Dumb Nostalgia: Oct 6, 2006

Friday, October 06, 2006

A Tree Dies in Brooklyn

So, all of our furniture is gone. When I began using a cardboard box as a desk, table and foot rest the reality of the move really started to sink in. When the couch finally goes I am going to fashion one out of boxes.

I have been making the NY rounds since I've been back, and I've really been enjoying the city. I feel like we are parting on good terms, NY and I. The last time I left it was in anger, this time it's more of a mutual dislike, I think. The weather has also inexplicably been in the 80s this week. I had a good drunken night out with friends last weekend, one of those nights where you start drinking sake and then end up in someone's living room at 2 in the morning listening to old 45's and talking total bullshit. It had been a while.

I've been observing the less than subtle changes in lower Manhattan. The new high-rise, multi-million dollar condos seem to be sprouting up everywhere, but, more importantly, there is now an automat on St. Marks. In Amsterdam there is a chain of these things called Febo. Stevie Dreads loves them mostly because you can get stoned in the city and then manage to feed yourself without actually trying to communicate with someone who doesn't speak English. The only drawback is that you usually get something that looks like a battered and fried turd.

I went to Blue Ribbon Sushi the other night as well. I think, if I were pressed, that I might say that it's my favorite restaurant. I don't think that I have had consistently good food anywhere else in the world. Afterwards I went over to my friend Matt's new house which I hadn't seen since he moved in. Matt is the kind of guy who falls into a bucket of shit and comes out smelling very much unlike shit. I've known him for years, and he is so good natured that you would never wish his good luck on anyone else. When Fab, The Strokes' drummer broke his hand in a bar brawl Matt was flown out to finish the tour. He was living in NJ at the time and working at a record store. Within a week he was playing to thousands of fans in the UK and Australia and was all over the music press. He now has a new job playing drums (and getting a fat advance check from a record label) and has moved into Fab's old apartment on East 13th street. It is easily a million dollar pad and could be rented for well over $5,000 / month, but as a friend Matt is paying the $1,100 maintenance fee. He also has a fireplace, and a dishwasher, and a washer/dryer in the apartment. I hate him.

Here's a picture, that were I not a shitty photographer, would have been great. It's Matt in a magazine juxtaposed with Matt in motion.

Matt's wooden deer?

I got to hang with Ben, who has just moved from SF to NY and is also living his life in a large mound of cardboard. It's like he's living my life in reverse.

We went to Vesalka for perogies and potato pancakes and then sat on his sweet roof deck for a while.

Yesterday I went down to Sound Fix in Brooklyn to see Doug Martsch (from Built to Spill). It was really pretty cool. He just played guitar and it all sounded a bit like Neil Young's Dead Man soundtrack. I really like this picture too. You can see the old man off in the distance playing guitar, but the bored little girl slumped over her dad's shoulder kept smiling at me.

So, I'm not really sure what it means (either stay or get the hell out), but this morning a tree fell down right in front of our apartment, a rather big tree at that.

While I was pondering the symbolism, and wondering if it were possible to just stand the big bastard right back up the fire department turned up.

And I realized again why I am moving to California. They deduced that, contrary to my daydreaming, the tree was brought down by a truck backing into it, and it would be best to just hack it apart into tiny little pieces and leave it in a pile. I mean, what's the big deal? We've got at least four other trees on the block. That shit would never fly in California.

Firewood: