphon off a little every time they come into town.