Helpful Tips

This morning I went through my daily routine which is to get breakfast. I normally get some sort of juice, some cereal, maybe a bagel if I'm really feeling the hungies, and some water. I usually get a cup and fill it with ice and that way save some money by not buying bottled water. But today the ice machine wasn't working. And the ice machine on our floor tastes weird. So I bought a bottled water.

You know how in a lot of packaging now there's this "smart choices made easy" logo? Supposedly delineating that they are healthy? Well, the water has it slapped on it. Nice. So they are telling me that water is good for me? That water is healthy? That water is low in calories? Nice. Who is runnign this campaign? Nino's?

I thought I'd also mention I looked them up and found that Cap'n Crunch Cereal and Aunt Jemima syrup are both "smart choices" too.
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(The Detroit Tigers are just GIVING away this series. Did you guys watch last night? The pitcher blows a sac bunt right back to him. And they miss a strikeout, goes in the dirt, and all of a sudden, St. Louis is up. I feel like I wasted watching the game.)

What'd you call me?

I still haven't seen this on tv. But here's the Nextel commercial I'm in right now.

Song du Jour

I used to do this journal elsewhere called Song du Jour. I would write a song a week and perform it this local bar. Well, I stopped doing that. But I just finished a song today and it felt a bit like that fall. Because Huck Slim is going to perform it tonight!

(New song applause.)(When you do the open mic at Sidewalk, Lach always says that if you are doing a new song. Which I agree with, you need obligatory new song applause.) Anyway, it's a tune I started writing the other week and I had a melody and some ideas about what it might be. And then I played it for the Huck dudes, and Flynn asked what the title was. I wasn't sure yet. He suggested, "The Fry Cook's Lament". And on the basis of that, I rewrote it and we came up with a little story too. It's about a fry cook who's fed up with things on a Saturday night. Anyway... here it is. If you are around Times Square tonight, you can come hear it performed live!

The Fry Cook's Lament
You can't help but see table three
A girl with a guy who looks like me
But here's the point you see I'm over here
I'm frying fish and cooking burgers instead
They're playing footsee under the table
She's got her hands on his thighs
He made a joke, you can tell
'Cause she's laughing like hell

If I look tired, then know this
I'm just tired of bullshit
Of the same story, every week

Endless dates of romantic situation
While I cook up their food, is there any indication of..?

Just another heart on a Saturday night
Now, I'm watching a father and a son
He's got a baseball cap on, he plays for the Mets
It's a Little League Party
They celebrate their win

With pizzas and coke and all of that shit
But it makes me think
Will that ever be me?
Could I have a son?
Or has my race been run?

If I look tired, then know this
I'm just tired of little kids
Of those little joys, every week
Those happy people mocking me and...

Just another heart on a Saturday night

You'd have to say he was pushing 70
And his gal isn't far behind
They've got the corner booth, all to themselves

It's 4 o'clock,
They're sharing a crueller
It's a crueler than you'd think
Watching her with her fell'r

There's one thing worse than getting old
That's being alone
'Cause the nights draw out
Like you're pulling a string

If I look tired, then know this
I'm just tired of old friends
Of those Currier & Ives bullshit
Those happy people mocking me and...
Just another heart on a Saturday Night

Old Things

I attempted to clean my apartment this weekend and I came to a conclusion afterwards: I've got a problem with old things. Clearly. I either throw too many things away or I keep too much. See folks, I'm a pack rat of the highest order(This must be genetic. You people should see the Shelkey's unfinished basement in which is stored legions of crap. Some of my cousins love to go down there when they visit just to marvel at all these weird stuff we have). But I also go through puritanical cleaning binges where nothing is safe. I'm a bit of a loon like that.

I've got a shirt from 9th grade that was in this series of Olympic shirts that Adidas(Did you make up acronyms for this when you were little? We did. It was either: All Day I Dream About Sex[if you were dirty] or All Day I Dream About Soccer[if you were a johnny good schmuck]) made. Mine was London, 1932. Well, I still have it. Am I ever going to wear it again? Prolly not. But I have it. (Just in case.) (Just in case what?) (I don't know.)

I've got one of those shoeboxes filled with old letters and pictures and little odd things. We've all got one of those right? Poems that a girlfriend once wrote you, and pictures from places you went with, magnets, and bracelets, and rings. Sometimes, after a break-up, you'll do a purge. Where you gather everything together and you throw it out. This is a mistake. Because sometimes, you throw out something that you're gonna miss.

For instance, I used to go out with an artist. And she would often send me postcards. And she'd always make the postcards. Literally, she'd make the paper. And she'd draw all over the postcard. And she'd send me different stuff she made. It was like going out with Griffon and I was Sabine. I guess it's the other way around. Well, Griffon done threw out those postcards. And I wish I still had 'em. Because they were pretty wonderful. Those little pieces of art.

The really amazing thing that I threw away was I wrote something in highschool that was called, "Highschool Mediocrity". It was… it was basically a novel. Maybe a novella. But it was definitely upwards of 50 pages. So maybe it was just a pamphlet. Or a treatise. What do you call something that short? In h.s. though, that's a tome. It was also, hilariously awful. Anyway… after reading it again upon entering college, I got frustrated with it(what is this drivel?!) and I threw it away. Mind you, this was all written longhand. So that puppy is gone. But I wish I had it back. Because I'd like to read what a young Nathan Shelkey thought in 9th grade about all the poseurs around him. (I remember being particularly annoyed at some people we used to call the railmasters. They were these popular kids that would hang out at this rail above a stairway at the crossroads of a huge intersection at school. Where Senior Hall met the Foreign Language Hall.)

Siobhan and her sister are journal keepers. (Sidenote: I've always thought journals were strange. I mean, they are something that is supposed to be private right? But yet you write it down. So clearly, some part of you is writing this to be read. But only by you? How can you control that? It's like Emily Dickinson's poems. Was she really just writing them for herself in that lonely room next to the graveyard? I think she was writing them for someone else. She didn't know who was going to read it. But she wanted someone else to read it.) Me? I'm like someone who's trying to kick a habit. Only I'm trying to start. I start it up, and then I quit. And I start it up again, and then I falter. But these girls? They've done it since they were like 12 years old. Imagine having written in a journal since you were 12. And keeping all of them? Part of that is batshit crazy. But you have to admire the sheer work ethic and the just weight of it all. Because you get to see what you were like at any moment in time.

(My mom had a journal that we found and there's an entry that was so amusing to us. It read, "Today, was a good day. Jerry and all the boys winked at me at school." Now, that seems sort of silly right? But I mean, if you're in highschool what is more important than Jerry and all the boys winking at you? Nothing. What was she supposed to be thinking about?)

So if I wanted to know how I felt about Jenny Stafford, I could go look that up. But now, I'm just left with my memory. But when do you throw something away, and when do you keep it? And what are you keeping it for? I don't know. But I'm surrounded by old things. And they haunt me.

The Beautiful Mile

So Time Out came out with this issue with the 50 Best Blocks in NYC. And guess what fancy pants? I've lived adjacent to two of them! The first one:

"33 East 2nd Street between First and Second Avenues, East Village

The collection of brick row houses, which historians estimate date from the 1820s, is sublime, and one of the oldest in the East Village. The cool New York City Marble Cemetery sometimes opens its gates (an asset in particular for solitude-seeking goths)."

Where I currently reside near. I love the cemetery. I always like to walk by on that side of the street. It's one of the most startling things. You're walking down a normal street and all of a sudden there's a cemetery. Flynn wanted to have a photo scavenger hunt on a date in the East Village and I suggested find a cemetery. I told him he should have just had me design one for him since it's no fun to go on a scavenger hunt knowing the answers*. Still. (By the way, there are at least 3 cemeteries that you could use for this.)

Another one was find Big Buck Hunter(I or II). If you are unfamiliar with this video game, then you haven't lived. And if you have played this game, or are going to, play in Texas where the bonus round is shooting frogs**.

The other locale with the nice block is the last of the list, #50. This is when I lived in Queens in Woodside.

"50 49th Street between Skillman and 39th Avenues, Sunnyside Gardens, Queens

The community park here makes an otherwise nondescript block a great place for families and neighbors—people talk with fierce pride about where they live. Garages and carports ease the parking burden; even better, having a stake in the park fosters a strong sense of connection."

The park they refer to is Doughboy Park which is on a hill. It does really tie the area together. It also seems like the most likely place to deal drugs. I suppose those are not mutually exclusive though, right? Also, my friends the Beck's used to live right on the edge of the park and one time Lindy and I saw a couple having sex in the middle of the day there against a tree. See! It really is a park for everything.

I'll have to check the list again to see if there's anything in Flushing where I first lived when I moved to New York. Take a look, is your block on the list??

* if you would like me to design a scavenger hunt for your upcoming date, I will
** harder than it sounds

The New Show Reviews

--The Nine. Solid B. The problem with this show though is I don't really know if I was in a bank robbery would I keep in contact with all of the hostages afterwards. Would you? I would think I would want to forget that day. But during this pilot, they all go to dinner together. And there's a big surprise ending because one person doesn't go to the dinner and that person.... well, if you want to know the rest you'll have to watch. Don't you just love that old tried and true wrap-up ending from elementary school book reports? It still works, people!

--Friday Night Lights. A-. I liked this a lot. It took it's time setting up the story and the payoff was good. However, I feel like this show has a tough road ahead of it. Two questions. 1) Will they use the same bookending technique, or chaptering? (They break it up by day starting with Monday.) Because like that's gonna get old if every week they do that. We get it, you're gearing up for Friday's football game. 2) So ok, the football season, like that's the arc of the show. But doesn't that get old too? Like they win a game this week, they lose a game this week, maybe they tie (do they tie in h.s. football?) one week. That doesn't seem too exciting after awhile. Still, me likey.

Still up? Six Degrees. Also, watched Heroes ep. 2 and how great is the plot line that the sort of creepy X Files esque guy is the cheerleader's stepdad? I mean, that's just a great idea.