Mindgames

I know it's been a while since I last posted
But there have been, ahem, extenuating circumstances:

#1 The Metropolitan Museum of Art (AKA “The Met”) killed my laptop –but that’s another story[1]

#2 The whole dog thing has been going crazy-loopy; and Kathi has had her day in court –but that’s another story[2]

#3 I have been visually compromised: a dog ate my glasses –but that, too, is another story[3]

#4 I HAVE been posting –but on another blog![4]

(The political situation over here [ie. the democrat internecine warfare that is threatening to tear the party apart and hand the election to the republicans] has been stoking my ire
I want to leave politics out of my blog so i've been venting my spleen on my namesake dan(ielle)'s blog
so take a look there if you want to read a good rant
and they are rants: i now realize I could never go into mainstream politics -my chequered past notwithstanding- in the heat of the moment I wouldn't be able to stop myself from calling my opponent a “fuckwit” or something)

#5 (and this is hot off the press and is STILL ongoing) Kathi and I have had a huge -and I mean HUGE- falling out. To the extent that in the space of three days -THREE DAYS!- we have gone from being close friends and colleagues… to her threatening to have me deported! Holy fucking shit in a basket. But that’s another story, that like I said is still ongoing, and deserves a thread of it’s own -watch this space!

In the meantime, i'd better take this bitch to the river, it's starting to bore even me!
Where were we?

Oh yes

The Story So Far....[5]

Dan has worked out who stole the 200 bucks from him. Only problem is he has no way of proving it. What to do? Revenge can take many forms, but as the Bard says, it's “a dish best served cold”....

We're playin' those mindgaaaaaammmmmmes
Together
Pushing the barriers
Planting seeds....

Ah John Lennon, your spirit lives on
(Even though fascistic manhattan landlords have pushed up the rent on La Fortuna [one of John and Yoko's favourite haunts on columbus] so much that it's going to close down
Motherfuckers! And a breed I will shortly be dealing with as I hunt for an apt….)

So Christian, the guy who took my money, kept a pretty low profile over the next few days
But I took the opportunity to mindgame him whenever I could
like, for example, he'd be outside smoking one of his new-found cigarettes[6] so i'd go out there with chris/coco/bobby and be like:
“I don't know who took that money, but if I was the thief i'd be real fucking nervous right now. Real fucking nervous. Because not only has this person fucked with me, they were prepared to let darryl take the fall for it. Man, if darryl ever finds out who that person is, I wouldn't like to be in their shoes. He'll probably start by karate chopping them to the throat, then he'd....”
or
“What kind of person steals from someone when they're asleep? I bet you'd have to have no morals at all. Or if you did, and you see the person you stole from every day, the burden of guilt must be terrible.”
or
“Well, I believe in karma. That person will get theirs sooner or later. Maybe not today, maybe not for weeks, months -but something bad WILL happen. And when it does, one of the questions they'll ask themselves is if the bad thing would've happened if they hadn't stolen the money.”

Stuff like that.
It amused me and my friends.
Christian never got involved in these conversations except for one, and this was the piece de la resistance
Allow me set the scene:

Me, coco, and bobby are down in the staff basement -coco [the handyman] was down there to change a lightbulb in the bedroom where I was robbed: the scene of the crime!
So we're there, shooting the shit, when from out of one of the other bedrooms comes Christian -with just a towel round his waist. Urgh!
He goes to the bathroom. When he comes out again, i'm banging pots and pans in the kitchen, opening cupboards, the microwave and talking loudly:

“Maybe the thief's had an attack of conscience. They could have put the money in here to be 'found' -assuming they haven't already SPENT IT. Or they could put back what's left. That's a get out for them. Hmm, can't see it here, can't see it here....”

Christian goes back to his room.
Then inspiration strikes
I say to bobby, “watch me mindgame this cocksucker.”
I walk over to the bookshelf in the lounge area -i noticed when I was in the basement before (because I tend to be a nosy parker where other people's bookshelves are concerned) that it was groaning with Christian books -mainly modern Christian theology
I guessed they were christian's and/or darryl's
(Christian, lest we forget is a Christian. And it should be easy enough to remember the clue's in the frickin name)
I pick one up at random -it's called 'Extreme Righteousness'
I walk slowly past christian's room, reading out loud from the jacket
Sure enough, he comes out
The conversation we have goes something like this:[7]

Me: “This is your book?”
Him: “Yeah, that’s one of mine.”
“‘Extreme Righteousness’, huh? What’s all that about?”
“Well, it’s a kind of Christianity taken to extremes. People who take scripture and take it to, y’know, extreme levels.”
“Scripture? That’s like the Bible, right? Old Testament? The Ten Commandments? Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not STEAL? That kind of thing?”
“That’s right.”
“And you believe in this?”
“No, but I find it interesting.”
“I find it interesting too. Very interesting. Y’know, I don’t think I could list the Ten Commandments. How godless am I! What’ve we got, er, thou shalt not covet, thou shalt not STEAL –wait I already said that one. So you follow scripture, the Ten Commandments and so on?”
“No.”
“No? I thought that was kind of mandatory if you were a Christian.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Really? That IS interesting. So what exactly do you believe?”
“Well, it’s complicated-“
“I bet it is!”
“But basically, we –we being my church[8]- believe that you’re going to get into heaven anyway.”
“You mean regardless of what you do in life.”
“Exactly.”
“Amazing. Wow, you really believe that?”
“Yes I do.”
“That’s a sweet belief system you got there. Me, I believe in karma –you know, how you’ll be repaid for the actions you take.”
“You mean Buddhism-“
“No, it’s a kind of secular karma. And you get paid back –good or bad- in this life, not the next. Anyway, let’s hope we’re both right, huh? I gotta go. You have a nice day now, Christian.”

And that was that
As well as being amusing to me (and bobby), I also found it very illuminating
This guy has follows a moral code that means you can do whatever you like in this life and still get into heaven
In other words, a licence to do anything
I guess if you’re gay, and a Christian, following scripture DOES become problematic
(God being particularly wrathful towards Sodom and Gomorrah; even turning Job’s wife into a pillar of salt for merely looking back at the destruction)
But it also means you are cut adrift from the moral code that underpins Christianity: the Ten Commandments
(not that that has ever stopped Christians from breaking them willy-nilly, as history has proved, but there you go)

So that was the best piece of mind gaming I pulled on Christian
But that whole thing of emphasising the word STEAL gave me an idea for the ultimate game
There had been other pieces of thievery going on at the hostel -my roommate heather had her wallet stolen from the café bar, another guest had money taken out of his- so I went to see the management to suggest that there should be a mandatory staff meeting about it, because in my experience hostellers don’t steal from each other, staff steal from hostellers.
But of course I had my own agenda
In this meeting I was going to say that I knew who took my money -but because I couldn’t prove it I wasn’t going to accuse anyone.
But then, in the course of this little speech, I was going to see how many times I could say the word CHRISTIAN.
As in: “at first I thought it was Darryl, but Darryl is a good CHRISTIAN, and wouldn’t have done that.”
And: “I decided to do the CHRISTIAN thing and give the thief the opportunity to return the money anonymously.”
I had it all rehearsed in my head
It would have been beauuuuuutiful

But, alas, that wasn’t to be….

Why not? Find out next time in the final instalment of: The-story-of-how-an-argument-over-a-pair-of-headphones-ended-up-with-me-getting-robbed-in-my-sleep-as-I-shared-a-bed-with-two-girls AKA “The Headphones Saga”

TO BE CONTINUED….




[1] The irony here is that my laptop is/was decorated with a decal of one of Raphael’s famous cherubs.


[2] Her case was dismissed. So now she is perusing her civil action. It’s not really my business to say how much she is suing the city for. But think of a number between 1 and 10. Then multiply it by a million dollars. You can find out what happened to her by reading the posts labeled “Kathi vs The Central Park Fascists”


[3] No, really. I swear to god. A motherfucking dog ATE my motherfucking glasses. Why do these things HAPPEN to ME? Why am I fortune’s fool???


[4] www.abetterworldview.blogspot.com


[5] I’ve labeled these posts now. The story-of-how-an-argument-over-a-pair-of-headphones-ended-up-with-me-getting-robbed-in-my-sleep-as-i-shared-a-bed-with-two-girls I have pithily called “The Headphones Saga”. All the pieces are in sequence except the first: How My Troubles Began. Start there and proceed chronologically, if you’d like to catch up!


[6] Of course, when I asked him for one, he said that he’d got it from someone else. Pfffft….


[7] Again, this is from memory. And my memory is not so hot. But there are no wild embellishments -though you might be tempted to think i'm making it up, I swear I’m not.


[8] Christian, before all this stuff kicked off, told me about his church. It sounded interesting -not least because they hold their services in a bar and provide beer. And that sermons are sometimes conducted by transvestites and bikers. I was going to go check it out -I’m glad I didn’t; I might be in a cult by now!

Dogs Send You Daffy

The whole dog thing has been crazy the past two weeks
Crazy!
I've been leaving my apt in brooklyn at 6.30am, and not getting home till after 9 at night
I love it though
(although it can be trying at times -like when a great dane bites you/shits diarrhoea up your leg)¹

And after it snowed last week there was a flash thaw -central park was like a glacial melt, all the paths became ankle-deep streams of ice-cold water

But for every day like that, there are a dozen where both the weather and the dogs are perfect

It's keeping me fit too -all that walking; occasionally having to grapple with a great dane that weighs more than I do

I'm ripped, biatch!

But what is good for the body is not necessarily good for the mind

I realised the other day that I talk the most heinous gooey gobbledegook to my dogs as I walk them

it's absolutely mortifying

But seeing as how this blog is all about self-mortification, I thought i'd give you an insight by sharing the nicknames I give to some of my regulars

This is the gayest shit you ever heard

here we go:

Obi (Great Dane, Male)

Obes; Big Guy; Mr Man(?); Monsieur D'Obes;

Slobberchops; The Beast; The Monster;

Lucy (Irish Terrier, Female)

Luce; Lucy-Luce; Lu-Lu; Juicy Lucy; The Juice Loosener (© The Simpsons) ; My Little Love; My Lady Love; Lady Love, My Dove²;

Brody (Bernese Mountain Dog, Male)

Brodes; The Brodster; Brodski; The Brodisian; Teddy Bear³; Baby Bear; Big Bear

Charlie (Black Labrador, Female)

Charlie-girl; Charles; Sir Charles⁴; charlie-charlie sniff-sniff; Charlston

Savvy (Mutt, Female)

Savs; Swarvy; Savvy-wavvy-ding-dong-day

River (Long haired lab, female)

Riv; River-Divver; River-Divver-Liver-Quiver; Riiiiiiiiiiverrrrrrrrr

Coco (Shiat Tzu, Female)

With my best friend also being called Coco, you can bet this dog gets called bitch A LOT, as in “How you doin coco, my little bitch? You're my little bitch, coco, aren't you? Yes you are, and you're a good little bitch too.”

Will I ever fail to find that amusing? Probably not ;-)

1But obi is my best boy and I forgive him everything.

2I REALLY love this dog!

3If I ever own a dog, I think i'd get a Bernese; they really are like giant real-life teddy bears

4This dog already has gender issues: she cocks her leg to pee!

Real Life Colombo (pt 3)

The Story So Far....


Dan has -no, fuck it, I can't be assed to go through it all again!


If you want to catch up, go through the archive! Now's a good time, also, because i found the original 1st part, which i sent out as an email (it's called How My Troubles Began)



Now read on:


So. I now have a new prime suspect in my case


Would you like to see a picture?


Huh?



Huh?



Of course you would, and I'd be happy to oblige:




Look at him

Notice the eyes set slightly too close together (not unlike our soon-to-be ex-president)

He has the sloping brow and cranial bumpage of the career criminal!

(Not that I believe in phrenology -that was dismissed as quackery over 160 years ago¹)

Anyway, this fellow's name is Christian

He is, coincidentally enough, also a Christian²

A Christian called Christian, ha ha

Not only that -he is a gay Christian

(Not that I care that he is a gay Christian -that whole schism in the church over the issue of gay bishops etc; I really, really couldn't give a flying fuck)

But his religious/sexual orientation has a certain bearing on the case, as we shall see

As you can see from the photo, Christian is in his late 30s/early 40s

What did I say about people of that age working/staying in a youth hostel?³

He even hit on me one time

Not that I mind being hit on by gay men; I find it flattering (usually)

But this guy -urgh!

Here's how he did it too:

[imagine his voice as this very nasal, american drawl]

HE: “Are you ABSOLUTELY sure you're not gay?”

ME: “Sure I'm sure. I break gay hearts every day. Why?”

HE: “I just find it very hard to imagine that such a wonderfully flamboyant character as
yourself could be straight.”

ME: “Hey your lot haven't cornered the market on being wonderful and flamboyant y'know. You might think you have. But you haven't.”

Brrrrr!

I had another issue with him too -one that we had a minor falling out over: cigarettes.

Christian smokes -but never has cigs: NEVER. I wouldn't mind so much that he bums them off me⁴; instead he does something I find really annoying: he “nickels and dimes” them off me

Nickel and diming, for those who don't know, is offering to buy a cigarette with a handful of shrapnel

I hate it because it puts you in a position where you feel you can't refuse because you've been offered legal tender, even though you don't want shrapnel in your pocket -and, this is the important bit, the other person knows that too. That's why they never offer a quarter -in case you accept. It's extortion, of sorts, but so petty it's not worth kicking up a fuss about

However, one day l lost my patience with it and said I wouldn't give him cigarettes anymore unless he was going to buy some, or at least stop with the nickel and dimes

We didn't really speak much after that; I could care less

But he found a new way to get his cigs:

Christian is one of the night shift staff

The night shift has the power to decide when to kick everyone out of the cafe bar if we're partying

So Christian starts to say that he'll shut it down -unless someone sorts him out with some cigarettes

Now that really IS extortion!

What a prick

(and, lest we forget, a supposed Christian)

But don't let the above lead to believe that I had an agenda against Christian

Honestly, the guy was barely a blip on my radar -just another slightly strange hostel person

But I zeroed in on him when everything was kicking off between me and darryl

He was hovering around the periphery looking extremely nervous

When we took it outside, he stuck his head out the door and back in again TWICE

(Like he wanted to know what was going on, but didn't want to SEEM too concerned)

Ho-ho, I thought, that's interesting

In Colombo, you will recall, the Rumpled One somehow intuits who the murderer is as soon as he arrives at the scene⁵ and then spends the rest of the show building a case against them

So, if i'm playing real life Colombo, I guess I better follow suit

OK. Let's start with Means, Motive and Opportunity

MEANS: Christian was working the nightshift the first time I thought my wallet had been stolen (and was shooting my mouth off about the $200 inside). So he knew there was money in the wallet. He has the MEANS.

MOTIVE: The oldest motive in the world (and coincidentally one of the Seven Deadly Sins): GREED⁶. And as the “nickel and dime” thing demonstrates, he never has any money. He has the MOTIVE.

OPPORTUNITY: He lives in the staff basement, and seeing as he was working the night shift, he wasn't sleeping. He has the OPPORTUNITY.

And because he is a Christian (or supposed-Christian) that helped to answer “one more thing that had been bothering me...”

[scratches head, flips through notebook, puffs on cigar stubb]

I couldn't work out why the money had been taken out of the wallet and the wallet replaced in my pocket

If i'd been the thief I would have taken the wallet, taken the money out the wallet -and then thrown the wallet into the nearest public trashcan

I was so drunk that night, when I discovered my wallet was missing my first thought would not be that the wallet had been stolen -i would have assumed i'd dropped it somewhere when I was off my head

I probably would have tried to retrace my steps, ask if it had been handed in at ding dongs, the front desk

And then when it didn't turn up, regretfully write it off as another piece of costly drunken sketchiness

Say no more

But because only the money was gone, I straight away knew it had to be theft

The thief has, from the get-go, put themselves in needless danger

What kind of person would do that?

Well first of all it screams “amateur”, but I knew that already -the basement is full of amateur thieves⁷

But then I tried putting myself in this person's shoes

Perhaps this person has ethics

(Skewed ethics, but ethics nonetheless)

They really want the money -have made whatever justifications they need to take it- but they don't want to totally screw me

The wallet had both my debit and credit card inside

If they disposed of the wallet i'd have no money and no way of getting any, in a foreign country

This person could say to themselves, “I took the money BUT I left the wallet” and feel good about themselves

What kind of person?

Well, religion, and Christianity in particular, is filled with moral equivocations of this kind

We need look no further than our beloved President, himself an Evangelical Christian, who has personally sent felons to the gas chamber as Governor of Texas and as President sanctioned the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians -and felt righteous in doing so.

A religious mind can find right in doing wrong

So I decided to keep a close eye on Christian the Christian

This wasn't easy because he wasn't around much over the next couple of days

I did find out though, in the course of my investigations, that Christian was leaving the hostel in a couple of weeks; more circumstantial evidence: if he was going, he might feel emboldened to take the money as he would have only a few days of having to occasionally see his victim

But on Friday I saw something that had me 99% convinced

I'm in the cafe bar, chillin, when Christian comes in

I observe him surreptitiously

The first thing he does is take a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and go out to the smoking area

(Like I said before he NEVER has cigarettes)⁸

Then when he comes back in he buys food from the cafe bar

He never does this either

He uses his change to use the cafe bar internet

A bit later on he goes back to the cafe bar to break a twenty -a twenty- to get more change for the internet

I've never seen Christian with cigarettes

I've never seen Christian buy food from the cafe bar

(I've never seen him buy ANYTHING)

I've never seen him use the cafe bar computers -which are expensive- ever

This dude suddenly, two days after I got robbed, has money

Hmm, could there be a connection, d'you think?

I couldn't believe it

I mean, this guy is either incredibly arrogant or incredibly stupid (or, I suspect, both), to come into my cafe bar and start breaking twenties -my twenties- right in front of my eyes!

What. The. Fuck.

So I shared my suspicions with a couple of people I could trust

Their opinion was that I should take it out of his ass

But i don't have any proof

Doesn't matter, they said, just get drunk and pick a fight with him, you can't let him get away with it

Well, fighting is not my style

(It can't be when you are a skinny wretch like me)

I prefer brains over brawn

And besides we are playing Colombo, remember, not Dirty Harry

Colombo doesn't beat confessions out of people

No no no

He fucks with their heads

Find out how I go about doing that next time!

TO BE CONTINUED....

1But, of course I'd say that: I have the brainpan of a stagecoach tilter! (© The Simpsons)

2Or perhaps, not coincidentally: maybe he is easily led: one can only wonder what might have happened had his parents named him Buddha, or Judea...

3See post Freek City

4That “Can I bum a fag?” joke has been said so many times at the hostel now it's becoming anti-funny.

5A reader of this blog (who knows who he is; cheers!) sent me the following, by critical theorist Slavoj Zizek, on Colombo's seemingly preternatural powers of detection. If it hasn't appeared in Private Eye's Pseud's Corner then it ought to:

'In the TV-series Colombo, the crime (the act of murder) is shown in detail in advance, so that the enigma to be resolved is not that of "whodunit?", but of how the detective will establish the link between the deceitful surface (the "manifest content" of the crime scene) and the truth about the crime (its "latent thought"), how he will prove to the culprit his or her guilt. The success of Colombo thus attests to the fact that the true source of interest in the detective's work, is the process of deciphering itself, not its result (the triumphant final revelation "And the murderer is…" is completely lacking here, since we know this from the very outset). Even more crucial than this feature is the fact that not only do we, the spectators, know in advance who did it (since we directly see it), but, inexplicably, the detective Colombo himself immediately knows it: the moment he visits the scene of the crime and encounters the culprit, he is absolutely certain, he simply knows that the culprit did it. His subsequent effort thus concerns, not the enigma "who did it?", but how should he prove this to the culprit. This reversal of the "normal" order has clear theological connotations: the same as in true religion where I first believe in God and then, on the ground of my belief, become susceptible to the proofs of the truth of my faith; here also, Colombo first knows with a mysterious, but nonetheless absolutely infallible certainty, who did it, and then, on the basis of this inexplicable knowledge, proceeds to gather proofs… And, in a slightly different way, this is what the analyst qua "subject supposed to know" is about: when the analysand enters into a transferential relationship with the analyst, he has the same absolute certainty that the analyst knows his secret (which only means that the patient is a priori "guilty", that there is a secret meaning to be drawn from his acts). The analyst is thus not an empiricist, probing the patient with different hypotheses, searching for proofs, etc.; he embodies the absolute certainty (which Lacan compares with the certainty of Descartes' cogito ergo sum) of the analysand's "guilt," i.e. of his unconscious desire.'

6Certain apologists for the thief have come to me with the following excuse: “You have to understand there are very poor people in the basement, people who sometimes don't know where their next meal is coming from, and $200 is just too much temptation.”

Well, I had this to say in response: “You do not need $200 to fill your belly. You can fill your belly with $2. $2 of bologna, sure, but $2 nonetheless. In fact a 'starving' person could have taken a twenty out and left the rest; I wouldn't have noticed. To take the whole $200 is naked greed, pure and simple.” In fact, it's more than greed. It's GREED and SLOTH: they're taking money I earned, so they don't have to work themselves. There are poor people in that basement because they can't be assed to get a second job, despite living in a city with a superabundance of vacancies in the “services” sector. Perhaps they have too much PRIDE. And if they DID spend that whole $200 on a blow-out meal, that's GLUTTONY. (Can you see where I'm going with this?) Or perhaps they took that money out of ENVY that I have that kind of disposable income. Or perhaps a petty dispute over, say, cigarettes could make them enRAGEd enough to steal the money out of retribution. Or, um, -I'm reaching now- this person could be, er, addicted to dirty phone lines? And needs money to feed their LUSTful habit?

(one, two, three... seven! Got em all in there! ;-P)

7In the aftermath of the robbery somebody (I forget who) told me that if I live in the basement I should EXPECT to get robbed. First of all: I was only in there ONE night. And second of all: Jeez, how do you people LIVE like that?

8I wish now i'd gone out there and scabbed one of him. But I didn't think quick enough. Esprit de l'escalier...

How My Troubles Began

I was going through some files on my computer and I discovered something I thought I'd lost: the first part to the story of how I came to be robbed (and all the craziness that led up to it, and the fall out) -the narrative that makes up the bulk of these blog postings so far

it was originally sent out as a group email to a select few who I thought might find it amusing/interesting

Then I mislaid the file, so when I started the blog I began mis-en-scene

So now, for the sake of completeness -and for any late comers- I thought i'd post the original email

I'm a so-called writer, so I couldn't resist giving it a re-draft

Plus I put a picture in there -and some more all-important footnotes!

(Readers of this blog will know i'm crazy for footnotes)¹

It was originally called “The Day I Lost It”

And here it is:

Hello

I’d like to tell you a story

Seeing as I am a so-called writer, it’s about time, ya?

This story is about how new york has had an effect on me in hitherto unimaginable ways

And how events can spiral out of control into a totally crazy situation that is (at the time of writing) still ongoing. All this shit is 100% true.

OK

New Yorkers are funny folk

They are the kindest, friendliest, most confident people in the world

I’ve lost count of the number of random acts of kindness and generosity I’ve witnessed

But if you cross them they will FUCK YOU UP

And the switch from nice to nasty happens like –that!

New Yorkers can say “thank you” and “fuck you” with the same breath

So far I have been affected by the positive side

But yesterday I found my new york darkside

Here’s what happened:

There is this guy I worked and shared a room with, Jayson.

Here is a picture of Jayson:

He is a fucking, pardon my French, douchebag, pardon my American. Here are some examples of what an FD this guy is:

1. he kidnaps my DS, and works through my games. He even changed my username to his name! (now I don’t really give a fuck, it’s a videogame, right? I am 30, not 13. But still)

2. He hit on the girl I was seeing, Kim, when I introduced her to my hostel friends WHILE I WAS THERE. Totally creeped her out. I couldn’t believe it –who DOES that?²

3. He fucked things up for my best friend here, Coco, with a girl he (Coco) had already scored with (and who he really liked/likes) by sharking her while coco was at work. Coco was sharing our room but he switched after that. Wish I’d joined him.

4. This is the doozy. This jerk asked me to build a joint (I make em quite well, a legacy of my misspent youth) but then wanted to charge people to smoke it. Charge dudes to smoke a blunt? WTF? Never, in the ten years or so I spent being a pothead have I ever experienced, or even heard of, someone who charges for tokes on a jay. Rule #1 is you share the love. Jesus Christ.

There are other instances³, but whatever. Let’s just say I was primed for what happened.

So, I’m working in the café bar. Making sandwiches, grooving to some tunes. I happen to look up, and I do a double take.

Jayson is wearing a set of headphones –nice ones, sonys, $70- that do not belong to him. They do not belong to me either –they belong to Kim, and she only lent me them under the specific proviso that I don’t let anyone, ANYONE, else use them.

She made me promise and everything. And a week or two before Jayson had asked if he could borrow them, and I explained that to him. And now I see him wearing them, not even asking permission, walking past the check in desk and out the hostel.

I’m flabbergasted.

But then I think I’ve made a mistake. But I go and check the room we share and kim’s headphones are not there.

Now I’m fucked off. If they’d been my phones I would have been annoyed, sure, but WTF, they’re just headphones right? Good ones, yeah, but you know me –I’m not exactly a materialist.

But he’s made me break a promise to someone I care(d) about –and I take my promises seriously. Plus, he obviously has no respect for my property because he took something of mine which I specifically told him he could not have; borderline thievery, you might say. This is obviously a person I cannot share my personal space with, so I high tail it to the check in desk to get my room changed ASAP.

When I get there guess, who’s back?

I nearly pull off his ears ripping the phones from his head:

“Jayson –these do not belong to you! These are kim’s fucking headphones, I told you you could not borrow. You’ve fucked me off man.”

And then I go back to the café bar to work, start chopping tomatoes again.

Man, I am fucked off, probably as fucked off as I’ve ever been, but then something weird happens.

It’s like there’s a new level of rage has opened up above me, somewhere I’ve never been. And I’m on the penultimate step. All it will take is a couple more shoves.

I’m chopping tomatoes, praying he won’t come over. But, sure enough, he comes over. He wants to talk, but I am too angry to do so and I tell him:

“Jayson, I am too angry to speak now. Let me cool off, do some work, you go away, come back in a couple of hours and we talk.”

But he’s not listening.

I am suddenly very aware that I have been chopping tomatoes with a 9 inch butcher knife.

Now, if this was a movie, it would freeze frame at this point and some narration would kick in:

This was the pivotal moment that started a chain reaction of cause and effect. One of us had to back down. Either jayson had to walk away, or I had to control my temper.

I’ve always thought the onus was on jayson because he was the transgressor. But now I think, maybe I should have kept calm. I’m older. Mature, supposedly. Whatever. The problem is neither of us did.

Action: I drop the knife, all the while telling jayson I’m gonna lose it if he doesn’t go away.

He’s not listening. And now he’s actually coming around behind the café bar where I am.

This is the moment I go into the redzone:

“Jayson, get the fuck away from me you fucking thief! Get the fuck away from me, or I’m gonna get your fucking ass fired for this shit! You fucking take my fucking stuff that makes you a fucking thief-”

I could go on, but you get the idea.

(I was like a little jack russell snapping at a grizzly bear. Yappayappayappayap!)

Still, he comes.

I retreat into the storage room behind the bar. Coco has heard something is up now, and he comes back there with me, tries to calm me down.

(I don’t think I’ve ever been that angry. My hands were shaking like I had the DTs. You know that cliché “incandescent with rage”? That was me.)

I’m telling coco he needs to get jayson away from me, otherwise I don’t know what’s going to happen.⁴

So with me telling jayson to fuck off and coco telling him to leave you think he’d get the picture, right?

Oh no no no. Not jayson; now he tries to come back into the storeroom. Coco body blocks him.

I escape out the rear storeroom door, all the time telling him to get the fuck away from me, does he speak English etc etc

I’m in the ground floor dorm corridor now –and still jayson comes. This guy will not stop. He’s the fucking terminator or something. The only way I can get away is to go down to the basement, and up the steps the other side.

He’s still following me! This is keystone kops!

Now I talk to bobby on the front desk. There are a couple of guests there too:

“Bobby –what the fuck am I supposed to do? He won’t leave me alone! I don’t know what will happen if he gets too close. Can lock me a room or something where he can’t get to me?”

Then I realize how farcical the situation is –if he won’t go, then I’ll have to go. Even though I’m supposed to be working and my manger, elsie, is out getting supplies for the café bar which I need to help her unload.

And I was swearing my head off in from of guests: I’m so fired.

I’m only wearing my work gear –jazz t-shirt and pajama bottoms, hat. I put on my boots, grab my greatcoat, apologize to my colleague valentina and head for the door.

On the way out I hear Jayson call after me and then I’m running, running, running into the wind, snow falling, my coat snapping my heels….

TO BE CONTINUED….⁵

1You see? I love em!

2Actually American guys hit on women any time, any situation. An english girl told me she was hit on in the space of one day by: a taxi driver, a guy on the subway, a guy on the staten island ferry, a fruit vendor… and a cop. The American male is always on alert for tail!

3Since the time of writing I also found out the following. We made friends with a sweet little french girl, of Martinique descent, called sabrina, who'd stayed in new york, in the hostel, earlier in the year. In the course of a conversation she mentioned that the last time she was in NY she spent $2000... in ten days. I was like, what the fuck? Did you buy up the city? And she tells me: jayson. Over the course of those 10 days she spend 4 with jayson as he “showed her the city”. What he would do was look up restaurants and clubs, take her to them -and then make excuses about money, so she had to pick up the check every time! Grrrr it makes me angry just writing about it. And at the same time, of course, he was trying to get into her panties. And I also heard, and I don't know how true it is, that he's been saying the falling out we had was “a race thing”. Despite the fact that my best fucking friend is BLACK. I know he's played the race card before, unwarranted, on a danish girl who used to work at jazz. Folks who play the race/anti-semite/gay/sex/whatever card really piss me off. So as I say: A fucking douchebag.

4This is the infamous red mist. It really is kind of a redness in your peripheral vision, not sure what causes it –dilating capillaries in the eye? It’s scary though –you really do lose control.

5The story continues in the post From Bad To Worse. The next part of the “current” story -of the robbery and my colombo-esque sluething- is very nearly done. I'm just struggling to get a picture of the prime suspect off my phone. I'll work it out!

Real Life Colombo (pt 2)

Look at this man:




Look at him!
This man is a god to me.

It is, of course, Peter Falk as Colombo -one of my all time heroes, and one of my all time favorite TV shows.
I used to skip lectures at uni, just to watch it
And i've attracted a fair bit of stick over the years for my obsession with the man in the mack.

Why do i like it so much?

I know WHY I like it: that you see how the murder was committed; the 70's styling and music; the celeb murderers (william shatner, leonard nimoy, donald pleasance -even Johnny Cash!¹); the directors who cut their teeth on the show (steven spielburg directed an episode); and, of course, Peter Falk.

Sure, I understand why I like it -but why do I like it SO MUCH?

Why do train spotters love trains? Why do girls love sex and the city? Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near?

It's a mystery

like the changing of the seasons and tides of the sea²

Anyway, it turns out that all those hours watching colombo weren't such a waste of time after all

You will recall, last time, i'd been robbed -$200, cash, taken from my wallet as I slept- and i'd bluffed phoning the cops in order to try and get a reaction from whomever took the money

And one person was definitely acting weird

But before we point the finger: an elementary lesson in detective work

Anyone who is a fan of colombo -or any of these old school detective/murder mystery tv shows- will know that the sleuth typically operates using the time-honored triumvirate of detection: Means, Motive and Opportunity

Let's use Darryl as an example, now he has been eliminated as a suspect:

Darryl had the MEANS: he knew, because of what had happened earlier that evening³ that I had circa $200 in my wallet.

He had the MOTIVE: he'd “caught” me in bed with his girl.

And he had OPPORTUNITY: he lives in the staff basement, and so could have sneaked into the room anytime when we were all passed out

So that didn't look too good -that's why I needed to force the confrontation.

However Means, Motive and Opportunity are not enough -you need proof⁴

In fact, the police in our modern age -in this time of DNA fingerprinting and “motiveless” crime- usually dispense with old triumvirate of detection altogether and proceed directly to the triumvirate of conviction: Physical Evidence, Witnesses, Confession (with the first two having primacy; the latter to circumnavigate the courtroom)

Let's apply the triumvirate of conviction to my case, shall we?

PHYSICAL EVIDENCE: It was money that was stolen and, unless the money was marked (which it wasn't), completely untraceable.

WITNESSES: The crime happened in the middle of the night and we were all asleep; no witnesses.

CONFESSION: Means nothing without at least one (or preferably both) of the above.⁵

This is why going to the police was not an option -was never an option- as the crime was totally unprovable.

However, just because you can't prove something, doesn't mean you can't work out who did the crime: Means, Motive and Opportunity, remember...

It's time to don my dirty mac, light a cigar and ask “Ah... just one more thing...”⁶

TO BE CONTINUED....

1Swan Song -the holy grail of colombo episodes. A friend actually bought me it on DVD for my birthday so I could see it. Cheers tiggy!

2But here's the one that's driving me berserk/why do only fools and horses work? Na na na na nah na na na na nah etc etc

3See post "From Worse to, um, Worser" for a refresher, bitches

4Or in the case of colombo, because the murderers are so darstedly, an extremely clever (and judicially dubious) piece of entrapment.

5This is not to say I wasn't tempted to get one or two of my more, ahem, ghetto friends to “lean” on the person in question. But that really isn't my style.

6I still can't believe I actually got to “be” colombo for a few days. Talk about dreams coming true! It was almost worth being robbed for. Almost.

Finally, A Brush With Fame

OK, I was going to post the next part of my detective story (not that I know if anyone cares)

But the day before yesterday something mildly interesting happened to me-

Everyone tells me new york is teeming with celebrities

All the movie stars have apartments in manhattan¹

Loads (apparently) on the Upper West Side, where all mine and kathi's dogwalking clients are.

She is always like “dustin hoffman has an apartment in this building; harrison ford has an apartment in that building”

I have never seen any of these people²

In fact my brushes with celebrity have so far been pretty piss poor:

I stood next to Erykah Badu in a bar -without realizing it was her³

I've seen Ally Sheedy⁴ walking her dog -a greyhound- in central park

I've had a conversation with Ingrid Rossalini (sister of Isabella), also dogwalking

One of our clients used to know, and was the mentee of, the Bronx judge Tom Wolfe based the Judge Kovistzky character on in The Bonfire of the Vanities.⁵

However, yesterday that changed

One of the dogs I walk lives at The Majestic, on 72nd and Central Park West

It's opposite the Dakota building⁵

The people who live there are riiiiiiiich, bitches!⁶

Man, some of those apartments! With south east facing views of central park, huge windows filling huge spaces with sunlight....

The views!

Wish I could take pictures

Anyway, I'd just finished giving charlie (that's the dog) her -it's a she- evening walk

As I walk back into the building, I pass Conan O' Brien talking to one of the doormen

Now, none-American readers might not know who Conan O'Brien is

I was tempted -for the benefit of British readers- to liken him to an American Jonathan Ross

But this would be denigrating to Conan

He does host a chatshow similar in format to Friday Night with Jonathan Ross -Late Night with Conan O'Brien

I knew of the show before I came to the US because I love one of the regular skits on the show: Triumph The Insult Comic Dog⁷

But Conan is a hero to me because he used to be a writer on The Simpsons during its “Golden Age” (circa season 3 to season 9)

And he wrote (or was the principal writer of, no Simpsons episode is ever written by one person alone) one of my favorite episodes -the monorail one (Marge Vs The Monorail)

And he's IN a episode of the Simpsons too -the one where Bart becomes (briefly) famous for a spurious catchphrase (“I didn't do it”)

Anyway, he's pretty famous in america -not 'A' list, but certainly B+

Here's a picture of him at work, interviewing Jessica Alba:⁸

So I pass him, and I think: “Wow, that's Conan O'Brien”

I was also disappointed that he'd shaved off his beard -i like a nice beard!

So I take charlie to the elevator -she lives on the 29^th floor- and just as the elevator doors are about to close, Conan hops in

These elevators at the majestic are not big

There is just about enough room for the elevator man⁹ and three others

So there is the elevator man, conan, charlie and me

You're so close together, it's almost rude NOT to talk

Now I could either do the whole “wow, you're so great, I love your show blah blah”

Or I could keep my head and play it cool

(This is where having a dog by your side -especially a charming, well behaved dog like charlie- is handy as an ice breaker)

Here's how the conversation goes:¹⁰

CONAN (petting charlie): This one's a cutie.

ME: Her name's Charlie

CONAN: Oh, it's a she?

ME: Just to confuse people.

[pause]

Y'know, I think you and I have a mutual acquaintance.

CONAN (looking at me like there is no way on earth we could have a shared acquaintance):

Really?

ME: Yeah, Kathi? She used to do some walking for you I believe.¹¹

CONAN: Oh, you know Kathi? She used to walk our dog, Hudson.

ME: Yeah, she told me.

CONAN: He died.

[pause]

That was really rough.

ME (stumbling because I realise i've just inadvertently reminded him of the death of a much loved pet)

Oh, yeah, I know... that's the hardest, losing a pet... when your dog dies. Harsh.

We get to his floor.

CONAN: Good night. Have a nice evening

ME: You too, man.

And he leaves.

(Actually I'm not totally mortified by my faux pas -after all, just the fact of charlie being there would have reminded him of Hudson)

So that was my brush with celebrity

I walk charlie twice a day, so I may bump into him again

Who knows? Maybe we'll strike up a friendship and he'll relocate me to LA to be dogwalker to his new dog, and through that i'll network with hollywood types who'll fix me up with some incredibly well paid writing job in the movies

I'm kidding, of course

But in this country, you never know ;-)

(I'll continue the story of skulduggery at the hostel next time, i promise)

1Including, of course, the late heath ledger. I only mention him because I happened to be watching CNN as the news was breaking that his body had been found -it was a strange feeling that something you knew was going to be plastered over every news channel and newspaper in the western world was happening RIGHT NOW just mile or two down the road. I also mention it because it gave me a (fresh) insight into how the press just make shit up: I was talking to a friend in the UK a couple of days after ledger died, and she said that in the UK it was being reported that Manhattan was “united in grief.” Well, I live in Manhattan and let me tell you, there was no “unity of grief”. 28 year old movie star ODs? Hmm, well, there you go, the price of fame. United in “mild shock, disappointment and curiosity” would be nearer the mark. I'm sympathetic, of course -unless they prove it was suicide. Then my sympathy flies out the window. The dude had a 2-year old daughter. You don't kill yourself and leave behind a 2 year old child fatherless. No way. Once you got kids, suicide as a solution to your problems is off the menu.

2Not that I am a celebrity-whore. But these people are MOVIE STARS. Not like the ne'er do wells from Corrie and Hollyoaks you see skulking round Manchester.

3Despite lots of people taking pictures of her. I just thought it was because she was cool looking. Which she is. And sexy, mesmeric, stunning, gorgeous, beguiling, beautiful -Oh Erykah!

4Principally famous for playing the “kooky” girl in The Breakfast Club (and who, it is generally agreed, was much more interesting and sexy before the “princess” makeover at the end of the movie).

5Although this is the encounter that is furthest distance from fame, it's also the one that gave me the biggest thrill. The Judge is the best character in that book! The client in question works for the DA's office in the Bronx (aka “Gibraltar”). She says she will take me on a tour. Can't wait!

5Consequently, I walk past the spot where john lennon was shot about 4 times a day. It makes me feel a bit funny inside.

6But not as rich as the people who live on the Upper EAST Side. That is where the super-duper wealthy park avenue millionaires and billionaires keep their cribs. To give a street-level example: if your dog shits in that neighborhood, and you don't clean it up, you get fined $25,000. Yes, 25 grand for not picking up dogshit. I kid you not.

7A dog puppet that goes out and blazes -really BLAZES- those who deserve to be blazed (michael jackson fans; pop idol contestants; bon jovi). The funniest is when he takes down star wars geeks queuing to see Attack Of The Clones. There's a link to it in the Other Stuff section of the blog.

8This picture does partial justice to how tall he is. He's a giant!

9I told you these people were rich!

10 Again this is from memory, and mine sucks.

11 This was the other handy piece of info to know -Kathi used to walk Conan's dog, Hudson, before he (Hudson) died of cancer.

The Morphine Story

OK -i'll continue my amateur sleuthing next time. Meanwhile....

In an earlier post -i forget which, but I was talking about how super-safe manhattan is- I made an allusion to how I once walked across Manhattan at 4am “high as a kite on morphine”

Due to popular request (well, 2 people have now asked -at least I know i'm not wanking into the void here!) I'll tell the whole story

This is a classic piece of “spencer sketchiness” in that

a) it involves drugs, and

b) it involves me being a total idiot

it could have come right out of the 2000-2001 sketchyspencer scrapbook!

So without further ado, here it is: The Morphine Story

OK.

Before I got my job at Jazz, in order to save money, I lived at a hostel in brooklyn for a little while.

There, I befriended an American guy

(I normally only use real names in this blog, but because there is a certain amount of illegality involved, and I wouldn't want him to get in trouble, no matter how unlikely, let's call him... “Ira”¹)

Ira's an interesting dude -he's ex-army; has served in iraq

Not during the invasion, but he did a tour as part of the occupation

He was in the artillery, ha ha

Y'know those big missle launcher things you saw on the news during the invasion that fire salvo after salvo of rockets?

He operated one of those bad boys

But there's not exactly much use for those in a counter-insurgency conflict, is there?

(we had many, many conversations about the idiocy of the US high command -and Donald Rumsfeld and the so-called “Commander-in-Chief” in particular)

So Ira wasn't exactly called on to do much in his stint in iraq

He and his buddies spent most of the time on a base in the middle of the desert bored out of their minds

One of the things they used to do to kill the time was raid the pharmacy on the base for codeine, gobble down the pills and watch DVDs in a kind of doped up daze

Ira waxed lyrical about how good this was, and one night when we'd been drinking (I think we'd had some blow too) I agreed to do this with him

I thought no more of it, but a few days later Ira calls me up² and says his cousin (a drug dealer in queens) has sorted him out with some morphine pills -do I still want to do the movie thing?

Now I had some reservations about doing this

But I didn't want to seem like a pussy either

So that friday night we arrange to go see a film

We go to a theater off times square

We were going to see Saw IV, but it had sold out

So we got tickets to see Blade Runner: The Final Cut instead (a suitably “visual” movie)

Now Ira had no idea how strong these pills were

So we agreed to do quarters -he goes to the restroom to do his quarter; I go to the restroom to do mine

Then we settle down to watch the movie

Pretty soon, almost as soon as the trailers are done, Ira tells me he's feeling pretty spaced

I don't really feel anything

Just a bit of a tingle, could be “drugs anticipation”³

Halfway through the movie, Ira leans over and tells me he's fucked

I'm still not getting anything!

So I ask him if I can have some more

He asks me if i'm sure; I tell him I'm sure and he hands me the baggie and I go to the restroom

There, I give myself a generous quarter -more like a third

By the time the movie is reaching it's climax (“I've seen things you people wouldn't believe...”) I was feeling pretty good

How has my life come to this? (I was thinking) I'm sitting in a cinema in New York City, off times square no less, with an Iraq war veteran, high on morphine

How utterly, utterly absurd

When the lights come up, Ira doesn't look so good

His eyes are kind of puffy

Me, I'm feeling great

We go for a drink in Greenwich Village

On the subway, Ira looks worse

I ask if he's OK -he says he's feeling nauseous

His head keeps going down

I wonder -in a detached kind of way⁴- what i'll do if he collapses on the subway. There's no way I can carry him; he's twice my weight at least. Authorities would have to be called. And Ira still has the bag of pills about his person somewhere

ah ha ha

But we manage to get off the subway without Ira puking or fainting, and i get him sat in a bus shelter while i buy some water from a drugstore.

It's well past midnight by now.

And I'm feeling like a bit of a bigshot.

I took twice his dose, and he's twice my size! I can take my drugs! I'm hardcore!

MAN-CHEST-TORRRRRR!

After i give Ira some water he feels better.

Then i take him to a mcdonalds and after he's had a burger he feels better still. He's OK.

And it's then, as he's finishing off his burger, that i learn something important about the pills we've taken.

I hadn't been listening to Ira properly when he told me how you're supposed to do them.

They're slow-release morphine pills.

In order to get the proper hit you have to chew them up in your mouth.

I hadn't done that; i'd taken mine like, well, pills.⁵

Ah ha ha ha

But what the hell, i thought. I'm good!

So we go for a beer and then decide to call it a night.

Ira has to work the next day, i'm supposed to be seeing somebody about a job.⁶

As we part at the subway, I realize I'm starting to feel rather “floaty”

(Looking back, this was probably the second dose starting to take effect)
The next couple of hours are pretty hazy.

Basically, i was out of it. I mean, totally fucked.

I got lost on the subway!

(A proper “lost-it”, as sarahfriend says)

At the weekends they do maintenance work on the subway, and loads of services don't run or don't stop at certain stations.

It's hard enough to work out sober.

Fucked up, it was a nightmare!

I was riding the subway all over the city.

At one point i thought i was gonna seriously freak out.

The walls were closing in man!

And it was hot as hell down there too.

Somewhere in there, I end up at columbus circle.

It's nowhere near my hostel, but i'm confident i could find my way back from there: all i have to do is keep central park to my right. It's a 50 block journey.

So i start walking.

Walking-cum-floating.

At 4am.

In the light New York rain.
(If this was an Irvine Welsh story something horrible would have happened to me on the way home. But i float through this life like a carefree angel on a cloud, remember, and nothing happened)

Also Manhattan, as i've said numerous times, is the safest place I've ever lived.

It took me a couple of days to get over the pills.

I got the nausea Ira had, and bad.

But on the Sunday I slept all day in Central Park.

It was a beautiful sunny day. The sun felt so good on my skin!I had the most amazing dreams, and every time i opened my eyes I was surrounded by shimmering green grass and reassuring sounds; birdsong, children playing, laughing.

It was how you imagine heaven must be like

(Gave me an insight into the lure of opiates, I can tell you).

Anyhow, that's the story of how I came to be walking across manhattan at 4 in the morning high as kite on morphine.

S-K-E-T-C-H-Y

(well, this is the NY Sketch, after all)

Believe it or not those are the only narcotics i've ingested since i've been over here.

However, a guy has just moved into the hostel who puts on raves in New York

The kind of drugs he can get hold of would make your hair stand on end (or salivate like a hungry dog, depending on your preference)

But I don't do that stuff anymore, do I?

Or do I...?

;-)

1As well as being a good “American” name, those in the know (and lateral thinkers) will be able to work out his real name from this.

2I'd moved back to manhattan by this point. The brooklyn hostel sucked; zero atmosphere.

3Anyone who's ever done pills/acid will know exactly what I mean by this.

4That'll be the morphine then.

5I know this now sounds like something Irvine Welsh would write, and that I am a so-called writer of fictions, but this is 100% truth. I swear it by all that is sacred to me!

6My little cafe bar job at Jazz!