B O N D P H O N E.
Words and pictures by Chris Lamb.

You're standing on the empty beach at Coney Island, getting ocean on your pants and sand between your toes. There's a storm moving in, grey blobs of clouds over darker ones threatening to break over the park. Cargo ships silhouette ominous and strange through distant fog and everything is perfect: it's your first time seeing the Atlantic and it's angry and alive.

Resist yelling Shakespeare at the storm.

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Mike Doughty's 'Sunken-Eyed Girl' reaches inside and rearranges everything. You'll spend the next week falling asleep and waking up to it, trying to learn the words and failing, walking around with the headswimmy crush-with-eye-liner feeling of first hearing it wallpapering the inside of your skull.

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Max sends you on a secret mission: go to the basement of Niagara, find a seat and wait one hour. The small crowd goes quiet and a jazz fourpiece starts playing, fronted by Greg Glassman for no good damn reason at all. The old black manwalks around with a bucket for donations while Glassman bends reality around his sousaphone. Slow pan up on his disapproving look as youmutter-expllain how dirt poor you are. Man, he says, you'd pay a hundred dollars for this sorta show in the West Village. I know. Jesus, I know.

You text message Max, gushing. He answers back I know. Now shut up and HEAR.

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They've turned off the Empire State Building, giving it all the foreboding presence of lost temples or ley line towers. Maybe it's the roof top vodka and lemonades, maybe it's riding the Cyclone in the rain or watching spaceships come in through the fog over the bay; the day's ending and it clicks for good that this is home now. Wake up and do it all over again tomorrow.

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(fake girlfriend)(story about fighting and stolen tickets) + tired guards - actual tickets = free trip to the observation deck of the Empire State Building: Growing up on Connery's Bond pays off at last. When the feeling of falling in passes trace the canyons of light back to your apartment in the East Village and feel your soul float.

Remember to breathe.

Clouds and blue sky swirl like water and oil. This is every day since arriving.

I'm learning the neighborhood. Alt is good for ice coffee, but not as good as Porto Rico if you feel like walking. Ethera has no space and fewer records than most ofyour friends, but you need everything they have. and you need to meet Cricket. Sal's pizza is neccessary for survival. Benjones and Jigsaw live on 11th between A and B, across the street from the outreach mission based on coffee and ice cream. Counter, the vegan place with Sake martinis, aged Sangria, and Patrick on bartending duties is on 1st. Beyond that the map turns vauge, a scatter of landmarks and half-remembered street names. Whatever. It comes with time.

Life is a bit more solid, settling into holding patterns as the vacation feel burns off. This ain't no party. This ain't no disco. This is life now, fullitime occupancy on Mars. I need my head to come together faster, need the stiffness out of my legs and to stop spacing out on long walks. Need to rebuild and upgrade my social skills, need a job and connections. Last week was pinballing; map building and introductions all around, drinks and sleeping till noon. A series of amazing conversations at the Jigsaw opening sets the stage for Monday. I have direction. I have purpose. Somewhere in the middle comes a plan.

Tomorrow, a McSweenys show I have no buisiness being at and Mike Doughty live in Brooklyn. This is life at the center.