day 21 manhattan

you like it here cuz the weathers perfect. you feel safe here cuz of all the witnesses. you eat here cuz its delicious an who doesnt love hot nuts?

i had a street hot dog before my drinks with the publisher. then i had a slice at Joe’s after i was pleasantly buzzed and had deposited my check. i get paid once a month. a fat check. a check that seems like it should be fatter but its actually just right im just getting greedy. and foolish.

i should never stay in a hotel over $100. i should never spend more than $50 on rounds of drinks. i should quit giving the homeless everything i have, but i feel better for some reason giving people my money than giving it to myself. lord only knows why.

because i dont know any better im typing you from a starbucks near bleeker street. after the pizza i walked around like a tourist and took pictures of everything in the dark. i found the starbucks because i knew i could plug in and later take a dump. so they got me to pay for a bottled water and a $2 slice of brownie with espresso chips. i hate all things coffee flavored but this wasnt bad.

at first i was reading my email and doing LAist stuff and listening to this 18 yr old girl with a HEAVY ny accent talk to her handsome bf. he was bored out of his mind but she was so damn cute that both of us tolerated it. then her mom called and she stepped out side and talked to her while sitting next to him on the other side of the glass revealing her lowerback tattoo.

now two married couples are talking about married couple things. am i crazy to Never want to talk about married couple things? once upon a time i was all about that. now im so not about that. i want to talk about love slaves and box seats and low end restuarants and sexual positions. maybe i will be persuaded to talk about the pysics of a curveball or novels but potty training and child pyschyiatrists in frisco and blackberrys? no thanks tom hanks.

it just turned midnight and im pooped from drinking and walking and carrying my laptop around my back. if i lived here id be in the best shape cuz you walk everywhere and id be carrying this laptop everywhere. my man in chicago says that he might hook me up with a smaller laptop one day and i totally could use that. but this workout is fine. in fact its better than fine.

say what you want about soho but it was pretty sweet-o. these two superhot japanese girls apologized to me and jake for interrupting us and asked us where a good italian restaurant was. thats pretty close to asking magic johnson where the nearby sports arena is. after he gave them two options including the names of the chefs who make them good, i said, dude if you werent married i would have said, “italian? just your luck ladies WE were about to go have some pasta ourselves. please, be our guests.” the babes were that hot.

basically everyone here is that hot. i could be hallucinating but i havent seen an ugly girl in two days. pretty amazing. tomorrow night the bears play. i want to cover them for LAist since we dont have a football team. the kids would freak out and protest like mad but sometimes you have to rattle the cage.

i have no idea how to get back to brooklyn. i have no idea where i am. i have no idea what im doing tomorrow other than going to AOL/Time Warner and hanging out with the Fat Man, but i do know that i’ll be drinking.

my birthday is in three weeks.

theres really no explaining half the shit that happens.

good shit or bad. you can try. i guess thats what writers do. they try to explain shit. but it doesnt stop the shit from happening.

you can be a trained salesman. you can be a trained cop. you can be a trained fireman but tick tock it dont stop. people are gonna still say sorry just looking, or people are still gonna rob shit, and shits still gonna catch fire.

the biggest mistake a writer can make is thinking that he can write something that will help people not make the same mistakes that he made. map makers have the same problem. they can show you the road that leads to the bottomless pit and you can mark it bottomless pit but all that ever does is make people want to go to the bottomless pit and now they know the directions.

her name was anna. she lived by the sea. she claimed to read no one but me.

i ate really good last night. i ate italian made from actual italians in a place thats been around since 1818. almost as old as me. it was a place where sailors would come after theyve been at sea on wooden boats. after they drank at the bars and paid for love and cleaned up a little. i pissed in the tiny but really clean bathroom and i wondered how many people barfed pissed and kissed in that john. i wondered how many hands touched that door handle. i wondered how many stories they had to tell.

i took my left overs and gave them to a man passed out in the subway station. he had two shopping bags with him and a wool cap over his eyes. shrimp mariana i told him but he didnt wake up. warm buns and spaghetti i whispered but he snoozed and dreamed of the grand canyon i bet.

amy had eaten with me and she asked me what the nxt big tony pierce thing was. i said i just got a job and i love it. she said yes but its just a blog. i was all baby here we are on an island that the indians thought was just worth some beads. she said good point so what after the blog. i said first i want that blog to be the biggest and best in LA. i want it to make the LA Times jealous. i want it to influence everyone around us. i want it to be the thing that helps writers go on to bigger and better. she said good good but what about for tony.

it was so hard to believe that one of my smartest friends couldnt see that tony was being totally taken care of by that blog. there i was on the road working. there i was eating shrimp and drinking booze and laughing with 100 year old waitresses. for the exception of the ladies who had been jackhammering my heart, this was a trip dreams are made of.

i have no aspirations other than tell the continuing story of LA. while kissing girls out of my league. while striking out across this great land. while sleeping late and wearing dumb clothes and getting closer to the end, which is in itself just the begining of that bottomless pit.