Wednesday, September 29, 2004

personality order 9.29.04

being a policy and management institution, we tend to talk about the popular ideas in management and leadership, such as being innately in touch with yourself. personally, i like to not be in touch with myself-- i feel better when i think less.

so i was overjoyed, of course, when a piece of our senior project was moved up to this week-- a re-introduction to myers-briggs personality test. it's a popular personality test that most of you likely know-- then again, they don't give those things to art students, do they? anyway, it's designed to ask you a bunch of questions and pigeonhole you into a number of categories and describe the level to which you are each type-- whether you are introverted or extroverted, a senser or an intuiter, a thinker or a feeler, a judger or perceiver. okay, just take a sample test here.

for example, i am a sensitive ass wimp. i am an INFP:

Idealistic, loyal to their values and to the people who are important tot hem. Want an external life that is congruent with their values. Curious, quick to see possibilities, can be catalysts for implementing ideas. Seek to understand people and to help them fulfill their potential. Adaptable, flexible, and accepting unless a value is threatened.

A certain reader is an ENTP:

Quick, ingenious, stimulating, alert, and outspoken. Resourceful in solving problems. Adept at generating conceptual possibilities and then analyzing them strategically. Good at reading other people. Bored by routine, will seldom do the same thing the same way, apt to turn to new interest after another.

according to that online test, i am also:

• moderately expressed introvert (44%)
• slightly expressed intuitive personality (11%)
• slightly expressed feeling personality (11%)
• distinctively expressed perceiving personality (67%)

basically, a big ol' waffler.

this annoys me, the self-analysis. i'd rather get work done than sit around talking about our feelings and tendencies, because i don't care and i don't care for them to know. i don't need to be reminded that my tendencies probably lead me to a career in writing or counseling or something else that would be poverty-making, depressing, difficult to sustain—i'm risk-averse.

and of course i hate talking about such profiles for what happened afterwards. i walked by my old hs classmate karen and one member of her group project. i was telling karen how much i disliked MB and her friend asked my type, responding immediately with "we wouldn't get along." which is what administerers of these tests tell you not to do-- jump to conclusions about the person. i'm all over the place and i think at times i act like a different person (who would have guessed me introverted?).

we weren't meeting so i took a walk to the pool when class was done and swam a little-- just enough to realize i haven't swam (swum? a little help, editors) all summer. my wrists hurt, my palms got weak, my arms were fatigued from the get go, and i left the pool empty in the stomach.

that's the way it's supposed to be. so i stopped at school and watched some intramural basketball. it was fun. when i should have wished nicky brooklyn happy birthday... but she'll forgive me.
insomniac theatre 9.29.04

the worst thing about late night television is that at 2.00 am you can have finished watching spaced on trio and of course a little blind date and elimidate because, hell, you ain’t getting’ none; and then you flip channels and find yourself fifteen minutes into VH1’s 50 most awesomely bad songs, and debating with a television and smarmy, unfamous comedians about the merits of songs, agreeing that the friends theme blows as does dancing on the ceiling, disagreeing with some assertions, all when you should be sleeping, resting to get back to training for the triathlon you were seriously thinking of doing.

and when you try? you still can’t get to sleep.

Tuesday, September 28, 2004

Breakfast With Coast Guard Rob! 9.28.04

and later, comments on Myers-Briggs in this space.

Monday, September 27, 2004

Can't Stop the Shuffle 9.27.04

In our quest to find something to do on Saturday night, I met up with Eben/ Shashi/ his friend Juan/ Gurnifer/ her friends from Michigan (Golnar (?)/ Dana/ Carrie/ Jonathan (?))/ Holiday/ Jill C.

The only real thing of note is that while chatting with Dana and Holiday my eye got all itchy. And it's hard to find a drugstore at 11.30 at night.

I know, you're thinking-- no story? No half-baked tangent? Well, it's a quiet morning.

Saturday, September 25, 2004

alarm call 9.25.04

eric's show was funny. looked like an electronic geekfest. anna-lu, you would have liked it. japanese toys and interactive screens and lots of lights.

watched red sox lose to the yankees with eben and zippy-greg in a bar on avenue b that's a slice of long island with the people to boot. think i saw marla's friend marea there.

at ace bar, saw susan barnes.

this morning i ache.

but i had great dreams. chase scenes, a dream where i was sleeping with someone repeatedly but myself and eben and someone else had her totally convinced that i was a lion. after the third time she noticed i had no tail and the jig was up.

now, breakfast, and softball at kissena park.

word.

Friday, September 24, 2004

from e-sox. tonight.

hello, it's eric again!  but this time i'm not writing about boring politics, i'm writing to invite you to join me at Compact-Impact on Friday night.

i will be showing a piece called 'vectogram' at Compact-Impact Night Vol. 3.  Compact-Impact is an electronic gadget and toy store specializing in cutting-edge design and technology implementations for fun and for everyday life.  Compact-Impact night is a periodic show held in the store that showcases new experiments in the field.  it's also a chance to drink free Sapporo.

Compact-Impact Night Vol. 3 is:
- on Friday night, September 24, from 6-9pm
- at 21 Avenue B (just above 2nd St., on the east side)
http://compactimpact.com

vectogram is:
- a two-player videogame
- a generative graphic art piece
http://transmote.com/projects/vectogram

oh, and did i mention free Sapporo?

see you there,
-eric


and from sharma. tonight.

All-- following in the footsteps of last week's outlandishly fun (if technically challenged)  Basement Bhangra, I'd like to invite you all to a special, early gig I'm doing @ Joe's Pub this Friday, 9/24:

Join London-based writer/rocker TANUJA DESAI HIDIER , as she does a reading from her acclaimed first novel, the Indian-American coming-of-age tale BORN CONFUSED-- complete with live custom-made mix from NYC's reigning queen of South Asian dance music, DJ REKHA.

Then hang on to your seats for a full-hour rock and revolutions live set from T&A, the NYC band Tanuja sings/songwrites in with ATOM FELLOWS, here joined by special guest DAVE SHARMA, percussionist from Broadway's Bombay Dreams. T&A will be performing tracks from first-of-its-kind CD WHEN WE WERE TWINS, the cross-Atlantic collaborative album of original rock/pop/electro-folk songs based on Born Confused they wrote/recorded with San Transisto, the London band T sings/writes in--plus new tunes from the forthcoming T&A album.

The band's loads of fun and... different, to say the least.  It's better than Yom Kippur!
The show really is @ happy hour time: doors open @ 6 and the set is @ 7.  Tix are $12 in advance, $15 @ the door; Joe's Pub is in the annex of the Public Theater on Lafayette between Astor and & 4th.

Hope to see y'all there!


competing early gatherings. word.
for your amusement 9.24.04

last night after having dinner with misanthrope anna, i went to wait by my father's car, he was not yet out of work. i usually do this when i want a ride home, and it's easier than ringing up to the lab where he works, standing outside, or sitting inside.

i went to the car, next to a tree and went to my bag to look for a book. apparently the way i turned looked a little dodgy and a cop car, which i didn't see amdist the traffic on 3rd ave ("you looked like you were trying to hide from us") disgorged three passengers to check me out.

i thought that was a little silly, on 3rd avenue, a warm, busy thursday night, kids going to webster hall, kids walking to cafés, kids walking back to their dorms, to find one person to be looking dodgy. i suppose they were doing their job, and after all, i was wearing marge's gay-ass blue jeans and a 76ers shirt.

it was mostly without incident; the officer thought i was giving him attitude, because i was like, "serious. i look suspicious?! should i not stand here?" and was a little perturbed that they took my name for a record of the "incident." as my father cam up, they had checked his plates and determined that we have the same last name, so they could leave me be;

but i do worry about the fact that a couple of suspicious moments can be recorded and later strung together by an eager officer to create a "suspect"; i know of a person who called in a terror threat and when the police responded, there was a record of some other time he called in to report suspicious activity.

which is fine. record keeping is all good. but a speculative mind can start to wonder about abuses.

--addendum--


the lead officer also mentioned that they had to ask questions, in case there were any break ins. the unsaid part is "in case you look like a suspect," which is funny. i look like EVERY suspect. you know, between the ages of 17-30, 5'7"-5'10", 130-160 lbs. you know, average black guy. eben might remember our sophomore year of college, where there were flyers about some guy-- a thief i think, or a peeping tom-- who looked very much like me; someone tacked it on our suite door. kinda funny, kinda mean, mostly true.

Thursday, September 23, 2004

Damn You Again, Heather 9.23.04

I’d like to thank Law and Order for improving one crappy week of television. It’s season premiere week and what I have seen so far are schmaltzy retellings of last season’s stories, limp pilots with too many unbelievable pretty people (and I didn’t even watch Mountain), and the ABC show Rodney (kind of funny).

By far the worst was One Tree Hill—a questionably bad show in its own right, surviving off of the beauty of a young soon-to-be-forgotten teen heartthrob (Chad Michael Murray), a Bush cousin from the model side of the family (Sophia Bush), an “awkward” girl who is hot, extraneous pulchritude, and the aging talents of Moira Kelly, Craig Sheffer, and Paul Johansson, all with named like Haley and Lucas and Scott. The season opener was a set of flashbacks to catch us up… and leave us right where we knew we started—in the middle of some dumb “this town is SOOOOOO small” melodrama. I love watching some WB porn as much as anybody—pretty people, scantily clad, in cities that never get cold—but damn, that tested my patience.

I hope next week’s episode is better.

Even Smallville left a bit to be desired—except for Clark/ Kal-El’s first flight, which was a hella cool effect. And the gratuitous WB softcore skin scene—Lana taking an extended shower, Lana in amber tones, hair matted down, sweating, Lana looking at the surprise new tattoo at the small of her back.

And at least I didn’t get caught watching Mountain (television without pity recap here).

But, then there is Law and Order, with Dennis Farina in the old-detective role. Interesting, shady, and I wonder why he gets top billing. But LO whipped out Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Sarita Chowdhury. I wonder if Fred Dalton Thompson and Elizabeth Röhm get into fistfights, Thompson being a conservative, and Röhm being all actressy and very believable delivering her liberal lawyer lines about the US’ role in the Middle East, in terms of antagonizing and actually doing things that violate people’s rights

The show pointed out what seems to be a gaining public middle ground. These are the facts our nation will generally accept—that there are laws and to violate them one way brings violence and retribution on participating (or almost participating) states; that we freed the world from a mini-Stalin; that the economic and militaristic actions we take on the rest of the world are righteous, are the will of everyone, and are lawful. That people are jealous of our way of life but they need to accept it and get with the program. That people need to divest themselves, perhaps, of community thought and accept the secular and individual western way of thinking.

And there will be no peacenik solutions that involve America admitting that, as a nation, we do not look at Muslim nations as sovereign, as making their own destiny, with different theories of how to function; as nations to negotiate with. There will be no admitting that sometimes coming in like a stern father figure often breeds resentment even if we promise them scantily clad white women to populate their television.

Unless that’s too pessimistic.

On the lighter side, Britney Spears' cover of Bobby Brown's My Perogative is actually... very bad. Surprisingly poor. But Gully listens to it every day when he wakes up! Just kidding.

Okay, read today’s Boondocks. That’s a better ending.
Even Elvis Sang About The Ghetto 9.23.04

I forget the first part of the dream- I think it involved some flooding or some kind of quarantine—but Eben and I were relocated to the projects, the PJ’s. It wasn’t so bad, really; it was late and the place really didn’t quiet down. My dream had no smell-o-vision so no pissy hallways; most everything from the walls to the doors to the furniture seemed in good condition.

I remember images:

A line of cars slowly following a police car, silent, but lights flashing a block to our left when we looked outside. For some reason we spent a lot of time outside the apartment, made friends with some neighbors who were mostly okay.

My little brother stopped by at some late hour to borrow a sleeping bag. He snuck into my room thinking I wouldn’t notice, which was scary. He does that when he’s home and looking for something. But he didn’t live anywhere around there. I asked him about it and his response was “eggh. ugggh.”

At some point we were outside late at night, couldn’t sleep. It was a peaceful courtyard. A couple was doing… something, not illicit, on a bench. Like a guy was showing a woman how to draw, perhaps. Eben was outside and then went in, because, really, we were in the courtyard of the PJ’s late at night and is that where we really needed to be? Amorphous relocation situation or not.

I noticed a man sidling to a fence, and then to the entrance door. I was excited because it was Beenie Man. Then I was disturbed because Beenie Man was looking a little shady, alone, in a black leather jacket and same colored shirt and pants, maybe cream colored. He gave me a look and I realized I really shouldn’t be outside. Some noise heralded the entrance of some residents and a couple of cops.

Who were actually very nice. Talked to us all about security. Asked me a couple of questions about what Beenie Man was doing there, who he was, if I knew if he had any connections in the neighborhood. They went after him. I went back to the apartment where I was staying—spacious, but with old furniture—and checked the closets and then I woke up.

I think I watch too much Law and Order.

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

basement bhangra1

basement bhangra1
basement bhangra1,
originally uploaded by picodulce.



this is dave/ oliver/ deep doing the onstage thing. before the cd player went ill.
doctor doctor, can't you see i'm burning burning 9.23.04

the title was a song i heard in a drugstore this afternoon, i think it is from the 80's. does anyone know who sang it?

angie and matt and i were discussing how one tends to be friends with people of similar/ equal attractiveness. is this true? then what's wrong with me hanging out with selvadurai? breeding material, indeed.

also, read this month from que sera sera. truly impressive. sweet. aww! that means you, neverecho.

some nerdy kids have taken over the lounge where i was working, with video games with foot-activated pads. they're dancing to some terrible music; the action is projected onto a large screen. well, at least they're getting their exercise.

Monday, September 20, 2004

because shotguns are so passé 9.20.04

a rough turn on the knob of the toaster over will set my bread to dark; i am busy making a sandwich with as many remaining fixin's in the house before they go bad. this includes the ham and roast beef, tomato, lettuce, an avocado; might work in some peppers and onions too. worcestershire sauce, that’s what’s needed.

i'd like to thank alex for updating the phrase "shotgun wedding" with "glock wedding," or "semi-automatic weapon wedding." now we can get pregnant kids to the altar faster and with less haggling!

as a side note, i've had this urge recently to learn how to fire a gun. it's one of the few things a young man misses when he grows up in new york-- even in this almost-hood neighborhood i live in now. everyone on law and order has a gun, even socialites! and all my favorite rappers drop lines about gunplay. i just want to fit in.

i am serious about this. i am going to learn how to shoot. next year.

shit! jehovah’s witnesses at the door! i think they heard my plate…

Sunday, September 19, 2004

from there to sunday part II 9.19.04

saturday night i went on what seems like a reunion tour-- to zoe's gathering and to jennifer 8's gathering. zoe's was good, and of course not enough time to talk to the host. 8's was kind of nuts. and i got a little hammered. and the bartender wasn't very nice. i think she was trying to be fun or quirky or mock bitchy when she gave me the finger, and i laughed, but i'd rather not be given the finger. good to see the hs boys, ashok a/k/a dead air dave, john john blond john, sam-buka, mr. funk, and the beautifully chill zara, tommy brown, josh, john's crazy sister laura, abby, blah blah blah, et cetera, et cetera.

and that nice young lady we spoke to, and that short young lady mr. funk tried to speak to. i mean, serious, she was a midget. no, no, she was at least 4 foot 5. i could have put her in my backpack.
from there to sunday 9.19.04

i can't believe i never chose to go to basement bhangra before. oh, i am a simple and moronic man. it was hot times. i mean hot. i mean i was soaked to the bone dancing with arroz' sister, kiri the rice-a-homie and her doll friend katie. also in the house was shashi and maggie and maggie's sister ryan and ruthie and samantha and samantha's friend and shashi's friend and-- you get the idea. sharma and oliver and deep up on stage banging on two drums and a bass and watching their cd player gag and cough while they tried to play over "lean back." (note: learn fat joe's lean back dance from this link.)

unfortunately ruthie also got some stuff stolen. so kids, when you go to basement bhangra, i guess you got to secure your stuff. i wouldn't have thought it, the crowd was fun and friendly, the sikhs were dancing and banging into us, the young men greased across the floor looking for single women; but you never know when you have a thief in your midst.

had a moment with kiri and katie where i looked up on stage, trying to position for a picture (maybe i should get those jammies developed, huh?) and sharma was asking everyone to give the middle finger to the cd player and i yelled at kiri, "you sometimes, i love my boys." it's good to look around and see the loopy ass people you fraternize with.

Thursday, September 16, 2004

basement bhangra! 9.16.04

if only i can amuse myself for two more hours.

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

the service was even worse 9.15.04

jaunted into the city to meet rini and ellen and rini's boy scott, over chinese/ vietnamese/ japanese food uptown; and then to what was once drip, a cheesy coffeshop comeplete with dating books. now drip is a malt shoppe with dollar beers. yeah, i said dollar beers. i went once with lillie (heretofore known as lala or my new young friend) and tusi when tusi was in town and amidst the crying and the protestations and the giants game, the dollar rheingolds were good times--

though this time we sat in the little grey brick outdoors, a backyard in the middle of the upper west side; metal chairs and free-standing table sized umbrellas. since the umbrellas aren't attached to the tables, of course, the rain coverage leaves something to be desired. there is construction through the fence next door. and still, it seemed like a fine place to have coffee and talk with your old friend.

the fellow to the side had the same idea, bringing his notebook and ordering some food, writing with his striped wristband. funny how that phrase looks like stupid wristband.

anyway. we waited for our coffee. scott and rini went ot find our waitress. while we found out our coffee was organic, we didn't get to taste its organic goodness; and when we got our coffee, we didn't get to enjoy it with milk. ten minutes later, as it was cooling, we enjoyed the milk. around this time, the writer received his burger-- lacking bacon, and his fries, cold. and his cherry lime rickey. without the cherry. and a few minutes later, we got the sugar. and a minute later, the spoons.

our compatriot agreed. it shouldn't be this hard.
nothin' but a sundance things

read about burt bacharach... and a mention of the album he's doing with dr. dre.

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

parcel post 9.14.04

just so you know, sending mail packages to kansas involves a different pricing structure than the one we use in new york. i never knew that. i just slapped postage on and sent my mail on the way... but i guess kansas is much more backwards. it's like a foreign country. i coiuld continue with a blog that complains about the surprising post office which would touch on matters such as incompetence-- i try not to get too crappy about people doing their jobs, but when you start to feel you are talking a foreign language, it all changes.

as a side note the prince street post office is the most fey-ass soho joint i think i've ever seen. so many bad haircuts, so much of the 80's, and the hot woman who of course was about to toss a fit. okay, off to queens, and shopping and deciding whether i will see the thrills at irving plaza on friday, in dc on saturday, or not at all.

word.

Friday, September 10, 2004

going to... 9.10.04

jersey for the day and zara's gathering tonight.

Wednesday, September 08, 2004

class starts tomorrow 9.8.04

And I am so not ready. I even have reading to do but I am thinking about seeing all the people I haven't been able to all summer (though many of them don't really know the difference-- i didn't see the G-Balls and longuyland Lori's that much before). And hijinks, been thinking about hijinks. And the blog posts I never put up. And the photos I never scanned. And how I need to reorganize my room and really, how I am just holding back from spending what little money I have on an X-Box-- I want some Madden 2005 in my life.

Regrets, regrets, regrets. If I could get all that done and convince the NYMets to actually win a game I'd be money in the bank.

-P.

Thursday, September 02, 2004

Open 9.2.04

Going to the US Open with no knapsack as instructed. Time for a plastic bag with water, a book, and my IPod. More postings later; Silver, I think you will appreciate my new playlist on the right. And glad to see you're still checking out the blog, Greg.