"Tapeworm plastron" by Cory Reid

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spreading the word

Last night I drank the night away with Sieglind and Linda, from my young writer days, and this guy Matt who has a place in historic Bethlehem. We talked about a range of subjects, but Sieglind and Matt kept returning to the subject of arrogance, and how it is different from confidence. We shared a lot of anecdotes about our love lives; Matt asked us each to define love in one word. I think Sieglind said ‘goat,’ I forget what Matt said, Linda said ‘unconditionality,’ and when pressed, I said, ‘someone who indulges my selfish tendencies.’ Matt made some remark about the distinction between making love and sex that could’ve been considered arrogant, and this again brought him and Sielgind back to the same discussion. I said several times that I was tired of all this heavy stuff. Matt has a wall where people sign and write down something, so I wrote down something to this affect, that is not wanting to talk about all this heavy stuff anymore. Then below my name I wrote the address of this blog.

chix with dix

Northampton does have a lot of weird posturing going on, and like I said before a lot of goofy people, but when I got back I began to realize that Bethlehem has a lot crazies/annoying people too. I was out for drinks at the Your Welcome Inn and on the way back I stopped in a gas station to pee. A guy that looked like a typical Lehigh Univ. bro approached me. You like transvestites right? he asked. Like girls with penises, he explained; he seemed to think that I didn’t know what a transvestite was. What makes him think that, I thought. He continued to explain to me what a transvestite is. I said, what is it? Is it the skinny jeans, the glasses, the Las Vegas coat that changes color depending on how the light hits it (pictured in the previous blog post and discussed in an entry from December)?

Finally I said, you got me bro, I just dig those chicks with dicks. He gave me a hug and said, I was just kidding.

days of new england

I was in Northampton last weekend visiting all those people up there. I picked up Ezra, Jo and Dave along the way. Dave documented much of the trip with his new camera. Here’s me with a bothered look on my face.

We went to Target and Dave and I bought the same shorts; then we played Sam Tilley and Ben ? in badminton. We may not have won, but we said a lot of obnoxious, insulting things. Sometimes that's all that counts.

We went to brunch both mornings. I find brunch endlessly satisfying. Downtown I was reminded of all the goofy ass people in Northampton: colored hair, dreadlocks, stupid pants, cargo pants, piercings, etc. etc. We were walking and I made this remark to Jo. Watch out, she said. Sure enough, when I turned around there was a frumpy looking girl with dyed blue hair and stupid cargo pants. Then a few steps later we passed by a white guy with dreadlocks.

echoes of Florence

Last Saturday night Sarah, Stacey and I went to several bars in Bethlehem. At Joe’s Tavern we learned how to play darts and drank two dollar beers with a Liberty High School drop out and his friend from New Jersey. The guy from New Jersey stuck with us for the whole night and at The Brew Works it somehow came out that he is an audio/videophile and we had a long interesting conversation about stereos. Then Stacey brought up Matt Popolardo (sp), who was a big asshole when I was in boy scouts with him and who later was my editor-in-chief when I edited the entertainment section of Liberty Life. His dad was also kind of an asshole, and went on a real power trip in his role as assistant scout chief (or whatever the hell they’re called) when he took away our gameboys and walkmans when we were at boy scout camp. I suppose earning merit badges was important if I wanted to advance beyond tenderfoot, but I just wanted to play Pokémon. Mr. Burgermister, the real chief, was a great guy, but my dad suggested to me that Mr. Popolardo and his wife were trying to get him out of there, and I think they succeeded sometime after I quit. Well, there is no justice.

I wish the people who follow this blog and have their own blogs would update more often so I have something else to do when I go on the internet other than look at fbook status updates of people I don’t really care about. I’ve been going through and hiding a lot of them. Pretty soon they’ll be hardly any left.

I watched That Obscure Object of Desire today, Buñuel’s last film. The object of desire, played by both Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina, had an accent and way of speaking that at many times (especially when moaning or complaining) was uncannily similar to the way Florence spoke. When she would say, c’est pas possible, it brought me back to Paris and the days when she walked in and started talking to herself.

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I find it awkward and difficult to reconcile my liberal arts college/douche bag identity with Bethlehem. For example, at Porter’s pub last night I experienced this vaguely disconcerting sensation. I think this sensation is exaggerated by my new jeans, which are still unbroken in and rather tight. My old music teacher Dave Smith, who plays saxophone, flute, and guitar, was playing with my friend Jessie Horning’s bf on guitar and two other guys on bass and drums. They played really jammy funk/jazz fusion that reminded me of Miles Davis in the ‘70s. Dave really hammed it up, and took really long extravagant solos on his guitar, although all the solos were long. It devolved into a really loud jam session. Even though I enjoyed it, this dissonant, even experimental music seemed really out of place in a bar that caters to middle-aged people who like micro brews.* It kind of reminded me of how out of place Bill Pullman seems playing free jazz saxophone at a dance club in Lost Highway. Whenever Dave took a sax solo, the people at the table in front of him got up to go to the bar. Also, we noticed that there were a lot of really fat guys.

*Looked at from a different angle, this could be a “stuff white people like” kind of thing (jazz and micro brews, etc.) but I’m not going to go into it.

5th ave

The other day I was walking on 5th Avenue with Ben and an overweight girl with glasses walking in the other direction with her friend said, ‘hey how’s it going?’ I said ok, how about you? I had to repeat myself several times. Then she asked me how old I was. 21, I said. How old do you think I am? she asked. I didn’t think about it very much and said, 17. She seemed surprised and laughed. She was not attractive. Really? she said. Well, maybe more like 15, I said and she said that I was right, she was 15. Congratulations, I said. Then she admitted that she was 13, and I congratulated her for that, too. I didn’t hear it, but Ben said that as we walked away she said ‘nerds’ under her breath.

new sidewalk

We're getting a new sidewalk in front of our house so there are guys out there laboring throughout the day. (I was tempted to write the address of my blog in the wet cement but I decided that my parents wouldn't appreciate it). I find that often when I walk outside these guys say something funny or witty, but for some reason I always have to ask them to repeat themselves, and this just ruins what would be pleasant banter. For instance, one time one of the guys said, 'want to help out?' This would be funny if they said it to anyone, but I think it's even more funny directed at me, since I probably look to them like a douchey college kid unfamiliar with hard labor (which is essentially true). But I had to ask the guy to repeat himself about two times, because it was difficult to hear him over the noise of the radio they have playing.