Thursday, December 30, 2004

notes from a missing week. 12.30.04

now with "click me!" pop-ups!

again, law and order would have been garbage without lenny briscoe. jerry orbach's work was spectacular, because noth and sorvino put me to sleep in the early days of the law and order franchise. i didn't watch. till of course hetha talked it up and i couldn't look away.

last night gurnifer and i had a few beers, starting at some bar next to radio perfecto with 1/2 price drink happy hour -- i think it was b-side, which is not as filthy as citysearch makes it out to sound--and on to lucy's, where we were the first people in the spot.

the bartender had cbs' entertainment shows, the insider and entertainment tonight. before that courageous model who survived the tsunami and before amber frye's outrage that other people would follow her book deal by trying to capitalize on knowing her (amber, i think your book deal made you open season too), each show did a piece on jerry orbach.

gurnifer and i watched sadly. while she never watched law and order previously, i think she'll be hooked when she turns it on to figure out why myself and her father (and liz's father also) are so obsessed with the show. and briscoe's quips. and the sad moment where he walks through the station with his small box of personal belongings, hunched over, his fellow detectives giving him berth.

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My sibling is going to dominate south east Queens' rap game. from massachusetts. just letting you know.

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echo, i am allergic to nuts. such as almonds. however, small amounts don't seem to bother me as much as they used to, so when i saw the package upon arriving home, i put your lip balm on. it is pepperminty. pretty solid. and my lips haven't blown up like jay-z so i'm straight.

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check out Political Site of The Day and the bloggable OC, while you're at it.
more answers! 12.30.04

if you want to get in on the question asking bit, read a few posts below and ask thre questions, give your suggestions.

for raycroft:

i love little darlings, but i feel dirty watching it. honestly, tatum o'neal and kristy mcnichol are really pretty. and the movie has a grad from my high school, ms. cynthia nixon.

1. What makes Sammy run?
2. Will I actually get my arse out of bed today (gotta love the wireless)
3. Why can't I think of a third question?


1. sammy runs because sammy has legs, verve, and a place to go.

2. yes, because you have to go to the bathroom. and get a fresh drink.

3. because you're poor and thinking of mvp baseball, how you are going to make the paw-sox a minor league powerhouse.

for dave:

good suggestions. i don't know none of that stuff. bollywood westerns? i'm all on it. do you have a copy?

1. what made you want to leave NYC when you were 18?
2. if you were forced to up and leave the lower 48 and never return, where'd you go?
3. and why?


1. at 18 i was sick of one sided arguments with liberals crazier than me. plus i didn't want to go to east coast schools where i would often run into kids from my high school, still competing, still measuring themselves against me. i wanted to be more on my own, to reinvent myself.

2. i like canada. or buenos aires, argentina. maybe spain. maybe sierra leone. never return? let's say argentina.

3. canada b/c i have fam up there and i like toronto and nova scotia; argentina b/c gully sold me on it; spain because i've always wanted to go since i saw a picture in high school that was, i think, a mountain of old gilded cups plus i want to go to san sebastian (thanks, hemingway); sierra leone b/c i have been around many sierra leoneans and i want to see where they come from. but i'd want to return.
queen says don't stop me now. 12.30.04

before we enter the ought-nickel, i think we should take a moment and reflect upon the past year, set up resolutions for the next, and think about standardizing a national curriculum that reminds people about that whole "church and state" thing and the whole "why the wacky puritans sailed the ocean blue" and the whole "reading the effing constitution" thing--

sorry. no, that's not today's topic. it's all about the party; starting with paradise hotel dave's tonight. and pixel's tomorrow. and el-d's party, and g-ball's affair, and the rocker greenberg's, and maybe affordable justice's evening of rock and roll--

too many choices.

the important thing, as always, is to be with good friends when the year turns over, and to have a bangin' ass time, letting yourself say all the silly things you've been thinking sans a cover charge or therapy fee. for me, new year's involves staying up all night; i've done it for probably ten years straight and i see no reason to stop now. whether my make-out tradition happens is another matter; while enjoyable, the new year's kiss is not an absolute requirement. without the kiss, in fact, the evening is lighter and more carefree and y'all know i am lying my ass off right?

right.

but i should see many of the friends-- gully, silver, nathan, j-fieser, pixel, gurnifer, and of course rini, of course!; maybe raycroft, nicky marie, and rou-rou, holiday and arroz, affordable justice and garth, abberts and g-ball, nascar and eben, misanthrope and anna-lu, electric erica and fuzzy sweater, schnapp, and everyone else who is in town (hetha? mike?).

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

RIP

jerry orbach, who played lenny briscoe on tv's law & order.

Friday, December 17, 2004

answers!

answers to the questions. please, ask some more below. and dani-- breathless is one of my favorite movies.

to silver/ monkistan:

p.s. we all know aspen extreme is secretly the greatest peter berg movie of all time i don't care what he directs or stars in.

1)If cats can climb tree, and monkees can climb trees, why don't I know where to go tomorrow.
2)Why is it sunnier in the winter than in spring.
3)Would I be taller?


1. because you have been staring at a computer all day + you have an opposable thumb and no tail. i mean it, you need butt implants.

2. the spring brings rainy weather patterns to the east via clouds. water starts to heat and rises into the cold part of the atmosphere where it freezes and melt, and becomes engorged sun obscuring clouds. there is less to fall in the winter; it takes a little moderate "warmth" (high 20's- 30's) to generate clouds and snow. here.

3. if you thought taller, sammy davis jr.


to neverecho:

p.s. why you gotta be right? and where's the book for me, "she's that into you?"

1. Will you find me a cute sweet boy to kiss?
2. How would you describe me to your friends?
3. Do you think you'll ever really leave new york?


1. possibly, possibly not. you are your own agent in the attempt to make out. and if you will not use whiskey based sedatives, i can't promise anything. and sweet? that's hard to find. except in me, of course.

2. smart, sweet. cute. nice eyes. talks in a cutesy voice so she can insult you. brown. huggable.

3. yes.


to greg:
these are some good ol' questions. and the reverend horton heat? a blast from the past!

1. How much did your novel resemble your own life?
2. In which red state would you most likely want to live, and why?
3. What do you want to accomplish by the time you turn 30?


3. the novel has to come in part from my life and my experiences-- i'm not that inventive, really. this one has elements of my life, twisted a bit. the heart of it is a frustration and loneliness of new york, especially when a person arrives here, and that is very much from me. the reactions (and the stuff i am going to add to the novel over break) are more allegory than reality.

3. tough question. but i am always thinking of moving. i know missouri from school (so likely not) and i'm always curious about texas. but i have always liked arizona, enjoyed my week there, and may look for jobs there while in the southwest (hopefully) in march-- wedding with ms. echo, and ncaa basketball tourney watched in sin city (*you should come up for that!)

3. i'd like to find a woman who is that into me. 30's only a year away... so i'd like to have published a story somewhere, finished a novel i am proud of and maybe shopping, paying off my loans, improving my credit. and when i turn 30 i'd like to have a spectacular badass party.


to anna:

1: if you are able to download the song above, will you give me a copy? I can't find it anywhere
2: where do you shop? I love that outfit!
3: who cuts your hair?


1. i certainly will. which anna is this?! who is willie hutch?

2. the lab coat? you'll have to come to florida. it's pretty stylish.

3. me. my shears and a mirror come together to highlight my well shaped head.

Thursday, December 16, 2004

money talks! 12.16.04

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARGE!!!! YOU'RE OLD.

so i have a final tomorrow. i need to study. so my blogs of my semi-adventures are limited. i will say this much: i will post a couple of pics from last saturday later. sunday i spent on the group project. monday, a presentation with my yearlong group project team. plus a pension analysis/ paper written in about an hour and a half. tuesday, a cost management presentation that was more comedy than substance. also had a drink with a young lady.

today i procrastinated and loafed-- have a 20 page paper and a test to make a crib sheet for (tonight). so i swam some laps:

2 x 50 free (fast warmup)
4 x 100 breaststroke (medium/ fast. stop laughing, marge)
2 x 50 free (medium)
2 x 200 breastroke (medium)
2 x 50 free (medium)

i need to do more laps.

then i watched a NYU women's basketball game. the women lost to baruch college, of the cuny system. the NYU women were ranked #1 in division III. but no baruch fans stormed the court. it's not every day that you can see the #1 team in the country knocked off, live.

ran into miles-- tall 6 foot 6 cat from the university-- on campus, walked and talked and drank coffee. i made him laugh. i was a counselor for an orientation program miles was in (eben was a counselor back in the day too). miles, he reminisced about the letter i wrote to all of my incoming freshmen. it was long. pages long. probably handwritten. he wondered what i wasn't doing with my time to write a number of these (though i only had 4 to do, and i wanted the kids to have a human touch).

so it's late and i am futzing around again. so i will thief this from greg. send your friends over or something, i like more suggestions:

(A) First, recommend to me:
1. a movie:
2. a book:
3. a musical artist, song, or album:
4. a song to download:
(B) I want everyone who reads this to ask me three questions, no more, no less. Ask me anything you want.
(C) Then I want you to go to your journal, copy and paste this allowing your friends to ask you anything.

Monday, December 13, 2004

updates, the quick 12.13.04

the holiday bazaar at minisink went decently, we could have had more foot traffic. the vendors/ entrepreneurs were satisfied, and we (okay, they-- i'm pretty much done with my work for the non-profit already) learned a lot for next year's attempt at a holiday fair.

the space however... wouldn't use it again. i chose the spot because we were in a crunch and all of our other spaces had fallen through. but something just didn't sit right the whole time. perhaps it was the basketball floor that was covered in strips of black plastic matting, matting that buckles and leaves gaps and moves with the motion of feet and tables-- creating the kind of gaps that trip elderly women.

perhaps it was the fact that we had been promised 2-3 people to set up our event for us, but walked in to find that not only had the tables not been set up, they had not been brought down, and only one man was working in the whole place. a sweaty and strained hour later, the other man who works at the non-profit, myself, and tyrone at minisink had brought in enough tables (and half tables, and small tables) to cover our vendors' needs.

or perhaps it was the discovery that the spot didn't have all 40 long tables we had been promised. and the tables that were available were located in the basement and the second floor for a ground floor event. hence the aforementioned sweat. and this seems to be a systematic problem-- tyrone told us that the man we had made the arrangement with often over-promises equipment and such that the facility doesn't have, or doesn't have available.

it was spacious, and we didn't have to take anything down, but still...

i will update you on carrie k and paradise hotel dave's party in a day or so but i will tell you that bacon was sizzlin'. i don't think either eats bacon, though.

Saturday, December 11, 2004

raspberry raspberry 12.11.04

today is the holiday bazaar -- i have been helping with the planning of this thing for the past couple of months and it's exciting to see if it pops off. the non-profit hopes it goes well; they do business services and loans for small businesses and this should be a chance for said small businesses to see that together they're heavy. i hope it goes well if for no other reason than to justify the 2-3 hours of my life i listened to this old ass fool tell me about his barbecue style and how people from different african nationalities are a certain way.

(if you're in the area, 142nd street and lenox avenue, minisink townhouse-- we'll be inside)

michael-- i ran into your lady, whatshername. i mean... damn, whatshername? meghan's friend-- abby. yes, abby. she has a grey streak in her hair and it's lovely, she is planning on going to graduate school in creative writing, and she doesn't read your blog. i suppose that means she don't read mine, so i can safely say that when i shuffled off the subway, weighted down by my laptop-in-backpack, i wasn't clamoring for more time with those ladies.

time to finish my lovely dinner of ham and mustard on onion bagel and get my five hours sleep. at the end of tomorrow i hope to tell you about how i dropped it like it's hot with the help of caroline k (roley on the arm), heather (pouring chandon), and morgan (my best weed), and craig (got it going on).

Friday, December 10, 2004

two sites 12.10.02

thanks to silver for the flash make-a-flake site.

and to angie for a site that lets us know how to buy from organizations that donate "blue" not "red."

in the fields with machete


in the fields with machete
Originally uploaded by picodulce.

last night while out with g-ball, hj, and morgan (who needs a nickname. can't have two morgans), the kids asked what i looked like with a machete in my hand. this is the only pic i found, from last year, headed into the florida field to chop some weeds.

silver fails to light the flame


silver fails to light the flame
Originally uploaded by picodulce.

this is my favorite silver photo. and marge will like it too

silver tries to light the flame

silver tries to light the flame
silver tries to light the flame,
originally uploaded by picodulce.
this is one of my favorite silver photos. my second favorite.

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

I Didn't Forget. 12.08.04

1. happy birthday to my mommy!

2. happy retirement to my daddy!

3. congratulations on poshie's engagement!

4. i meant to include a few weeks ago, when i went out with raycroft , that i loved meeting lee. i only wish they made her in a "single" model.

5. welcome heather rochelle and morgan to town; it's on tomorrow night! uhm, after class.

p.s.: congrats to tijuana on her appearance as the rehab doctor on law & order: SVU, where she read that cracked-out ho the riot act. and ice-t got the baby from said cracked-out ho.

Sunday, December 05, 2004

the red eyes won't speak apologies 12.05.04

gully, i am sorry we called you from the ace bar screaming about the sex that shall make marriages invalid. you see, laura and i had made peace and all, starla was happy and hyper, lauren was silly, her joel was having a good time, and the other fellows-- jacob and the rest-- were buying drinks with finance money. you know how that ends up.

with ivo writhing on the pleather chair and giggling as we tickled her. but that was wrong, and we were kind of filthy. for that, i apologize. but belly was showing, an invitation if i have ever heard one.

with your friends hollering things you barely understand just to prove that we are still out here and having that old new york happy hour time.

i got home not too late, still tired as i had been when i left my evening group project meeting, my bag heavy with swimming gear and notebooks. me, trudging along empty streets, aglow, seeking pillows and sheets.


i should apologize for arroz the rice-a-homie and myself on saturday night; we had been surrounded by our children from the summer camp and the adults who made them, uptown, in the 140's off of broadway. the locale was the size of an apartment, crammed with the whole family, no room to move, no room to sit and eat the sierra leonean food, no way to avoid being bumped by dancing women, moving to the singer/ bassist in the middle of the room, plucking her bass while her head wrap stayed perfectly still.

it was a cold evening, i had been doing homework and the rice-a-homie had just finished his LSAT's. we were tired, itchy, and being stuck on the west side highway with carline, who had been part of camp with us, and carrie (who cringes when she admits she's from st. louis), who is the new social services coordinator for the organization. gurney told us to get off the west side highway, and we did, with a lurch and a screech that is familiar to people who have driven with arroz.

riz noted that he and i together are... our own planet or filthy non-sequiturs.

miles stopped over, and there were more non-sequiturs.

and at holiday's holiday party, we kept it up, drank the green apple low carb bacardi silver (ok, we let other people drink it), enjoyed the crush in the place. sarah had the music poppin', girl sammy came late, boy sammy made friends, we closed the place down, stumbling out and onto the highways, careening to my outpost of the city, for 3 hours sleep and a morning meeting which was all numbers and "cost drivers."

i apologize to rini for calling multiple times; abberts appeared at the party through some confluence of events, and gurney was next to me, and we just wanted to say happy birthday and we're all together in one place, missing our curly-haired shevirini. but carrying on, on dance floors, resting on beds, looking out over flags and rooftops in the dead still cold, passing time as best we can.

Friday, December 03, 2004

a couple of things to read from justice scalia 12.3.04

thanks to the scarlet pimp for pointing this one out:  Scalia Says Religion Infuses U.S. Government and History

with this excerpt:

In the synagogue that is home to America's oldest Jewish congregation, he noted that in Europe, religion-neutral leaders almost never publicly use the word "God."

    But, the justice asked, "Did it turn out that, by reason of the separation of church and state, the Jews were safer in Europe than they were in the United States of America? I don't think so."

    Scalia told them that while the church-and-state battle rages, the official examples of the presence of faith go back to America's Founding Fathers: the word "God" on U.S. currency; chaplains of various faiths in the military and the legislature; real estate tax-exemption for houses of worship - and the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.

    Last year, Scalia removed himself from the Supreme Court's review of whether "under God" should be in the Pledge of Allegiance, after mentioning the case in a speech and complaining that courts are stripping God from public life.

    "None of this is compatible with what we say when we express the so-called principle of neutrality," Scalia said.


here is a bit on the non-separation of church and state in Nazi Germany.

Thursday, December 02, 2004

but pico, we all have a "friendster is awesome" story 12.2.04

but i got an email from my old peer counseling friend emily, back when i was the warm and fuzzy head of a team of warm and fuzzies. i was the co-coordinator of the school's peer counseling group. i know you're imagining the damage i could inflict on my fellow high schoolers, the perverse leering-- but i am a sweet, gentle, kind young man. i was even more so as a high school senior. a patron saint of the disaffected. a warm heart in a cold cold world. a shining light-- let me stop.

but every time i would think i should stop encouraging people to get in touch with their feelings, or telling them that they will be all right; or every time i thought i would never make it to college, that i would be an abject failure, there was emily. who would simply have faith that i couldn't suck at what i set my mind to.

hopefully i will get to hang out with emily. she is superspectacular.

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

the mets' have a potty mouthed pitcher's wife. 12.1.04

oh, anna benson, it's going to be a fun couple of years, even if your hubby stinks on the mound (the world has been promised a damned good pitcher and kris benson is just rounding into shape). but anna... oh anna. suppositories up kris' ass? uncalled for.