The Daily Hell Vol. III - Bumsville

Snow

January 27, 2011

I look out on our fire escape and am slightly awed by the volume of snow piled there on top of grated iron. It grows and grows in thin strips of tall snow, expanding toward it’s neighbors outward with every inch it goes up. Until at last they meet and the grate ceases to exist beneath the snow and all is a solid carpet under a draped blanket of white.

Walking home last night the sidewalks were nearly impassable so we walked in the tire tracks of the last cars that managed to get up the hill. Walking up 19^th St. from 5^th Ave a car rounded the corner behind us and Vic pushed her way through the snow to the sidewalk and warned that I should move. I said I’d move when he reached us, which he never did. He just spun and spun and spun his tires, trying to grip what wasn’t there, melting the snow beneath his wheels, I’m sure only making it worse.

We were a block away or more when finally something reached us – the acrid smell of burnt rubber, exhaust, and defeat.

We had been lucky enough to catch a bus the 10 blocks to 19^th from Vic’s bar. It was as in a dream of hopeless escape, pushing to run just as fast as you can but somehow moving in slow motion. So it was as the snowy sea came down from the sky and up from the ground under and around our cold wet feet.

The city has been good for the last few snowfalls, getting things cleaned up by the next day, but there is no defense against Mother Nature while she pummels you. Certainly you can and must start the plowing and salting and everything early- but until the snowfall stops, we are only at her mercy.

The speed of city life comes to a halt and the gears and machinery of our great society seemingly stand still. Rather, everyone holds their breath, watches and waits.

Today I decided that I would come to a half myself. While the city around me awoke and lit the fires of the cold furnace, I stayed in and read.

There will be time for me to catch up with the slow soggy progress that was made today. There will be plenty of time for that.

 

6:23PM

The Daily Hell Vol. IV - Driving Miss Pastry (working title) - Issue 3 - Construction Criticism

June 22, 2010

The Daily Hell Vol. 4

I sit in my van on Clinton St. I am waiting for the kitchen staff to empty the containers full of food I have brought to them. I have the sliding door open to provide some circulation. Last week I listened to the radio and drained the battery. So today I sit in silence.

I am parked in the bike lane across from the restaurant, illegally I assume. There is street parking here on Clinton St. and I normally park there, or double park just next to it, but for the last week, a small construction team has been re-routing traffic to make room for an enormous dumpster they have been filling with debris from a neighboring building.

The dumpster is parked on the right side of the road, blocking the bike lane and a good portion of the travel lane. To do this they are sending traffic into a long "coned off" stretch of the street's parking lane, a portion of which is directly in front of the restaurant. My parking there would block traffic, hence my new location.

Initially I was gruff with the crew about it, annoyed that I had to extend my food-laden walk by 20 feet, which I guess is the approximate width of Clinton St. I would ignore the crew, pulling the van up behind the dumpster, trapping as many cones under my tires as possible- the only little "fuck you" I am able to give, as if to say, "no problem Jag Off. You've got your job to do and I've got mine."

Bringing the food in, I would pile one or two more items than usual to each load I would carry, partly to cut down on the number of trips I had to make, mostly to more realistically exaggerate the amount of strain I was under and inconvenience they were causing me. Though I doubt that any of them noticed my dramatic grunts as they were running a constant bucket line of much heavier concrete and rubble to the dumpster as I attempted to demonstrably toil.

The situation was only made worse by the overly-friendly foreman who, rather than give me a hard time about coming too close with the van, would wave to me, move cones, guide me in behind the dumpster and offer to help me unload. BUT his offer was half-hearted at best and made when I was almost finished. He only carried one bucket of mixed greens.

Of course I soon realized that it was silly of me to allow such small inconveniences bother me. It's not the construction crew's fault their dumpster is preventing me from parking in my normal spot, and even if it was, it is pointless to be upset by it. We receive our burdens as they come, and whether or not they are of our own causing, they are ours to take responsibility for. Maybe what we really want when that happens isn't someone to blame, but just for someone to notice.

The Daily Hell Vol. IV - Driving Miss Pastry (working title) - Issue 2 - The Crack Van R.I.P.

The Daily Hell Vol. IV - Driving Miss Pastry (working title)

Issue 2 - The Crack Van R.I.P.

June 22, 2010

I have been driving a van for a restaurant since January of this year, so technically I suppose I can't call this blog Bumsville anymore. The following was written back in April when the van I was driving was reaching a condition of almost undrivable ruin. It will basically get you up to speed on my life  over the last 6 months or so.

Best,

Connor

The Crack Van

I drive a van for a restaurant. Actually it’s several restaurants but they are owned by the same people. They have three restaurant locations and two cafes, but only one location has a full kitchen and bakery. All the food is prepared at this main location and then sent to the other various restaurant and café locations around the city.

I arrive at the main restaurant at 4 AM to pick up the baked goods and pastries, which I have never tasted but hear are delicious, and bring them to the several other locations around Brooklyn and Manhattan, where hungry and hurried commuters will buy them on their way to jobs they can’t quite explain why they’re in such a rush to get to.

I return home from the pre-Rush Hour deliveries at about 5:45 AM, where I sleep until about 7:15 AM, when I awake, shower, and go back to the main location to pick up and deliver the prepped food to one of the satellite locations.

The company owns two vans. One is a fancy new freightliner; shiny grey paint, tall proud windshield, and side-view mirrors that are not cracked, chipped, or missing. The other van is an old, dying, beat up, graffitied Ford, which cost $300 and is lovingly referred to as “The Crack Van.” When I describe this vehicle as “beat-up,” you must understand, I am actually being quite charitable.

It was called Crack Van before I came to be working for the restaurant, leaving me to speculate on the origins of the name. There are several that I have hypothesized, and I imagine that one, if not all of them are probably correct.

One reason the Crack Van is so named, might be that it looks like a van in which a crackhead might live or at least sleep or urinate. It looks quite abandoned any time it is parked. And when it is in use on the roads, it just looks like someone is driving an abandoned van. Another reason, could be that it looks like a suitable if not designated location for a woman (or man for that matter) to perform sexual acts on a person or themselves in exchange for crack. The final possible reason is that if vans were drugs, this van would most certainly be crack.

 

It was once white, but not since long before I came into contact with it. Years of outer borough grime and graffiti, winters of over-salted roads, and streaks of other cars paint has left her freckled and muddled into a dull and ugly gray.

Outsiders who don’t know or care for the vehicle as I have come to, sometimes mistake it for something else and refer to it as a “Rape Van.” In fact, more than once, I have arrived at a catering job and been told by an aghast British doorman that he would, “sooner expect to be abducted in such a vehicle than be delivered lunch by it.” Well, theirs are clearly plebian eyes, for anyone who truly knows the Crack Van, knows that it is unmistakably and uniquely a Crack Van.

The sliding side door only opens from the inside, and even then only half way and with great difficulty, thus eliminating any need to ever lock it. The back doors can only be unlocked from the inside, but only opened from the outside (and even then it’s tricky). In order to load the van with pastries (or conduct any kind of kidnapping) one must climb back over the unattached mini-van bench seat, which I will momentarily explain, unlock the back door, force open and exit through the sliding side door, walk around to the back door and push it in while pulling the handle on its axis in order to gain entry- thus eliminating any element of surprise you would need to carry out your kidnapping, rape, or delivery of baked goods.

For the peculiarity of the mini-van seat to be fully understood, you must first understand that this is not a min-van. This is a commercial delivery van in every sense of the word. However, this commercial delivery van does not have commercial license plates. It has regular passenger plates. The reason for this is for the company to avoid higher insurance rates on the van and to allow us the use of restricted roadways such as the Brooklyn Bridge and the FDR, which prohibits all commercial traffic. Though the seat is not secured by anything more than milk crates wedged up behind it causing it humorously tip over backwards anytime I accelerate, by its very presence the Crack Van is technically a passenger vehicle, and makes this irregularity of licensing completely legal.

    

It should also be noted that the passenger license plates are from Michigan, despite the van’s obvious New York origins (You can tell by its accent). Anyone who has seen the Crack Van or been within a two block radius of it while its engine is running will know that it would never pass a state inspection or emissions test in any state that requires one. As Michigan is one of the few states that do not require a vehicle to be in compliance with Federal Emissions standards, we are free to continue choking the air with exhaust and CFCs completely unchecked, all while following the letter of the law.

The needle that indicates what gear you’re in is usually point to “Park,” even when zipping along the highway at 40 miles per hour. When I actually do want to put it into park, it generally goes into reverse, the shifter perhaps prevented from falling into place by that stuck indicator needle. I initially tried to overcome the problem by setting the emergency brake when I parked, but found the emergency brake pedal to be only that- just a springy pedal with no actual connection to the brake itself. So now, the lever must be forced with all one’s might, in order to actually park it.

There is no clock. Just a radio/tape-deck. I did not realize they made car radio/tape decks without clocks since the advent of the digital LCD faceplate.

In order to use the Hazard Lights, the key must be in the ignition with the battery engaged. This is frequently necessary for double parking during delivery and often drains the battery, necessitating a jumpstart.

 If I attempt to start the engine with the brake depressed, something in the battery shorts and I have to pop the hood and physically jiggle the battery connector cable until I see it emitting sparks. This disconnection, in turn causes the non-clock radio/tape deck to reset itself to 530 AM (the station, not the time obviously) and erases all my present stations, so I have to find WNYC and WQXR and reprogram them frequently.

I enjoy listing to classical music while I drive the Crack Van because I enjoy classical music. It relaxes me. I also enjoy the comical disparity of classical music being played in such a vehicle and hope I give a laugh to any observant person who might notice it. This would not be unlikely, as I have to turn it up very loudly whenever I drive on the BQE or over a bridge because it sounds like a lawn mower traversing a gravel driveway when I accelerate past 35 miles per hour.

There were once features like heat and Air Conditioning and a Defroster, but these were gone long before I sat behind the wheel. In winter months, I would see my breath in a fog before me all day, forming a condensation on the windshield and then freezing into a layer of frost- necessitating an ice-scraper be used on the inside of the windows as well as the out.

The right side-view mirror, like a battered medieval jouster of yore, is cracked in many places, from countless encounters with other side-view mirrors. The left side-view mirror used to be taped into the plastic mount until February of this year, when someone scraped most of the tape away along with the ice and it flew off one morning, presumably to shatter into hundreds of tiny shards as I drove South on the FDR.

The Crack Van lists violently to the right, especially when braking. This caused me to destroy the side-view mirrors of at least three vehicles during my first week. As a result I’m not allowed to drive the fancy new Freightliner. The other driver- hired just last week isn’t allowed to drive the Crack Van as he is unaccustomed to its many unique quirks, and would doubtless be killed on his first time out.

The irony of this is not lost on me, even if it is lost on my employers. The Crack Van has been deemed too dangerous to be driven by anyone but me and I have been deemed too dangerous to drive anything but the Crack Van.

Like some kind of antithesis of The Lone Ranger and Silver or Batman and his Mobile, we rove the streets of New York, bringing pastries to the masses and making these dangerous streets just a little less safe for everyone.

Post-Script

On April 10, 2010 the crack van expired. The engine revved, a piston shot clean through the bottom of the chassis and into the pavement, and oil bled into the street. By the time the tow-truck got there, it was too late. The crack van was just too old and had lost too much oil. Its time had come. It will be missed.

 

 

The Daily Hell Vol. III - Bumsville - Issue 36 - The Daily Hell Vol. I Revisited

June 16, 2010

The Daily Hell Vol. III - Bumsville - Issue 36 - The Daily Hell Vol. I Revisited

I have gotten into the ugly habit of not writing- not only not writing, but really not doing anything creative. I only pick up my guitar the day before I have a show, in order to relearn all my songs. I have been busy lately, but you can always make time for something if you really want. Perhaps I’m afraid of what would come out if I just turned on the faucet and left it running for a while. Months of stored up angst and self-pity for the crappy job that takes up all of my time and gives no fulfillment whatsoever. See? There I go. Just as I predicted- angst and self-pity.

In my current situation, I don’t like hashing through my day, let alone rehashing it later on in order to write. I don’t want to torture myself, remind myself, think about the life I’ve given myself at the end of the day. Songwriting is good for the tortured, but I can’t write when I’m unhappy. It would appear that it is times like this in my life when I turn to hobbies in order to avoid the painful self-reflection eventually becomes unproductive self-pity.

 

So I guess it’s not that unusual that I find myself poring over my old coin collection, scrutinizing details in pocket change and staring into price books, determining if the 1939 nickel I have is a G-4 or a VG-8. It’s a meditation that wipes the mind blank of all outer distractions and interference. It takes focus and it takes me out of my mind and into something else, where at least the lines are straight and narrow and there is no feeling of imminent suffocation.  It’s my way of ignoring my life instead of belaboring it, or possibly dealing with it, changing it.

 

A feeling of unhappiness, maybe hopelessness can be a very difficult wall to break through and always easier to ignore. A job that allows you just enough free time to think of how much your job sucks, but never enough to change anything about it can only be overcome if you stop using that time for wasteful negative thinking and instead start taking steps to change it. Or take up coin collecting and slowly go insane.

 

Perhaps chronicling my daily comings and goings as I did when I first moved to the city would help to overcome them. Back in 2005 at Harper Collins, I was about as unhappy as someone with a regular paycheck could be. The one thing that kept me going was  telling myself I wouldn't be there forever. I knew I was moving forward and just had to deal with it for a while in order to get to something better. Well, after many peaks and valleys, good times and bad, here I am five years later and little is different now from then, other than my hours and what I wear to work. For better or for worse, it might be time to put away the Coin Price Book, and take out the notebook again. And see what tomorrow brings.

 

 

 

The Daily Hell Vol. III - Issue 35 - An Open Letter To The Governor

January 30, 2010

The Daily Hell Vol. III - Issue 35 - An Open Letter To The Governor

Wow, sorry I have not written in such a long time. Hopefully, this will be the first of many more, and more frequently.

I have been trying without much success to find a health insurance I can afford, so I wrote to Governor Patterson today. I thought making it an open letter and sharing it with the rest of the world might be a good idea, as I know a lot of people are going through the same thing I am.

 Dear Governor Patterson,

While looking for a way to afford my prescription drugs, I came across an article about your program giving New Yorkers, ages 50-64 the New York Prescription Saver Card. That is commendable, however, there are many people below the age of 50 who also struggle to pay for their prescriptions.

I am 28 years old, unemployed, uninsured and take prescription medication for ADHD and anxiety. The drugs I take, Celexa, Adderall, and Adderall XR are very expensive and my parents (who live in Massachusetts) have been footing the bill for me since I lost my job in 2008. However, they have expenses of their own and are unable to continue doing this.

I applied for the Health Plus health insurance program, thinking I would qualify due to my unemployment. However, as the maximum allowable monthly income is $900 for a single person with no dependents, I discovered my Unemployment Benefit was too high and prevented me from qualifying for this program. This rule seems to presume that a single individual with no dependents with a $901 monthly income should be able to live comfortably, pay rent and bills, feed and clothe oneself and then have enough left over to pay standard prices for health insurance. Is it your belief that someone who makes $901 a month, can in fact do this?

I began applying for the Healthy NY program, which has a maximum allowable income of $2257 for a single person with no dependents, which I thankfully qualified for and believed I could afford. The monthly premium quoted to me was $247 a month. However, halfway through the application process, I learned the following: "Healthy NY offers a streamlined benefit package, which lowers premiums. Because of this, certain services are not covered. Some of these services include: Mental Health services and prescription drugs related to mental health conditions, including treatment for depression, anxiety, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)." The ONLY expenses I regularly incur and thus the ONLY reason I am trying to get this insurance, are the "prescription drugs related to mental health conditions" which I require in order to function regularly in my everyday life. When this came up with the Atlantis Health representative I was being advised by, she told me that the standard policy I would have to get that WOULD cover mental health-related expenses cost a premium of $411 a month.

I receive $396 ($356.40 after taxes) a week, plus the $25 ($22.50) recent addition for a total of $1684 monthly, of which I receive $1515.60 after taxes. I live in New York City. And even in Brooklyn, this is just enough for me to pay my rent, my credit card, phone, and student loan and utility bills, with a little left to enable me to eat and take the subway. This does not leave me with enough money to pay for a $411 health insurance policy. Nor does it allow me to pay for a $247 health insurance policy, plus several hundred dollars in mental-health related prescription drugs.

I went back and found out that Health Plus actually DOES cover drugs like Adderall, Adderall XR, and Celexa. I don't understand how one state-subsidized insurance plan, like Health Plus is able to cover mental-health related prescriptions and have a premium of $0 a month, when another state subsidized insurance plan, like Healthy NY cannot cover such expenses, claim it is in order to "lower premiums," and still charge $247 a month.  I also must question whether a state who's unemployment rate has reached 9.0% as of December 2009 fully understands the effects of unemployment on a depressed person, much less the effects of depression on an unemployed person.  How can a government claim to be supporting and encouraging their unemployed population when they disclude the most expensive and most relevant services and drugs from its subsidized health programs? Many people are unemployed because their depression prevents them from finding work. They suffer the symptoms of depression because their unemployment prevents them from being able to afford treatment.

I continue to seek employment here in New York and I continue to seek a means of taking the burden of paying for these drugs away from my parents. I am writing to you in hopes that you will include these important services in ALL government subsidized programs, or make those which do include them available to a larger part of the lower-income population. In the meantime, I would greatly appreciate any suggestions you happen to have on how I can pay for these drugs, or a health insurance plan that will cover these drugs on my restrictive budget. Please, what can I do?

Respectfully yours,

Connor Gaudet

The Daily Hell Vol. III - Issue 34 - The Bikeless Isolation of Red Hook in Winter

December 13, 2009

I' look up out of the skylight in my living room and through the bird shit and dirt I see a solid sheet of grey and tiny drops of rain begin to speckle the panes. A cold December rain.

Yes winter approaches, and as it does I look forward with some trepidation, to the immaculate isolation I have no doubt it will afford me with here in Red Hook. Transportation IS an issue here. In Re Hook, I bike. To and from Red Hook, I bike. To Manhattan, I bike to the subway and then take the train.

The summer months here found me showering up to four times a day after each trip I took out of the apartment. There were entire days, literally when I would not wear a shirt. Living in a major metropolis, I take strange satisfaction in that and really feel it’s some kind of accomplishment.

The autumn was a bit better biking weather, but still somewhat frustrating. You bundle up against the cold wind and chill air and then sweat terribly after just a mile or two. It is, in essence, the equivalent of going to the gym and working out in semi-casual business attire- jacket and all. BUT at least I was mobile. I was not trapped by Mother Nature, unable to escape the boundaries of my neighborhood, as seems to be the case for the upcoming season.

I’ve never biked in the winter- never had to pedal through snow or brake on black ice. It seems dangerous. This does not mean I won’t be doing it shortly, but it may mean that I will only being doing it shortly. (For a short period of time, that is.) My bike is a death trap and a public menace as it is, and I feel I would be endangering lives if I were to venture out into the icy city streets in winter.

To elaborate: Just before moving to Red Hook this past July, I gave my old bike to my sister-in-law. It had been sitting in my parents’ garage since I graduated college and my brother asked me if she could have it. I knew I was moving and would need a bicycle, but I didn’t want to be like that dick kid on the playground that doesn’t seem to be interested in his old toys until he sees someone else reaching for it then shouts out, “No! Mine!” and plays with it until the other kid goes away. So I gave it to Melisa.

This left me without wheels for my first month or so in Red Hook. I borrowed my roommates’ bikes at every opportunity. Unfortunately, most of the ride fixed-gears and I would spend half the trip chasing the pedal around it’s revolution with my foot, trying to get it in the toe clip as it spun round its axis. I am not great with fixed-gears.

Thankfully, not long after, while visiting my grandfather, I found a bike in his basement. He wasn’t sure whom it belonged to but it looked like it had never been ridden. It was a 3-gear Royce-Union made in “West Germany.” There was no wear on the treads (though time had cracked through the aged rubber) and no dirt or mud-splash in the wheel wells. It’s like this bike had been hidden there for someone’s birthday 40 years ago and simply forgotten. It even had the classic RING RING! bicycle bell on the handle bars- the coup de grace.

I brought it back to Brooklyn and changed the tubes and tires and shined it up removing every bit of tarnish and rust with WD-40 and a toothbrush. I was truly proud of the results of my like-new vintage bike.

But, like a man unable to walk upon walking from a long coma, 40 years of convalescence can apparently have much the same effect on a bicycle as 40 years of usage, and as it began to deteriorate around me, I realized it might take more than the few crescent wrenches Pepere had lent me to fix it.

On my first and only bike-ride through Manhattan, my rear brakes were jarred off while riding down a cobblestone street in Tribeca. On that same trip, I began to hear an unsettling rattle and noticed that one of the screws that holds the rear wheel well in place had come off as well. This was more of an aesthetic and not functional nuisance, but it’s one that may be causing me to violate local noise ordinance.

The biggest problem with this stuff coming loose and falling off while I’m on the road is that I lose the screws and nuts and washers that would enable me to fix the bike. I’ve made a few trips to Lowe’s, but it’s virtually impossible to find correctly matching hardware for a 40 year old, West German screw

I did finally fix my rear brakes and two days later my front brakes broke. The knob at the end of the cable just came right out. So at least the timing was good. Slowly but surely the metal casing around the gear-shifter wire split and the crack grew winder and wider. Finally the cable, rather than pass through, would simply get stuck and so I am now perpetually in the most difficult gear, or “L” as the West Germans dubbed it.

Meanwhile, the seat, which was not on a welded post but a kind of threaded up/down swivel, would tilt violently backwards when I sat down, tossing my butt backwards to the point of falling off the bike. I finally tightened it beyond all human reason and now I only lean way back a bit uncomfortably and look as though my ass is being held up, suspended by a rope tied to my back belt loop.

Also, please keep in mind that this is a 40-year-old seat made of iron, springs, sewn together pieces of leather. While riding it one afternoon a month or two ago, the front half of the leather simply fell away, exposing my testicles, protected only by a thin layer of denim, to the harsh, cold, and rather narrow pointy iron seat below.

Oh. And my bell fell off.

So, unable to fix most of these problems for lack of tools or parts, I have been riding on a zombie or leper bike that, much like a zombie or a leper, continues to decay as I ride it. The strain on my rear brakes mounted and mounted- all those downhill red lights from Park Slope to Red Hook- and finally gave way. They broke. Interestingly, it wasn’t the brakes themselves that broke, it was the bolt that secures the brakes to the bike frame. Just snapped in half! Incredible!

While this setback may deter a more sensible person from using his bicycle, it is still my primary source of transportation. Having experienced the expedience and liberty afforded me by biking everywhere, I simply cannot go back to walking. It’s just too slow.

I have developed a good method of stopping, which I brought to near-perfection while my brakes slowly became less and less effective. It actually works quite well; better than my brakes did at least.

I thrust my right foot down onto the pavement and apply pressure to the ground with my hell. For the frequently needed extra oomph, I jam my left foot onto the pedal, which in turn jams the opposite pedal in my right calf, forcing the entire femur and foot down even harder, greatly increasing the friction and thusly my stopping power. I can go from 15 to 0 in about 6 seconds, provided I don’t hit a sand patch.

However, this brings me back to my main concern, which is about the foul weather that winter brings. I doubt my foot-dragging method of stopping will be nearly as effective when administered on snow and ice. And while I always wear a helmet (now ridiculously over a wool cap) and it would be comical to see a man slide helplessly through an intersection dragging his feet with all his might, apparently hijacked by a runaway bicycle, I’m afraid the reality of being hit by a car and staining the roadside snow bank red, would be a bit more grim than humorous.

So now, as I listen to the freezing rain and “wintry mix” hammering the skylight above me, I begin to prepare myself in earnest, mentally at least, for what will inevitably become a cold and secluded season, filled up by the long walks between civilization and the beautiful silent desolation of Red Hook in winter.

The Daily Hell Vol. III -- Bumsville Issue 33 -- My Back, The Bastard

November 27, 2009

Growing up with scoliosis, I was no stranger discomforts with my back. The first time I threw my back out was in 1996. I was 14 years old, a freshman in high school and on top of the puffy cheeks from braces, puffy acne from my dad, and puffy hair from God only fucking knows where, I had to make due with the spine of a brittle old woman.

Once I was diagnosed it wasn't that big a problem. I went to the chiropractor once in a while when I would feel the pinch and he gave me daily exercises to ignore. It wasn't like I had to wear any metal back braces or anything- it just sort of sucked when I twisted the wrong way or lifted a box incorrectly and had to deal with the incredulous looks of teachers or employers when I told them that I, a seemingly virile high schooler, could not continue just now, because I "have a bad back." Lazy!

As an adult, it hasn't been so bad. Once my spine fully formed into it's final not-too-too-twisty ess shape, I have been able to continue in my life with relatively few problems. One problem that has remained constant however is the question sleeping arrangements, especially when I travel.

A mattress too hard or too soft will create or perhaps just exacerbate an intense tension in the lower lumbar muscles and I can't stay in one position longer than 5 minutes without getting what I would describe as essentially a charlie horse in my lower back.

On one of my first stays at a former girlfriend's apartment, I remember having this problem and she offered me a back massage. While it was a kind offer, after a half hour of lumbar torture, lying in the same position, but not wanting to hurt her feelings, the pain was such that I was forced to ask her to stop so I could just get up and walk it off. 

Nowadays, the worst I deal with are my trips to my parents house. The beds they put in my room when I moved out have single mattresses with so little wear and such thickness that I need to hop up in order to sit down on them. My feet don't touch the ground. They are quite stiff, and I do my best not to sleep on them. It's gotten to the point that if the whole family is home at the same time on Christmas or Thanksgiving I will sleep on the nice soft couch cushions in front of the fireplace in the living room like some decrepit blind old family dog.

My favorite bed in my parents house is Devon's bed. His room is darkest, with thick curtains and contains my niece's crib and white noise machine, which I set to tropical rain forest and slip away from the stresses and worries of the day. The bed itself was my great-grandmothers and is at least 200 years old. It being so old, it was not built to any standard size and is somewhere between full and queen I think, but shorter in length. This being the case, traditional mattresses will not fit it, so it still has the sagging, newspaper and straw filled grain-sack that came with it some two centuries ago. Upon laying down on the bed, you immediately roll to the middle and sink so deeply in, you are almost unable to see over the edges of the mattress. This is a comfortable bed.

Whether due to the uncomfortable bus seats, or lugging a full duffel bag from Red Hook to the Port Authority, sometimes the Amish bed doesn't work for me and I must travel down the hall to my brother Charles' room. He has a more modern mattress, I think it's a full. It basically helps only in it being a dramatic change in support from the old bed and I'm able to squeeze another hour of sleep in before the muscles begin to throb once more.

There are the occasions however, when neither bed seems to do the trick and unable to sleep for lack of a position that does not greatly discomfort me, I find myself wrapped up in blankets like an old dog on the floor of living room - or if the ashes in the fireplace have gone cold, the floor of the den, where a small electric heater warms me as I sleep for the few more hours until the rays of morning sun come pouring in through the shadeless windows.

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The Daily Hell Vol. III - Issue 32 - The Pianio

November 19, 2009

The Daily Hell Vol. III - Bumsville

Issue 32 - The Pianio or They Say It's Your Birthday! Well Happy Birthday To Ya!

Yesterday was my niece's second birthday. When my sister-in-law was pregnant with her, we all made bets as to the actual day the baby would come. I was traveling in Southeast Asia at the time and had planned my return for around Thanksgiving time. I said the baby would wait until I was home and be born the day I got back. And I was right. So I have a very easy time remembering her birthday.

In the last year, she has ceased to be the helpless messy larvae she was, rolling about on the ground, soiling herself and become the full-fledged person she is, running about, talking, squealing, playing, rolling on the ground and yes, still soiling herself. But her personality is able to shine through a lot more, now that she is able to verbally express herself. 

I have no idea what I got her last year. And it's only been a year since then! What do you get for a one year old? Maybe something to chew on- a cardboard book? I don't know. This year I got her something I know she will absolutely love, and my brother will unfortunately, almost certainly hate.

I know people project their interests and passions onto their kids and I am no better. I am a big believer in music as a means of creative expression, and for children especially, an important means of opening up parts of their mind that help them learn and understand the world in new and different ways.

Whenever Avery visits, we play music together. I make notes and she strums my guitar- fascinated by the sound she is able to make when she hits the strings. At my parents house, she takes the low keys and I take the high notes on the "pianio" as she calls it. So I bought Avery her very own pianio. A high quality, wooden, 25-key, 2-octave, Stand Up Baby-Baby Grand. Thus making me her best uncle.

"I fucking hate you," Justin said to me as he read the gift receipt that came with the package. I insisted they call me when she opened it, and outside Alligator Lounge in Williamsburg, I listened to the beautiful plunking discord of keys being mashed hundreds of miles away in New Hampshire.

Please do not misread this gesture as an uncle trying to play out childhood wishes through his niece. I know she's only two. I don't think she'll be hammering out Fats Domino riffs in a smokey blues club anytime soon. I would never encourage musical lessons for someone that young and if she doesn't want to, she shouldn't ever have to take them. Frankly I find 4-year-olds that play piano better than me a bit disturbing.

What I do encourage is a child's exploration of music as a tangible object, just as she would a book or a forest or field. She doesn't have to be good at playing the piano. She's two! She'll be terrible! That's not important at all! The important thing is the understanding of one's ability to create and communicate with this other plane of existence that is accessible through this instrument- or any instrument. It's not a conscious realization a young toddler will make, of course. It will simply come as inherent; an assumed truth etched into their minds as one of the many complex and accepted Unknown Knowns that children simply take on faith without comprehending why.

Sorry, I'm getting a bit esoteric here. Think of it like this. Just as she learned that the thing she thought was only used for eating and crying- could be manipulated in such a way as to form words and communicate spoken language, a child can learn that the things on the ends of her arms that she thought were only for grabbing- can also be used to manipulate something outside of herself, that will conjure sounds out of a little box, not words per se, but still a powerful kind of communication. Mastery within, mastery without.

I love music and it's a big part of my life. I want my niece to have the opportunity to discover music and experience the joys that it has brought me. Even if she just lets the piano collect dust while she plays with the colorful box it came in, at least I have done my best to share with her something so important to me. And maybe I can borrow the piano.

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Commenters:

Wow, thanks so much for writing and thanks even more for reading. I'm really glad you seem to be enjoying the blog. I really do appreciate the feedback. --I did find my notebook! I went back to the place me and my bandmate ate after practice and it was there thank god. -- I think I won a free fishing trip. Awesome!-- We did come up with a band name and it was actually a result of one of Maura's suggestions. She had suggested Liquid Courage and we liked that but thought it was too much already in use, so we played around mixing the words like Liquorage or Licourage. That just looked like nonsense, but then Dan (drummer) said, "How about Liquor Ridge?" We play bluesy country, rootsy rock stuff, so it seemed appropriate. So- we are Liquor Ridge. I'll keep everyone posted on shows and maybe throw a song on here when we have a few recorded. Thanks again, all...

The Daily Hell Vol. III - Issue 31 - The Notebook (Not The Movie, but My Actual Notebook)

November 17, 2009

I awoke today eager to write, however when I tried to start, I found myself quite unable. I was planning on writing my next parry/thrust for the verbal sparring match I have somehow entangled myself in with another blogger, but I found myself very distracted. I have misplaced my notebook, and for me there are few greater tragedies. I would rather, for instance, lose my wallet than my notebook, or a new pet that I liked, but hadn't gotten too attached to yet.

I love writing- for the means of expression it provides as well as the very act of putting pen to paper. I take little joy in typing, staring at a screen, rearranging sentences in paragraphs by pressing down on a small plastic oblong and slowly dragging it across my desk. But the flashes of inspiration, followed by frantic scratching, rushing your hand to keep pace with your brain, watching the page curl from the upper corner as it fills with words thrills me. Scratches, asterisks, arrows drawn, and margins filled, you see not just a finished product, but the very process and evolution it took to get there.

It wouldn't be so tragic if I had just gotten this journal because it takes me a while to get to know and become comfortable with one- like a baseball glove or a guitar. You know it's quirks and have memorized the feel of it. You trust it. Running out of pages in a journal that you really feel a connection with is both a tragedy and a triumph . You feel that a part of you is forever inside that journal, but at the same time, you don't want it to end- because who knows if the next one will be as good?

Each filled tome is a true work of art, not for what it says, but for what it is; a small sliver of someone's life without preface or epilogue, an historic document to be read without the benefit of context which gives you a small window into the mind and time of the person who filled its pages.

Right now, I'm writing in the crappy notebook I use when I finish one journal before buying another- or temporarily mislay my trusted friend. This notebook just never took- or perhaps I never took to it. We never really established a rapport. Try to imagine wanting to tell you best friend a great story you know he'd love, but the only person around is a guy you sort of knew in college. You try to tell him the story, but he just doesn't get it. The words just bounce off him. You soon realize you're just wasting words and give up, walk away.

An unfinished journal is a mystery. Why would someone fill half the pages and then just suddenly stop? Either the journal was lost or the writer was. I do hope I find my journal before I am forced to get a new one. If I were to find it after that, I imagine it would be like divorcing a wife in a coma only to have her awaken to find that I have already remarried... to a new journal. Awkward.

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The Daily Hell Vol. III - Issue 30 - How To Defraud A Charitable Organization

November 16, 2009

The Daily Hell Vol. III - Bumsville

Issue 30 - How To Defraud A Charitable Organization or The Salvo's Hustle!

I never actualy got his name. I got his pant size, the train he lives on, his former addictions, I even got a hug. But I didn't get his name. I guess sometimes introductions are superfluous. They create awkward boundaries that insist we are strangers and therefore need to act as such until formalities are over and done with. If we just treated everyone like old friends, would we really need introductions- or even names for that matter? 

I was biking home from Target and stopped at the Salvation Army on Atlantic Ave. just to do some browsing. I got to the men's section upstairs and as soon as I started flipping through shirts I heard a voice behind me ask, "Excuse me- could you help me find some trousers my size?" I turned around and realized the voice was talking to me. I thought it was pretty obvious that I didn't work there so I didn't bother pointing it out to him, but I was in no hurry so I figured, why not? I'm an Eagle Scout. Do a good turn daily right? So I said, "Sure I can," and walked around the rack.

"Ohh, thank you!" he said, smiling at me, "I'm damn near blind and don't have no glasses. I can't read the tags on these." The man had short hair, black but going gray and dark skin with creases around his eyes and a week's beard on his face. He wore a heavy blue winter coat, too warm for the weather. He was very friendly and seemed glad just to have some company.

We began going through the jeans, looking for size 30 waist. I found one right away, much to my new friend's delight. "All right, all right! You lucky man, these are 30s? I even like the color! Thank you. There any more in there?"

He continued an explanation of his predicament as I continued through the legions of fattie jeans. "You know, I'm almost blind! I'm on disability and I can get Medicare- I need to go to the office though to get it so I can get glasses. That's what I really need. I don't care how much it costs, you need to see! Money's no good just sitting there. Gotta spend on what you need. I gotta go to the disability office to get my check."

I was not having much luck finding any other 30 waists, but kept going down the line of jeans, as he kept up the conversation.

"You know where I live?" he asked me.

I wanted to know where this man lived, so I replied, "Where?"

"I stay on the subway!"

"Really? What train?" I asked.

"I stay on the JMZ line."

"Why that one particularly if you don't mind my asking?" I've always wondered the reason homeless people kept to certain neighborhoods or subway lines, if it was out of habit, territoriality, friends in the area, decent food, shelter. I'm just curious about this sort of thing.

"It's a nice long ride. From Jamaica all the way down to Coney," he said. So my curiosity was satisfied. That that makes sense I thought, makes your $2.25 stretch a little further.

I kept pawing through what was evidently mostly 38 through 42 size waist pants. "Man, lot of fat people in this city," I said to him.

"Ha ha, well that's okay. We got these nice one's. Thanks so much for helping me. You know, you do a kindness- if you're good, live a good life, you know it comes back to you."

"Well you must have done something good to have me helping you huh?" I said, trying to modestly deflect the compliment, but realizing the moment I said it that I was telling a homeless blind man who lives on a train, he must have good karma. 

"I guess so," he replied quietly.

"Here's a pair," I said, changing the subject and pulling a size 30 from the rack.

How much are they?" he asked.

"Eight dollars. Bit much," I said.

"Yeah, well, we'll see what I can get when I get down there. Thank you for helping me. You're very kind."

We kept searching through the pants and he kept telling me about his past, how he used to do crack, but stopped and now tells people not to touch it, "because when you do it once, it's just too easy to keep doing it." There's something about former-junkies, sincerity that I find very touching. It's not like they have to tell you about it- but they really want to. There is no embarrassment or shame- if anything they are proud of what they have overcome. They have all these experiences within them and they want to share it and help others and prevent it from happening to someone else. I just think it's nice.

Finally we reached the end of the jeans and my new friend was holding four pairs of size 30 pants. He asked me what each one cost. Two were pretty cheap, but two of them were $7 or $8 a piece. Salvation Army has taken it upon themselves to mark name brands two or three dollars more expensive then items from Sears or K-Mart, regardless of wear, stains, missing buttons, cigarette burns, or anything else. In my opinion, that's just crazy and frankly, contrary to what the Salvation Army supposedly stands for.

I told my friend to wait where he was and went to find out what color tag was half price that day. (One color is always half price at Salv's. It changes day-to-day.) Today's discout color was red. We only had green and blue in our pile. Thankfully the men's department is on the 2nd floor and they don't often have employees up there.

I pawed through the dress shirts, found a few Red $5 tags and carefully removed them, bending the staples at the middle so as not to tear the paper. We swapped out the most expensive pants tags for red ones like this, but kept one Green, in order to not raise suspicions at the register.

I handed him back his newly priced pants. "They shouldn't give you a hard time. They don't really care that much. But remember if you get caught- we've never met." He laughed and took the pants from me, shook my hand firmly saying, "Thank you my friend. God go with you!" He then pulled me in for a hug, which I awkwardly returned.

"Live long and prosper man," he said.

"Thanks. You too. If I ever see you on the JMZ, I'll say hello."

"Yeah man, please do."

With that he turned and left and I went back to browsing for a while. I didn't see any jeans or bent red tags by the register when I paid for my purchases, so I assume we got away with the scam. My new friend bought four pairs of pants for about $12. Feeling very good about myself for helping him out and strangely proud at having ripped off a charitible Christian organization, I wondered which side of the Karmic scale this would fall onto. I technically assisted an elderly man in shoplifting, but he probably needed the pants more than Salv's needed the money. So I figured, Good turn done.

Boy Scout's of America, Slogan: Do A Good Turn Daily