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

Stray saxophone through Washington Square Park, drifting along the edge of the West Village bubble. Slate-gray sky and spring weather with just a hint of cold; I could walk all day through the curvy half-roads and conversations of strangers. This is what I missed during winter weather you could drift through and being outside because really, why would you be any where else? Ambling jazz, chess hustlers who can't stand up for all the five dollar hooch burning up their system but will take you in four moves, city boy... I came here at the end of Spring, and those first few weeks were like courting. Sappy music and sweet nothings and two dozen roses for eight dollars. All the glass and steel constructions along the island's coast can't bury what was here. The fiction city of Woody Allen movies and Pouges songs bleeds through the post-mod make-up like a first draft through white out.

Confession: I haven't written a thing since getting fired from Gizmodo.

It's the writer's block I knew was coming but swore I wouldn't let take hold. Prose, words put in a way they haven't before become a phantom limb and for a while I can't function. I spent days sitting in a chair and staring at new text documents I'd close with no changes to save. Physical therapy teaches you to function without after trauma; I'd rather grow my hands back. I didn't come to New York to make mixed tapes, which is about all I've produced. I didn't come to watch it turn dark outside my window, killing time before I can sulk back to bed.

Things are bad. I'm in the vaguely shaded space between mostly and completely fucked, and every day without a job is another one closer to not having a place to live. My food comes mostly from amazing friends I haven't done much recently to deserve. I'd like to say I'm fighting back but I'm not, not really; I'm doing the bare minimum and it's catching up fast. Too much time feeling sorry for myself and listening to slow music - pop can be worse than smoking drunk driving combined. I need fire. I need hunger. Give me the Pixies, give me Joe Strummer and his mates busking outside of concert halls for gas money. I need my teeth back, need to feel the version of me I want to become as something just ahead I'm running to catch up with. There will be no waking up one morning, fully realized and owning the world. Gandhi was a lucky sap in the right place with the right ear to plead with. New York responds to conquest and hostile take over, waiting to be won in spite of rather than anything being owed.

I will come through the mountain pass, riding elephants. Time to survive rather assume, to do instead of hope.

posted by chris  # 4:44 PM