I am very grateful that my family is safe and well. God bless those who lost their lives without warning or reason and God bless the people of new york city.
 
monday, september 10
1:11 AM Yesterday I bought the most perfect belt buckle in the world. It says "I like country music" with two guitars with little confederate flags on the guitars. I saw it and couldn't even believe it actually existed.

"There's too much darkness in this world
Take a look inside and you'll find a pearl.
It's a brand new day."
- Har Mar Superstar, Brand New Day
 
monday, september 3
4:14 AM Back in the land of lutefisk...

I flew through pittsburg this time. I've never been to pittsburg but I was somewhat interested in seeing it. Apparently pittsburg is a happening town now. It seems like every few years a previously hum-drum town becomes cool. In the early nineties it was seattle, then it was portland, oregon. Now it's pittsburg. What's next? I predict either boise, idaho or dayton, ohio.

Anyway, I was only in the airport so of course I can't tell you anything about pittsburg. All airports are the same. The airport in pittsburg is the same as the airport in new york, which is the same as the airport in saint paul. The only difference is the airport gift shop. In pittsburg, they sell heinz tomato ketchup t-shirts and mugs, because heinz tomato ketchup is made there. In new york they sell the statue of liberty. In saint paul they sell "My governor can beat up your governor" t-shirts. So that way, in every airport you're in, you know what the town is all about.
 
sunday, september 2
2:41 PM I don't know if anyone else has seen this... but some lunatic completely stole junona's website. She even stole her lomographs! I am struck dumb. Let's write mean thing in her guestbook!
 
2:14 AM Spent today packing. I really want to get a big camping backpack so I can just put all my stuff in there when I travel. I wanna be a man on the go.

Tomorrow I get on a plane to minnesota to go back to college. That means the summer is officially over. To re-cap what happened over the summer: I went to hong kong for six weeks, had two weeks in new york and a week in los angeles and another two weeks in new york. It was a really good summer, I have to say.
 
saturday, september 1
3:15 AM Yesterday dad drove andy and I up to new haven to help any move his stuff into college. We ate dinner in new haven's little italy and had italian ice at Libby's. new haven is such a picturesque town in a lot of ways. At the same time, parts of the town have the worst poverty. It's a fascinating town, really.
 
thursday, august 30
1:27 AM Today patrick and leslie came down to NYC from upstate to hang out and crash. They're leaving for minnesota tomorrow morning. Tomorrow andy settles into new haven. I can't believe college is starting again. That warps my mind.

I was watching Errol Morris' First Person. They were interviewing this guy who won lots of money on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and he was an interesting guy. He forged documents and used aliases to re-do his senior year of high school over in a couple different high schools. He went to all the classes and to the prom again. He liked the idea of living his life over and re-doing things. He said that when you're in high school, life is simpler, because you know why you're miserable. But out of high school, the answer to your misery is far more elusive and mysterious. That's an unsettling observation.
 
tuesday, august 28
10:35 PM Today I bought the brand new Björk album. It's very pretty music. And then I got a haircut.
 
monday, august 27
10:52 PM Yesterday I bought some melatonin and some saint john's wort. Now I feel great because I have the meds.

I took the melatonin last night and it put me straight to bed. I had been waking up at 3 PM and going to bed at 7 AM. It was a vicious cycle.

The saint john's wort is to cure depression. I've been told it works well. I don't think I'm depressed, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to try some and see if it made me any happier.

So today I woke up bright and early and went to the dentist. Poo. I hate getting my teeth scraped and getting my gums all bloody. I was thinking how weird it is to be a dentist. They get all in your mouth with their fingers and those pointy scrapy-thingies and it's okay.

Going to the dentist also involved going uptown. Weird. I never go up there. This city is so huge.
 
sunday, august 26
5:17 AM "I don't even have a driver's license yet, okay? So that's where I'm at." - Jerry Stahl Permanent Midnight
 
friday, august 24
8:27 PM It's best to view the world as would a foreigner. Be a tourist who is just visiting this planet. One should be culturally removed from one's own surroundings so that even one's own home town is foreign to them. This way, your whole life can be a vacation.

A new yorker can have vacations in new york, an italian can have vacations in italy and an iowan can have vacations in iowa.
 
tuesday, august 21
11:59 PM Tonight I saw The Anniversary Party. Sometimes I feel as though I just consume movies ferociously. Like I am addicted to them. andy and I were leaving the house and mom asked where we're going. We said we were seeing a movie so she decided to come along with us. I haven't been to the movies with my mom in forever and now I am reminded why.
 
monday, august 20
10:16 PM Recently, I have been going to the korean film festival at anthology film archives. If you're in the nyc area, you should do yourself a favor and check it out. I saw Attack The Gas Station! on friday with seb and andy. It's about four anarchists who attack a gas station. I saw Momento Mori yesterday with andy. It's a wonderful film about high school, suicide, lesbianism, ghosts. Great stuff.

Today andy and I hung out with geoff. He showed us his latest toy (every time I see him, he has a new toy), a big fat mp3 player! We were trying to see a movie but there's nothing good out now. We were in battery park when there was a huge rainstorm and so we ran into the movie theater. But we still didn't want to see anything. This movie theater was attached to a hotel so I suggested we walk around the hotel and check it out. We went to the top floor and it gave me fear of heights. We goofed around a lot. We hung out in the hotel's lounge and there seemed to be a whole lotta hip-hop type guys. They seemed pretty money so I assumed they were rappers. geoff realized that they were D-12. Yay! I love their new song on the radio.
 
friday, august 17
7:40 AM Yesterday I went to the radiohead concert with andy, geoff, and geoff's brother stu. geoff is being a lunatic and attending all 3 radiohead shows in new york. What a fanatic! This concert was in liberty state park, so radiohead could be amazing with the statue of liberty behind them. Now getting from manhattan to liberty state park was a lot more complicated than any of us expected.

Our first thought was to get a ferry. new jersey's right across the river, so it made the most sense. As we walk through battery park city, we can spot the radiohead fans easily. battery park city is one of the squarest neighborhoods in the world, so anyone looking remotely "indie" wouldn't be down there for any reason other than radiohead.

The ferry was totally booked. Fans had bought ferry tickets from ticketmaster accompanying their radiohead tickets.

No problem, we would take nj transit. So for $1.50 we take the train in one stop from the world trade center to jersey city. new jersey is weird because it's right outside manhattan but we never go there. We get out of the train and our directions are to switch to the "light rail," whatever that is. And there's a huge line of hipster radiohead fans in line trying to buy tickets for that. They're all new yorkers so they are buying from machines that are completely foreign to them. Each ticket prints out one by one, and very slowly too.

We wait in line for half an hour and buy four round trip tickets to liberty state park. First we try geoff's credit card... there's an error. Then we try andy's credit card... error. Finally we try my credit card and it works. Then of course we wait five minutes for all 8 tickets to print out.

When we finally get on a "light rail" train, no one checks the tickets we just waited half an hour in line for. Of course not! The train is packed, no one would check tickets on a packed train. We waited in line for no reason.

When we reach liberty state park, just when we thought things couldn't get any more surreal... we see school buses. These school buses take us to the actual grounds of the park where radiohead is playing. It feels like we're on some demented school trip.

So, after the path train, the light rail, and the school bus, we are at the concert. We look across the river and see the world trade center. It's where we started two hours ago!

It's a huge outdoor concert with lights and smoke and two big TV screens on both sides of the stage where Thom's big lazy-eyed face appears. There must have been 10 thousand people there. radiohead was excellent!

After the concert we realize that even though getting to the concert was hard, leaving it will be much worse because everyone is trying to leave at the same time. We give up on trying to catch a bus since there is a huge line and decide to start walking. We're walking and walking and all these buses are driving past us so stu decides to stick out his thumb like a hitchhiker as a joke... except the bus actually stops for us! So we all jump in and the bus takes us to the light rail station. It's a good thing we caught that bus too, because it would have been a very long walk.

The day before yesterday andy, geoff, olga and I all went to see American Pie 2. Hee hee. I couldn't believe it was happening, it was so unreal. It's the feel good movie of the summer, kids.
 
wednesday, august 15
12:35 AM Yesterday, after sleeping for about 15 hours andy and I went out and we bumped into olga. Yay!

Today we went out to buy some CDs. I got the cure galore. We bumped into a few people we knew. Three times. I like how you can bump into people in new york. It makes life really really good.

"A: What's with you today?
B: What's with today today?"
- Empire Records
 
monday, august 13
7:22 AM Back in new york. I'm home! That was a fabulous vacation, a week in LA. I needed that. Each time I visit someplace new, the world becomes bigger for me.

So wednesday summer drove andy and I to ellie's apartment in irvine. justin (sven) came along too. On the way over we stopped in the hustler store in LA. They sell porn and erotic art books and also there's a cafe. It's classy.

ellie sharing her apartment with a bunch of girls from her college, UC Irvine. It's a big, fancy, clean apartment. They even had a pool. Now when I packed for LA, I packed light. Everything I brought fit in one small backpack. I only packed 4 t-shirts and 4 pairs of underwear (I really should have packed more underwear) and wore the same shorts and sandals (no socks!) every day. So I took the opportunity to wash my clothes there.

Friday gerard drove ellie, andy and I to see tricky at the glass house in pomona. An amazing concert. I was right in front of the stage, close enough to touch tricky's toes. He comes out in a white tank top, jeans and pink slippers. He is alternately smoking cigarettes and breathing from his inhaler. He takes off the pink slippers, pulls off his socks and takes off his tank top. That's when you know adrian thaws is gonna fuck shit up. I took out my lomo and used a whole roll of film on him. When those red stagelights went up I could have sworn the devil himself possessed tricky that night.

On saturday we went back to LA, to the sunset strip. The plan was to see the eels at the roxy, but summer didn't have a ticket. It was a sold-out show (who could have guessed that anyone still likes the eels?) and the scalpers were charging $35 a ticket. So we said fuck this, we don't even like the eels. And so andy and I sold our tickets for $20 bucks each to some nice emo kids and we checked out the city.

We went to ellie's parents' house in orange county that night. It's a beautiful house. It's filled with CDs and records that her dad bought. It's got a pool and beautiful view from the mountain top and a little daschund named enzo. We watched Empire Records.

The next day ellie's dad drove andy and I to the airport and we took the red-eye home.