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A Few Things You Need to Know About Me
 
Hola!
 
Being that I am at work and everyone is screaming at the playoff games on the televisions (yes, there are more than one) I figured I will fill in my Log for the few people who are actually looking at my site.
 
Since it seems we’ll be spending a bit of time together, here are a few things you should know about me:
 
I Really, Really Like Being a Journalist.
 
I pity those who hate their jobs. Why? Because back when we were all knee high to a grasshopper -- perhaps back during the Reagan years, perhaps during Nixon-- we all wanted to be something. Some of us wanted to be teachers, astronauts, circus freaks even a select few wanted to be fat cat millionaires. For some reason my verbal skills developed at warp speed and so I wanted to be a writer.
 
At the age of 17 I made the executive decision to pursue writing over music at Syracuse, simply because I didn’t feel like traveling up to Syracuse for the musical audition. (Hey, prom was coming up…) I came to campus in the fall of 1995, started writing for the Daily Orange about a week later and the next thing I knew I was 26 with a portfolio that could fill a web site.
 
You see, it isn’t the act of writing that is so much fun, but rather the adventure that goes into researching a story that breeds a good time. There’s a lot of leg work in journalism, a lot of times when I found myself in strange parts of East New York buying a cup of coffee through a bullet proof window or having a conversation with strippers in Syracuse while “Paradise City” blared in the background.
 
I’m not into the daily grind of reporting that would require me to lurk around court houses and police stations all the time. Rather, I think I somehow channeled my inner Joseph Mitchell and prefer to spend a bit of time with my stories, watching them develop and waiting for them to reveal themselves to me.
 
That was a bit bloated and poetic, but I’m sure you see my point. Journalism is fun. It’s not all inverted pyramid nonsense. More often than not there is an art to it. Don’t believe me? Check out some vintage David Remnick and then get back me. While you’re at it, get a subscription to The New Yorker. Tell Malcolm Gladwell and Susan Orlean I say hey. One of these days I’ll catch up to them.
 
I Live in a Basement
 
Not an actual basement with cobwebs and old furniture, but a basement apartment in a respectable building in Gramercy. However, it is a little dark since all I have in the way of windows I have a little sliver of glass where all I see of other people walking by are their ankles. I’ve been there for a few months and I realized that although natural light is at a bare minimum, the place is perfect for my late-night Pauline Dance Parties when I like to blare everything from the White Stripes to Gram Parsons. Which brings me to the fact that…
 
I Dig Music
 
It’s hard not to in New York City, even harder when one lives closer to the east village than to midtown. I will readily admit that the first album I ever bought was the soundtrack to “Cats” but thanks to the watchful eyes of my older brothers I soon graduated to the more sophisticated sounds of Led Zeppelin and the Beatles. I lapsed a few times into poor musical taste in the late 1980s when I discovered the pleasures of Jordan Knight and New Kids on the Block (hey, I was 12) but I was back in black not long after their merchandising deals faded.
 
Currently my tastes run the gamut from The Sounds, Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, Rufus Wainwright (sigh), Rhett Miller (double sigh…even if he is married), John Mayer, Brendan Benson, Jet, Kings of Leon, Mates of State and my never-ending fascination with Led Zeppelin. The Beatles’ White Album can also do no wrong, but there is no need to state the obvious.
 
Last year I bought a large keyboard from a friend of mine and I have been tinkering on it ever since. I’m no Liberace but I think I give the folks walking by my apartment a good show when I leave the window open late at night and practice. I also got my hands on a 12-string guitar. That’s a lot of strings.
 
Oh, and anything written/played in a minor key is always a good thing.
 
A few of my current obsessions:
  • Tap dancing
  • Daily check-ups on my 401(k) plan
  • Eating humus
  • Long-distance running
  • The Liberian peace process
  • The lifecycle of New York City water bugs (at least the ones that don’t meet a horrible death at the hands of me and my bottle of Windex).
  • Finding time to go to Croatia.
  • Free haircuts
  • Lists

 
Web sites I visit far too often (you should too):

 
Things to do in New York City when you don’t know what else to do in New York City:
  • Scour the windows on Lower East Side restaurants and shops for old concert posters to hang in your apartment.
  • Eat at The Pink Pony and think that you are cool.
  • Go to Brighton Beach (Q train to Brighton Beach - it’s an express) and smile when everyone greets you in Russian.
  • Buy a kniga or two. (Kniga means “book” in Russian.)
  • Admire the view of Central Harlem from the top of Morningside Drive over by Columbia.
  • Apply to a program at Columbia just to see if you get in.
  • Walk along the Bowery and enjoy it as often as you can before it gets gross and gentrified. (Mark my words!)
  • See how long you can go without having to set foot into Times Square. (Unless of course you work there. Then by all means ignore what I’m saying.)
  • A suggestion for a good, long run: Go over the Manhattan Bridge at Canal, hook a right at Jay Street and then go back into Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s a LOT more uphill than it seems.
  • Accept the fact that Spring Street is the coolest street in Manhattan. Why? Because it just is.