a (not so) complete history.

dEaR dIaRy. i was never any good at keeping a diary or journal. i am, and fear i always will be, a diary failure. sure, i'll go through fits and spurts where i jot down my thoughts and reflections with astonishing regularity, but, inevitably, i will hit a wall, often without warning or awareness, and just stop writing in it. weeks will pass before it occurs to me that, yet again, i have abandoned a diary. then i will dive into a shame spiral, bombarding myself with the same questions - can i commit to anything? can i finish anything i start? how can keeping a diary be so hard, little girls everywhere do it effortlessly, what is wrong with me?? am i a total failure??? i have a remarkable number of half empty journals because often a new attempt at maintaining a diary requires a fresh start, meaning an unused, never before abandoned journal. i would set the goal for myself that i will fill every page of a journal from cover to cover, but, what's the point? we all know i won't do it. and looking through my diary efforts over the years, i'm not sure i'd want to. i mean, what are diaries if not embarrassing, with most of the passages bringing to mind such thoughts as "yikes! i really thought that?" "oh god, i was a mess" "what was i thinking?" "was i really that lame?" i'd rather not have written proof that i was, in fact, like that. i ask myself will i regret later on that i don't have a thorough recollection of my thoughts, feelings, and experiences in my own words? will the world regret this? no. and too bad. first of all, if i live to be a ripe old age and i have nothing better to do than sit there and relive my youth by rereading all of my old diaries, somebody please put me out of my misery. what a waste of time. just days, weeks, months or maybe a couple of years left to live and i'm going to sit on my wrinkled old ass and not live but rather retreat to the past? no, thank you. and second of all, assuming things go as planned and someday i am wildly famous, i would rather retain some degree of mystery about my life and my youth. god knows the paparazzi and those damn tabloids are going to give me enough trouble and drag everything they can into the light of day, why should i add fuel to the fire with a complete chronicle of my innermost thoughts and secrets? to the adoring public and my dedicated fans, i apologize in advance, but when i die you are going to have to look and think and hypothesize and imagine to fill in the pieces of my complicated nature and even more complex life. i am not going to make it easy for you and leave a set of diaries from my formative years that hold all the answers you will seek. and those of you who truly understand me will appreciate that and realize that is exactly how i wanted it to be.

in the meantime, i will continue to somewhat infrequently, as it has been pointed out to me by certain friends and drummers, throw thoughts and experiences and stories down on this blog. so enjoy.

this is what you are doing on august 13th, so mark your calendar.

ShEnaNiGaNs oN fIrE. collaborationtown is launching a new sketch & improv comedy initiative called shenanigans and our debut show, shenanigans on FIRE!, is saturday, august 13th @ 10pm in the arthur seleen theatre at the drama book shop (250 west 40th street). it will be an evening of sketch comedy that will make you laugh so hard you'll shit your pants. trust me, you don't want to miss this, and, if you do, i'll beat the shit out of you. just kidding. sort of. i've been doing a lot of bikram, i'm stronger than i look. don't test me. more details to come soon.

a state of the state. of sorts.

bAcK tO tHe LiFe. i'm happy to report that i was able to get into my apartment without any assistance from the fdny last night, in the past 48 hours anna has not sat in pee in a taxi cab or thrown up in front of any swank soho hotels, sara has not had any near death tumbles down subway station stairs, and i have not heard the phrase "i ain't got mouth herpes, i got straight up aids."
i guess this is what is called normal.

this one's for you, jim.

sIrEnS. the theme of my weekend evidently. expected on saturday with the siren festival. unexpected on sunday and at the courtesy of brooklyn fire engine 221.

all we wanted was a piece of furniture to sit on in our new apartment and somehow we ended up with fire engine 221, flashing lights, 6-8 members of the fdny, tools, crowbars and a ladder. i kid you not. it started so innocently with what meghan and i expected to be a simple trip to kmart to purchase a futon so that we and any guests might actually have a place to sit in our living room. the road to this particular futon had itself been a long one, it started on our june 1st move in date and finally ended yesterday. logistics (needing something relatively small and that could preferably be disassembled to get up the narrow and winding staircase), price (needing to not break the bank on this), function (needing this to serve as some sort of place for guests to sleep), and design (needing this to be a "sneaky" futon that said more couch than futon and did not have those dreadful telltale black futon railings) all causing the process to be stretched out to a month and a half. so we find this futon that we like, meg finds that kmart carries it, we decide yesterday afternoon to go pick it up from kmart - middle of manhattan, 2 girls, and a tiny toyota echo. after wasting what felt like the better part of our twenties in the new kmart "furniture showroom" waiting for someone, anyone, i don't care if you are part of the big k team or not, to help us, we proceed downstairs to customer service to pay for & pick up the futon. the box is big. it is raining. the car has to be pulled around and double parked. the box will not fit in the car. believe me, we tried. and tried. and tried some more. we end up opening the box on the sidewalk and shoving the futon piece by piece into the back seat. it almost fits. the window has to stay open so part of the frame can hang out and we can close the door. so we make our way back across the williamsburg bridge like that, park the car, unload the futon and all its components on our front stoop, and go to bring it upstairs to our apartment. but we can't get in. the door won't unlock. THE LOCK ON THE FRONT DOOR OF THE BUILDING IS BROKEN. we buzz our neighbors (there are only 3 apartments in the building). nothing. we buzz again. nothing. we buzz a lot more. nothing, nothing, nothing. we call the landlord/management company. they are closed on sundays and mondays, they leave no emergency contact number on their answering machine message. we have no name or number for the super, it is not posted anywhere. panic ensues. we call a locksmith, they say they'll send someone. we wait. there is no locksmith. we call again, he says the guy is on his way. we wait. still no locksmith. we call again, he tells me that his guy won't do it, it's illegal without the landlord's consent. so the locksmith is not coming? nope, maybe we should call the fire department. i'm sorry, the fire department? i don't know how to do that and i figure it surely cannot have come to this, so i try 311. the operator is kind, but of no real assistance. she can offer me nothing other than taking a formal complaint from me against my landlord. i'm in tears. i don't care about complaints. the landlord will hear my complaint when i finally get in touch with them. i need to get inside my apartment building. i tell her the locksmith's idea about the fire department. okay, maybe hysterically and desperately beg her to get the fire department for me is a more accurate description. she connects me to someone who connects me to my nearest firehouse, brooklyn engine 221, and after recounting all the details and explaining how i got their number in the first place, they agree to come help us out. and they do, come help us out, in the fire engine, with the lights going and the whole nine yards. we are officially a spectacle. there are screw drivers and crowbars and tools i can't identify being passed around a whole crew of firemen who cannot force the lock. plan a, to break the lock, gets set in motion, but then a last minute plan b emerges and mere seconds before the lock is popped, the ladder is coming off of the truck and being leaned against the front of the building. 1 fireman climbs the ladder to the top floor, opens my bedroom window, climbs through the window, pulling my curtains down with him and landing on my bed, finds his way out of our apartment and opens the front door to the building from the inside. they then proceed to tape the door with duct tape (to keep it from locking until it can be replaced - which won't be before tuesday ?@!?#!!? it seems since they are closed on mondays), pack up the tools, take down the ladder and leave us to assemble our futon. which we did. so now we have a place to sit and be pissed at our landlord.

really, all we wanted to was to finally get a piece of furniture to sit on, was that so much to ask?

WARNING: shameless plugging of cute designs by a good friend.

dArLiNg nIkKi. so there's this super cute, marathon running, red sox loving, christmas display window designing, crafty as all hell chick down on the lower east side. she also happens to be my friend, the wife of my friend gregg, and the girl who got me hooked on alias (i suppose she could have gotten me hooked on worse things, like heroin or crack for instance). anyway, she has finally decided to put her skills and craftiness to work and is in the process of launching darling nikki designs. kids, take it from me, check out her stuff while you can still afford it. coming off of a successful stint at the renegade craft fair in brooklyn in june, she has two pieces for sale on etsy, an ebay of sorts for the artsy-craftsy set:

and, as further evidence of her genius, check out the purse i commissioned her to make for my friend's birthday:

and she's just a really cool girl. so check her stuff out.