06.01.06
(written 06.04.06--3:35 p.m.)

so hot of late
i went into rite aid
to buy a fan.

and they had all their fans
displayed and plugged in
on one counter

and there i saw a tower fan

i felt air blow out of it
cool store air conditioned air

and so beautiful it was
that tower fan
that now it is next to my bed
its remote control at the ready.

06.02.06
(written 06.04.06--3:46 p.m.)

i said to sam
after a night at the show
pointing out all the pretty girl musicians
"there's the one i've always wanted,
i've been crushed out on her so bad."
and it was nice when she saw me,
walked over to me working the merch table

when i got home i looked
at her myspace page
two new pictures

06.03.06
(written 06.04.06--5:43 a.m.)

if you're looking to see what's on,
and you see it's the last 15 minutes of turk 182,
put it on.

and there's a young timothy hutton
at the height of his acting powers,
flying in a harness across the
queensborough bridge
to refigure the 75th anniversary lighting
to spell out turk 182,
to honor his firefighter brother,
played by robert urich,
who rescued a young girl from a fire,
while off-duty and drunk,
injured himself
and the city refused to pay for his medical care.

so his brother, hutton,
took to putting on stunts around the city
to embrarass the mayor,
signing them turk 182,
ending with him flying through the air
to spell out turm 182 in lights.

throw in a police officer gone mad
and shooting at hutton,
played by peter boyle,

and turk's lady,
played by a young kim cattrall
at the end of one of the best four-year streaks in hollywood history:

porky's
police academy
turk 182

and that's all you need.

06.04.06
(written 06.06.06--3:26 p.m.)

sold my mets tix off for today’s game against the giants
and a week ago i’m happy that bonds won’t hit number 715
while i’m not in the park,
however much the mark is a fraud,
and today a great back-and-forth game
that the mets lose
and i feel bad
but am happy i’m not there to watch it happen.

06.05.06
(written 06.06.06--3:26 p.m.)

i could had the paper at the printer
on thursday, really friday night, maybe
but it was a a big maybe
so i decided not to try and probably fail
and finished up leisurely over the weekend
making last corrections today
then last checks of last corrections
transferring the files to the printer
in the evening hours
about four hours later
my printer contact called
i had forget to phone him
because i sent the files in so early,
but now everything’s good,
paper for sure ready in the early a.m.

06.06.06
(written 06.06.06--3:26 p.m.
written 06.09.06--1:03 p.m.)

1,000 extra copies for my cover subject
and my distribution guy doesn’t have a way
to bring them up to my apartment
so i go down and swipe a laundry cart
every side of it has a sign
“do not remove from the laundry room”
but i do
and coming back inside the building
i reach two housing cops
who block me
from going down the hallway
and one says leave the cart there
and carry the 1,000 copies
plus my 250
the 100 feet to the elevator,
but after some pleading on my part
he said i could use the cart
but only to go to the elevator
so i left the cart there
and threw the five bundles into the elevator
and then back out on the sixth floor,
carrying two to my door
then three more
before going back to the lobby
and returning the cart to the laundry room.

06.07.06--3:26 p.m.

the importance of the movie summer catch (2001)

freddie prinze’s brother is iron eagle’s jason gedrick,
his father is fred ward,
henry miller in henry & june

prinze and matthew lillard appear together in their fifth film

brian dennehy, as the manager,
after cutting two of his players for setting a fire to the new pressbox,
delivering my favorite line of the movie:
“they’re ghosts. you hear me, they’re ghosts.”

legendary broadcaster curt gowdy
appearing as the voice of the chatham a’s,
prinze’s team in the cape cod league

jessica biel being oh so Jessica biel

wilmer valderamma spending the summer
living in the home of the cape cod league’s baseball annie,
beverly d’angelo

a cameo from hank aaron as a scout

alongside scrubs doc john c. mcginlley
unbilled as phillies’ legendary scout hugh alexander,
the man who signed hall of famer mike schmidt

06.08.06
(written 06.09.06--1:33 p.m.)

my niece michelle’s bat mitzvah in two days
so today is my errand day
leave at 1 o’clock after judging amy
head to the podiatrist
pick up my custom-fitted innersoles
have him cut my toenails
(a diabetes perk)
then off to the barber college
$6 for a haircut and a beard trim
and i get my hair cut by an instructor
which is nice
and tip him five bucks,
before heading to my commerce bank
and buying her a bond for a gift.
and then a gift for me
a trip to my pharmacy,
but they don’t have my lithium scrip filled,
problems with my coverage,
but it’s too late to call now
and i’m not laying out
money i have but don’t have,
but i need my lithium,
i really need my lithium.

06.09.06
(written 06.14.06--5:41 p.m.)

(sing)

yesterday
gathered all of my laundry from around my apartment
see when you don’t leave the house that much
all you need to wear is sweats and a v-neck undershirt
so that’s what I do
and then rewear outside errand outfits again
but now family’s in town for the bat mitzvah
and i need clean clothes again.

so yesterday i call
the laundry that i’ve used for eight years now
but their phone keeps ringing
and no one picks up
so i try again this morning
and finally someone picks up
“hi this is verizon,
we’re working on the line,
can you call back.”
so i do
and then my laundry’s picked up
a big and a little bag
and i wait for their return
so i can head to my folks.

06.10.06
(written 06.14.06--6:08 p.m.)

at our niece michelle’s bat mitzvah
my big brother sit’s next to me
pantomiming punching my right thigh
repeatedly
until finally he does it
but not so hard that i’ll have to keep in a scream
and then he asks me if i know when he’s being called up to the altar
because he has to pee real bad
i tell him i don’t know
but how much fun i had that summer
when i swam in boulder creek
and how beautiful the hudson river looked
on those amtraks to visit judy in albany.

06.11.06
(written 06.14.06--6:24 p.m.)

too loud
so loud
mister bat mitzvah d.j.
please turn it down

•

there are 50 kids
at my niece’s bat mitzvah
not because she has 50 friends
nobody does
but because now nobody wants to hurt anybody’s feelings
so all the kids in your regular school class are invited
and all the ones in your hebrew school class, too
time for some kids to be excluded
experience real life early too.

06.12.06
(written 06.14.06--6:32 p.m.)

stuck around an extra day
to hang some more with my folks
’cause there wasn’t that much time to with the bat mitzvah
and so dad ordered in Italian food
and we ate while sitting in the den
we watched some oxygen channel movie I found
with julia stiles in the title role of carolina
about two weeks after i saw the die-hard mets fan on my tv
throwing out the first pitch at shea stadium

06.13.06
(written 06.14.06--7:14 p.m.)

i’m all out of lithium
got enough in my bloodstream
i can wait two days
’til i go out again
it’ll last,
hard to pay cash now.

06.14.06
(written 06.15.06--3:24 p.m.)

you called today
and we don’t call anymore
we talked on the phone
not typing to and fore
let’s try and go and do that some more.

06.15.06
(written 06.25.06—1:00 a.m.)

helping my sister w/her new magazine
(play on permanent repeat)

06.16.06--9:46 a.m.

(dream)

at brother’s house
his wife wants to use my printer
(for some reason I have my hp printer
that is difficult for two people to lift
at my brother’s house)
I tell her sure
next to it is my old apple imagewriter ii printer
my first printer
a dot-matrix one
and she unspools a sheet of paper
puts it in the hp printer
and prints;
for some reason I don’t stop her.
there’s a paper jam
i have trouble pulling out the top drawer to check the jam
because now the printer is in my apartment
where there’s been a bridge table set up
since nathaniel, jon, and I sorted through all boog cities two months ago
when I get the drawer open I find crumpled up manila envelopes and pieces of paper,
and an entire tiny green metal office desk drawer with its contents
--scissors, paper clips and the like.
i wonder who to suspect,
my sister-in-law at the top of my list.

all of a sudden my brother’s home
it’s nice to see him
and i want to tell him things aren’t going too well
but i don’t
him and his wife
have big cups of dunkin’ donuts coffee in their hands,
the big one they’re called,
and he says,
“there’s coffee over there for you,”
i want to ask if it’s decaf but don’t.

they start getting ready
and they’re close to being ready to leave
we’re going to some party out east for one of risa’s artists
a red-themed party,
and my sister-in-law is in a red dress
i jokingly ask to borrow the one hanging on the back of their bedroom door,
and hope that my red beard isn’t too thin
from the shave i took last week for my youngest niece’s bat mitzvah

my sister-in-law talks
to their almost 15-year-old daughter
who really wants to come with us tonight
and tells her that she can’t go to a club until she’s 19,
her daughter asks if we’re going to studio 54.

i ask my brother for a towel
so i could at least go in the shower
and wet myself down to wake up
he goes to look for one but never comes back.

we end up on the greenery
dividing a small road out east
my friend philip is there
and i’m surprised to see him
there’s risa,
with some magenta highlights in her hair.

06.17.06
(written 06.25.06—1:02 a.m.)

at the diner
after seeing keeping up with the steins with my folks
dad and i notice
how the two couples at the booth by us
have left the table empty
which i don’t think i’ve ever seen
as normally the woman go to the bathroom
and then when they return
the men do so.

the men return first,
sitting across from one another,
and when their wives come they don’t get up right away.
my dad mentions that they want to sit in
and that men are never supposed to sit on the outside in a booth,
and though he’s an articulate man
the only explanation I kept getting out of him was
“that’s just not the way it’s done.”

06.18.06
(written 06.25.06—1:10 a.m.)

all the driving i’ll do
for a long time
will be behind the wheel of one of my parents’ cars
as i don’t need a car in the city
and even if i wanted one
i’m too broke to even contemplate
insuring the old pontiac bonneville they’ve offered me
and have sitting in their driveway
plateless

so i barely fit behind the no-tilt steering wheel
in my dad’s jeep cherokee
as i drive my youngest niece
to buy a $25 borders gift certificate
on father’s day
wondering what the situation is
in their new hyundai xg 350l

06.19.06
(written 06.25.06—7:46 p.m.)

(sing)

it’s better to write about you
then all of the problems that took place tonight
’cause each time that i looked at you
it made everything seem more than alright

06.20.06
(written 06.25.06—7:46 p.m.)

i run one month behind on the bills i can
helping my money stay mine a little longer
so rcn, my cable, phone, and cable modem provider
sends their bill with two months on it
and then i’ll get a disconnect notice
a week or so later
with a week to 10 days more to pay the past due,
and then on the last day log on to their website
and pay the first of the two months
and within a week or so
the next bill with two months arrives.

but now you can only pay online
if you pay your entire bill
and to pay just your past due
you could punch it in on your phone’s keypad
and that now costs $2.95
or you can give your information
to a phone representative
and that now costs $4.95

i was going to rip out all their connections
cancel every last service i have
call a new cable company
to hook me up
but i couldn’t be bothered
so this month i paid the $2.95 fee
to beat the disconnect deadline,
maybe by next month i’ll online clear my balance
and start fresh.

06.21.06
(written 06.25.06—8:14 p.m.)

found out i could get caller id free with my bundle package
though they used to tell me
i had to pay for it
so for free it’s worth it to me

i don’t know yr number
yre a bill collector
my machine has a nice home
for your voice
goodbye.

06.22.06
(written 06.25.06—8:23 p.m.)

if you don’t call me on my birthday
then why should i call you on yours

but why do i feel guilty about this today
when i know on mine yre not thinking of me

06.23.06
(written 06.25.06—8:27 p.m.)

calls from my eldest niece now in the city
going to her first concert here with a friend
more calls in a day than the whole of last year,
on shorter distances it’s worthwhile
for two to share cabs than subway

06.24.06
(written 06.25.06—8:38 p.m.)

fifteen dollars for me
that is all i have
so to go to the concert
i have to go out twice
once while my bank’s open to withdraw fourteen and change
then another to head to the show
or maybe that bank
at the corner of w.22nd and 8th
still gives out singles
from the first atm
but if i go out late
and they don’t anymore
then i’ll have to head home
and not go to the show
i may have money on my metrocard
to travel back and forth
but the first band i want to see
goes on 930, which really means 10
and it’s free until 9,
then five dollars after that
and i could try and find a friend there
who i’m ok with mooching off of
or i could show up before 9 so i don’t have to pay
but i don’t want to mooch off of someone
i haven’t mooched off of before
and i don’t want to show up earlier
as i want to stay later
because it’s the last band’s last show.
watch behind the camera:
the unauthorized story of three’s company

06.25.06—2:12 p.m.

in the ap story on the kidman-urban wedding they say in the lead:

Nicole Kidman married country music star Keith Urban at an Australian clifftop chapel Sunday in an intimate ceremony attended by close family and a smattering of A-list stars.

--then later on they say:

The bulk of the 230 or so guests were reportedly Australian friends and family.

--does the phrase intimate ceremony refer solely to the actual ceremony, which probably has under 10 taking part--if you include a singer, a ring-giver, etc.--or does it refer to the size of the wedding itself? if the latter, is 230 intimate? and, if not, shdn't the lede have been rewritten to read "an intimate by celebrity standards ceremony"?

ALSO, they wrote:

A quartet from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra was expected to perform, as is Jackman, who sprang to fame in the Broadway musical "The Boy from Oz" before striking success in Hollywood as Wolverine in the "X-Men" series.

--the boy from oz opened on October 16, 2003, while X-Men opened on July 14, 2000 and X2 opened on May 2, 2003, meaning there're numerous ways that that sentence shd have been rewritten, yes?

boo ap.

06.26.06
(written 06.29.06—12:08 p.m.)

i like my lithium most
of the meds i take
not as much as eddie yost
or his son ned

that’s not true,
i like my lithium most
more than emily post
or her daughter dead

06.27.06
(written 06.29.06—12:12 p.m.)

thank you rosmarie
for buying my dinner
egg salad on dry rye toast
with tomato and onion
saved me seven dollars
tax and tip included

and then I went to my gristede’s
did some light junk shopping
checked my bank balance in my memo pad,
$15.96
double-checked as I shopped and was rung out
sure not to have the checkout person
have to get a key and undo
all done, it was $15.74
22¢ for me.

06.28.06
(written 06.29.06—12:18 p.m.)

i spent my last two dollars
on a bottle of caffeine free diet pepsi,
it has a superman daily planet label
it’s kinda neat.

on the walk home to my apartment
find two dollars on the walkway
that i guess will be for tomorrow’s
caffeine free diet pepsi
that has a superman daily planet label
that’s kinda neat

06.29.06
(written 07.01.06—2:38 a.m.)

out once
then back
out again
then back
one trip outside has been difficult
a second outside on the same day?
almost impossible,
but i don’t want to hear shit from my therapist
so i go out again
another trip out to dinner with risa
well intentioned me plans on it
but the rain pours
and i don’t want to get soaked
“it seems G-d doesn’t want us to get together,” she im’s.

06.30.06
(written 07.01.06—2:45 a.m.)

please don’t let this feeling end
i need to go to sleep
and i really want to
kind of
crystal light peach tea’s up in the kitchen
this time turn on the light walking downstairs
so i don’t do a header
and look through the eyes of love