Shake, Rattle, and Roll

Dear New York,

We've had some good times. No, great times. I have memories I'll carry with me forever. From my first baby steps to my first drunken stumble into a taxi cab.

It was a rocky relationship at some points. I don’t think you really needed to call the cops that one time, but I understand how it is; tempers flare. In the end, you know I always loved you. And I still do. I always will.

There’s no point in dancing around the truth though, I’ve got to move on. You’ve known this for some time, and you’ve been graceful about it for the most part.

All the sudden though, things are starting to get out of hand. Financial collapses, earthquakes, and now this hurricane...

In a simpler world, I wouldn’t walk out on you like this, but you’ve got to accept it. The way you’re acting lately really frightens me. It’s like you’ve developed some Romeo and Juliet, double suicide fantasy.

I’ve tried to be patient, but now I just have to put it out there bluntly: you’re losing your shit. Please, hold yourself together for six more weeks so I get on a plane and get the fuck out of here.

Sincerely,
Mark

This shit is real

If I had rhymes both rough and stridulous,

As were appropriate to the dismal hole

Down upon which thrust all the other rocks,

I would press out the juice of my conception

More fully - Dante, Inferno

I visited Atlantic City this weekend. It's a place I never intended to be, in no small part because it's in New Jersey. I imagine there's no need to describe the common debauchery of a bachelor party in this town. There was a part, however, that stood out to me.

After we parked our car in the high level of the Tropicana parking building, my friends and I, and the embarrassed to be, followed exit signs to the street. We found only a stairwell, and made our way down. The faint odor of urine wasn't unexpected, but the halls and landings kept descending into greater depravity.

The hall was sparsely littered with beer cans, and scuff marks covered the walls at least seven feet up. We walked ahead laughing, and looking above like midtown tourists in wonderment. The first landing ended in stark, poorly lit concrete room larger than most Manhattan studios. I imagined madmen and vagrants under the stairwell, and peaked around into the darkness. "We're probably going to get stabbed." "It's like we're descending into hell," a friend agreed.

As we made our way further down, the smell of urine grew stronger. I imagine it ran down and collected at the bottom. At the end of the third flight, we were surrounded by caved in drywall. Some of the holes looked like the result of fists and tools; sole aggression taken out. Around the corner, a much larger impression evidenced a man thrown through the wall. Pieces had been ripped away and everything around the spare beams gutted.

This led to one more hallway, and a final staircase that wound down flight to flight like the fire escape we had expected from the beginning. More walls were torn out and the floors were covered in grime so aged our shoes didn't even stick. I saw in the corner a shit stain that was half-heartedly scraped away with a rough piece of cardboard. It had ridges, depth, a rounded edge that clearly suggested it's former consistency.

I don't know what it is that's so definitive about human shit. There's never a question about what animal it came from, and it's so much more repulsive than any other turd one can happen upon. My friends had taken everything up to this point jovially. "I can't believe it, you were right. We're descending into the circles of hell," I said, still laughing while the others groaned.

We descended faster, almost to the end. The last flight had a prominent display of vomit that no one had bothered to try and remove. It looked ancient, brown and red. Everyone stepped around it, looking down, inspecting. I could still make out the meal someone hadn't stomached. Beans, mostly. It wasn't like the vomit I'm used to seeing on Saturday morning Manhattan sidewalks. That's usually thinned by alcohol, with little food. Sometimes pieces of spaghetti, strewn about on a colorful background of cocktail mixers, like dadaist macaroni art. This pile was large. I can only think to call it meaty. It reminded me of a volcanic island.

We stepped through the last door, into an alleyway that led to the Tropicana, and breathed. "I can't fucking believe that shit."

So began our night in Atlantic City.

And we're back!

"This is not 'nam. This is bowling. There are rules... Has the whole world gone crazy? Am I the only one around here who gives a shit about the rules?" - Walter, The Big Lebowski

Well it's been a few years, but I've decided to pick-up the keyboard again. I never did explain the name for this blog. While it is from poor Walter's diatribe, there's more to it.

I meant to put an image up at the header somewhere, and still might when I figure out how, of a pixellated dog that I have tattooed on my back. Some years ago, back in college, I decided to get this tattoo, and this is what I wrote about it at the time:

You're going to have to bear with me for a bit. This is, I think, one of those "you had to be there" moments in growing up, but try to picture yourself six or seven years old again. You're in the middle of realizing how mutable the world around you really is. At that age you see something, anything, and imagine it to be something else. And with the level of imagination you have at this point, it just takes a little time and dedication to see your dream become a reality. Like one time that I looked at my staircase and saw a slide. It was just a matter of ripping the top off my toy chest and using it as a toboggan. A few seconds later, there are scuff marks on the wall, and a delighted child.

Now picture video games entering into this seven year old's arsenal of distractions. This opens up an untapped level of creativity. Before my Nintendo, I never though I could feel what it was like to defend the world from alien invaders, or try to eat powerpills while being chased down by pastel ghosts. There was one game, however, that brought grave premonition.

In the classic Duck Hunt, you have a limited number of bullets to kill a certain percentage of ducks. When you miss, often at first, a hound pops up from the bush and laughs at you. Kind of funny at first, but the levels get faster and harder, and you want to win because you can. That's when you miss, and that dog jumps up to laugh, but this time you're waiting for him. He will mock your failure no longer. You're gonna plug that bastard. "Click! Click!" echoed by the game as "Bang! Bang!" and the dog is still there, laughing. Laughing harder than ever because you just missed three shots in a row. You know he should be dead. You shot him square in the face. The game, however, wasn't programmed to let you shoot him, so you can't. It's just a miss.

Every kid who's played that game knows this frustration, and though it may have manifest itself in their life before having played Duck Hunt, he will still identify the realization that a short sighted system stands in the way of their dream with that fucking dog.

Well now I can't figure out how to unblockquote. Go figure.