Fashion Week: Furstenberg

The Diane von Furstenberg show ran an hour and thirty minutes late today. The show itself was under ten minutes long. None of us might ever see those outfits outside of that runway. This is Fashion Week, however. I respect the designer tremendously and worked with the people at DVF while helping dress Robin Wright Penn for the Cannes Film Festival.

Fortunately, I had both a gift bag and a seat to keep me sane during the wait. My seat, although far back, provided a perfect view of almost all in attendance. (There was a back to back center aisle right on the runway. Clearly, I could only see one side.) But that wait, that hour and a half before the models walk, that is the real show. It, in essence, is what Fashion Week is about. I went alone today, which meant I could truly take advantage. I was forced to communicate. Hand out my card. Find out why everyone else was there. Chat about Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn. I eavesdropped, talked fashion and Barbie. For some odd reason, I was a part of the fashion community.

The lights dimmed. The models walked. I oscillated between thinking DVF was still a visionary – binding something that felt traditional with dreamful haute couture, and believing her slightly out of touch. The dark browns and blues were lovely. The animal print and product garments where exquisite. The hats, however, these organic mossy knit numbers, kept not one foot on the ground. And because of that, because they weren’t for me what I associate with Diane von Furstenberg, they flopped. It was quite the spectacle though and to see the beautiful designer walk down the runway afterward, stopping only to grab hold of Diana Ross and collect flowers from her grandchildren, was momentous.

All together, the runway show was good verging on great. The experience, however, was spectacular.

And Diane Sawyer is hot.

The 15th Pt. II

Introduction

For the first few weeks I knew Maggie, I repeatedly asked our mutual friend Brandon if she hated me. I was a very youthful and bubbly, previously sheltered, annoying sort of kid. She was a student leader, a year older, and although a social figure at Fordham, she was very selective about who her actual friends were. She did not hate me. She just took her time to truly warm to me, and that lead to a connection that I think runs unmatched, as best friends are concerned.

I’m going to be very selective in the anecdotes I chose to share, and hopefully dedicate as much time to the being that is Maggie, as I do to how I was effected by her.

My first real experience with Maggie as a friend, and I may be wrong as we have had so many, was seeing Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Maggie and our friend Colleen had tickets to a midnight screening. Both had already pegged me for the fiction/fantasy dork that I not-so-secretly knew myself to be. I had settled in for a nap but all the lights in my dorm room were on. The next thing I recall is being awoken, from across the room, by Maggie and Colleen. Their third guest had dropped. There was a ticket for me if I left immediately. I dressed and we were out the door. E-walk? E-walk, we all wondered. We had no idea where the theater was. We hopped in a taxi and went to twenty third, or even Union Square. Everything happened so quickly. We were not in the right area. We ran. And ran, passing a homeless man with his pants at his ankles. The streets were dark. The air was cold. And at some point, we all made our way to Times Square and found the theater. Midnight movies in Times Square theaters are always an eye opening experience. Things are shouted and often times thrown. You are uncomfortably close to your neighbor. You don’t know if you are actually watching the film or the audience. Regardless, for four hours we were transfixed. It was more than an emotional experience for all of us. A movie-going experience that was tough to match, and might not ever be overshadowed.

Student Activities

It was Fordham’s student activity programming that really brought Maggie and I together. Two specific events require mentioning. Fordham flew Maggie, myself and two others to Cincinnati, Ohio for the NACA Conference. It was springtime of my freshman year and we were selected due to our active roles in the community. It was there that I got to connect with Maggie, in a city belonging to neither of us and in the face of unending stimulation. We hunted out winged pigs and had private audiences with artists like Teitur. It was the first time I felt like we were in it together, whatever it was. Mutual discovery and mutual appreciation form a firm, concrete foundation. Our history is rich with such.

The summer between my sophomore and junior year, Maggie and I were both representatives at JASPA. It was a large Jesuit conference held at the Rose Hill campus. It meant a great deal of work for both of us, in addition to our summer jobs in the Office of Student Activities. For a short while we found ourselves living in the Bronx, playing host to leaders from the nation’s Jesuit schools. Being Lincoln Center students we approached the situation thinking we were better than everyone else. We quickly learned that just because we bitched and got what we wanted, that didn’t make us better than others. We found filthy spoons and squatters in the Bronx campus, as well as scattered pills and bricks with notes. Seriously. We made fast friendships with many others. But it was the time away from JASPA during JASPA that reflects the true nature of our friendship. On a Thursday night, we quickly packed up everything we needed and headed back to Manhattan. Together, blocks away from the Lincoln Center campus and our apartments, we watched the midnight screening of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was a much anticipated and joyous occasion and there was no one else in the world I would have wanted to see it with. Then back to the Bronx we went to rest up, and then work, and then return to Manhattan for the release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. It was another midnight release. Another dork-related event. Another sincere and genuinely happy moment of my life. With book in hand, after comedic drama and anticipatory tears, together, once more, we traveled to the Bronx. Maggie finished reading the book before I did.

Maggie has a love of faith and tradition, of honesty and reality. She is someone who values childhood, and managed, in the most incredible way possible, to mature to adulthood without sacrificing any of what made her a beautiful youth. She both grew up and retained all the splendor.

My Girlfriend

My grandmother believes that Maggie is my girlfriend. This is OK because my grandmother loves Maggie to death. My mother used to believe Maggie was my girlfriend, until I was forced out of the closet. My mother calls Maggie the little pixie. Our time as a “couple” was equal parts glamorous and sincere. She was my date to TRL as  I competed for the title of World’s Largest Harry Potter Fan. A year later she was my date to the next Harry Potter premiere. She was my date to the Russian Tea Room after Valentine’s Day. She was the person who bore the weight of my unending bouts of unrequited and oft times weird love. She has a remarkable ear, and incredible patience as I often struggled to enact her correct advice. She saw me through adjustments off medicine, new medicine, and mixed medicine. Like any true girlfriend, she told me to get a fucking job and said, wouldn’t it be nice if your check said IFC on it? She sent me packing to the IFC Center and it turned out to be one of the most valuable work experiences I ever had, at the best theater in Manhattan.

I remember the day I realized I was obsessed with Maggie and I think about it frequently. I had left class and knew I had no plans for the night. I called her. She didn’t answer. I got confused and walked outside, calling her on the way. She didn’t answer. I walked around outside and called her twice more. I then felt light and lost. She called. I think I only mentioned calling her four times, but I am pretty sure it was six. I don’t do this to everyone, and I no longer do that to people I obsess over, but for some reason on that day I needed her, just to spend time with.

Perhaps our greatest date was our trip to Buffalo. We drove there and back again. It was my introduction to Maggie’s family.  I don’t know what you know about the city of Buffalo, but it is perhaps the last warm and welcoming urban environment. It was Autumn and chilly and perhaps my most beautiful weekend away. The drive was long and had a never ending Sony BMG soundtrack. (Unless that Louis XIV album is not Sony? Though the Franz one certainly was.) Maggie’s family explains her. They are loving, positive and real. They are incredible storytellers and it’s impossible to share their company without smiling and believing the world to be a safe place. We got drunk at the Buffalo Irish Center. Maggie’s father’s band performed. We danced. I met every bloody Irishman in the city. We traveled to Niagra-on-the-Lake, my first ever trip to Canada. We had beer and bangers and mash at the Angel Inn. It all, her city and her family, stands a relic of early America: the beauty of European tradition melted together with American ideals. Their sense of history and family and value knot tightly together. They welcomed me.

The Scar: A Comedy

I was naked in a hot tub pretending to be a porpoise. Maggie, Brandon, Texas Stephanie and I had all had a great deal to drink. We watched fog roll off the tree tops into the field of Brandon’s backyard. Everything was heightened and hilarious. Maggie left the hot tub to pee. We all lost track of time. And then she returned, her hand over her forehead.

“Hey guys, buzz kill,” were her first words. In retrospect, this is absolutely hysterical.

Maggie proceeded to show us the gash on her forehead inflicted by an ornate ivory toilet paper holder. We contemplated slapping a bandaid on it and tossing her back in the hot tub. (This is a joke.) Instead, after a thorough inspection, we went back to my house and woke my mother. Pam alerted us that the emergency room had to be our next stop.

So, drunk, I got back into my car and drove Maggie and Stephanie to the Waterbury Hospital Emergency Room. From the fake fingernail tapping receptionist to the inattentive interns we floated around the ER. We finally found ourselves placed in a room and had an initial consultation. They could stitch her up right there or we could wait for the plastic surgeon to come in and do a thorough job. He couldn’t come til six in the morning. It wasn’t that much after 1AM when we heard this news. Stephanie and I, drunk and antsy, prayed that Maggie would consent to a patch up job and we could be on our way. We also knew that whatever she wanted we wanted, and if we were in her position we would need support. You don’t fuck with someone’s face. Maggie chose to wait for the plastic surgeon, who I personally recommended (as he was the father of a classmate of mine from high school.) One of my favorite phrases fits here nicely: thus began the wait.

We watched television. The three of us. Under hospital lights. Very aware that we were losing our drunken state and entering a hangover, while awake. We chart the night based on my mood swings, which were all associated with Burger King commercials. The first time the cheesy tot commercial aired, I was attempting optimism. The second time, I was a raging maniac. The third time, I went for a walk to fight claustrophobia. The fourth time, I was a Negative Nancy. The fifth time I was loopy, beyond loopy. I was insane. The sixth time I was in hysterics. The seventh time I was exhausted. All the while Maggie sat up in the bed, holding her forehead. Stephanie, she very well could have been a figment of my imagination. Then the surgeon arrived.

I am terrible with doctors, so I stood as far away as I could. Stephanie opted to hold Maggie’s hand. She informed me that every time the needle tugged Maggie’s flesh together, she could feel the pull through Maggie’s hand and into her whole body. Had I been evaluated at this point in time, I would have been found clinically insane.

The surgery rapped. We waited out the rest period. Then the three of us got back into my car and began the ride home. It was 10AM.

As we got off my exit, haunted by the cheesy tot commercials from the all-nighter, we actually stopped at Burger King. Seriously. We were all starving and all ornery. It was one of the best meals I’ve ever had. By 11AM we were all asleep.

My mother woke us all up the next morning, also known as, a few short hours later. We had planned a day trip to the Yankee Candle Factory Store in Massachusetts. It is a wonderland and one of the happiest places in the world. Maggie and I had so looked forward to this trip. So, in pain and drugged out, she dressed and we all went on a car trip over an hour away to shop for candles and Christmas goodies (at Easter time).

Spousal Abuse

When I graduated from Fordham and before I left for Puerto Rico, I lived with Maggie in Astoria. It was for only a few months and I spent more time out of the apartment than in. There were graduation parties, party parties, work, the birth of my friendship with Owen and the entire city of Manhattan pulling at me. It was a terribly difficult transitional period where I acted more like a child than a college graduate. We struggled. I was a cheating husband. I was a disloyal friend. I indulged in base activities and ignored my confidante, or only reached out to her when I needed help. She was a forgiver and a giver. And teary eyed, one night, she confronted me. I had two weeks or so left in New York City. She informed me that she was going to be missing me for the next few months that I’d be away, but she’d already been missing me for the past few.

If I can say I had my lost years, it would have been the months in such close proximity to Maggie, where we were – as people – never more distant.

The Departure

On April 15th, Maggie left New York City. She returned to Buffalo. At Cosmo, a classy little drink corner frequented by Fordham undergrads, she told me she would be leaving. It was a move for personal happiness. She needed to see her sister grow up. She longed for a community less brutal than our city. It was not necessarily final, but opportunities needed to be explored elsewhere. She shared with me that I had a home now, and a job and she felt comfortable leaving me in the hands I was in. She was a guardian angel, at times a mother, always a best friend. We had a few months together before she left and I did not use them to the best of my ability.

We still speak with regularity (that being almost every single day), many days at great length, and she has come to visit. Once, we went on a much anticipated adventure to City Island, walking through cemeteries and hanging out with seagulls and in grocery stores. Once, for a reunion of our annual Thanksgiving party; a celebration that means so much to me, a tradition early in the making with our dear friends the Teich-Rennstich family. It is a successful attempt at growing up and realizing the holidays must be shared with family… and family is defined by heart not blood.

My heart belongs to Maggie. Her influence and patience stun me. My inability to see her torments me. But, and I laugh when I say this, being friends with Maggie is like riding a bicycle. You don’t forget how. It’s impossible.

Leveler/Reveler: Addendum

Two anecdotes:

About Paul: When I first met Crissy, I was in a wild state at a Franz Ferdinand concert. It was a joining of old friends around an artist that brought some of us together to begin with. And there was a new and just as lively Crissy. At one point during the night she told me she had the perfect gay boy that I needed to meet. I asked her, “does he look like me?” She responded no. I told her, “I’m not interested.” Every time I think about this completely ridiculous exchange, I die laughing. When I get performative, I lose track of all reality.

About Ian: Ian had two personal pets as a child, a seagull and a squirrel. Both animals were recoveries. While I was eating last night he told me that sometimes I behaved like the seagull. He would offer it a prime cut of sirloin (this is funny in itself) and the bird would swallow it without even taking the time to savor it. It would gulp. I wasn’t offended. When I asked him how the squirrel ate, he informed me: it would climb down my arm, take almonds off whatever sweet bread I had on my plate, climb back up my arm and nibble it on my head. That is sort of how Ian eats.

Leveler/Reveler

After being harbored last night by two very loving and relatively new friends, a mentor and a muse, I felt I needed to interject before posting The 15th Pt. II (about Maggie).

The changing landscape of my friends this year was not all negative. I gained more than a few that I believe will either leave long lasting impressions on my person, or be there, by my side, till my end of days. I’ve already written about Ian and Paul, but as they were together last night and on my behalf, it warrants addressing.

In the early spring, when it was still cold – and in fact, on the same day I lost my job at Domino Magazine (which folded today, Poor Wendys.), I attended John Cameron Mitchell’s monthly party Mattachine. I quickly became drunk, was very loud and believe I must have been canceled on by some people, or invited too many and don’t recall spending proper time with anyone.

Regardless, I met Ian. I had heard of him. We shared friends. I was curious to meet him because of the nature of his work. I did, managing to tone down my absurdity and we both made lasting impressions. I then, however, disappeared for a few months. When I came back to New York City, I tracked him down and finally called. He asked me what took so long.

A great deal happened between that moment and where we are now. He has been the greatest teacher I’ve met. He has trained me in the art of being, well, simply put: me. He taught me how to stand, how to look at the world, how to eat and speak, how to listen. He took a dimension of myself and expanded it, over caviar and champagne. He gave me books and showed me art and theater. He taught me Mahalia and Rosemary Clooney.

And he shared with me his story. That is what I am most thankful for: sitting with him and cigarettes and gin in his living room and listening to how he became who he is. Ian is a leveler and a reveler. He makes no effort to hide his judgment over some of the things I do and say. With his WASP sensibilities and Jewish sense of humor, he will bring me down with a smile, but because he knows I will respond and react. He levels me. He also has faith in me, and makes that apparent in more than just a desire to better me. He sings my praises about how far I’ve come (and from such an unstable place). For me, he is a reveler as well. Dinner’s with Ian over the late summer kept me alive. He, himself, kept my spirit alive. He is much more difficult to get in touch with these days, busy with work and his unending supply of visitors, but every shared moment we have is truly valuable to me.

I wrote something already about meeting Paul and I’ll share an edited version here:

In a daze, leaving the Diesel 30^th Anniversary Party, I lost track of my friends just past the exit. I turned around to find them and met the face of a blond boy. As he walked beyond me I slowly followed, thinking about what I could potentially say to make him think I was interesting or worthwhile. I was startled by how drawn to him I was. For a moment, everything was silent and blurred. He was a point of light.

From nowhere, a girl jumped on his back and shouted, “Paul!” She slid off and I realized I had come to the event with her. Paul was a classmate of a new concert friend, Crissy. She introduced me to him:

“Paul, this is David.”

He extended his hand, which I welcomed.

“You are absolutely adorable” were my only words. He smirked and before anything else could be said Crissy pulled him off into the distance. I watched before realizing I was supposed to be leaving with other friends.

I located them and walked on making all the tales of Paul align with my real image of him.

That night I alerted Crissy that I had a terrible crush on her friend Paul. She told me he had a boyfriend and I sank.

He had in one instant, made everything else disappear. Crissy, and her statement, brought everything into painfully sharp focus. He was beautiful. Unique looking, yes, but clearly exquisite. Something profoundly insecure about myself only allows me to pursue people whose very look overwhelms me. It constantly sets me up for defeat and Paul was clearly taken.

So, that was where it began. Since that moment, I’ve struggled to stop writing about him. Our relationship has developed. I know him, now, for example. And I love every bit that I know. I want to learn more, and find myself craving such.

He is a leveler/reveler. I stand in awe of him, and feel humbled. He is someone worthy of destroying my peace for. He does indeed have an aura. And I stand with him and feel confident because he too cares about me. His affection reinforces. Ours is a dance on light feet with lighter hearts.

Last night, Ian and Paul met. It was odd for me. So fresh our relationships: so much change in one year’s time. And Paul medicated me, as I am still without health insurance. Ian, once more, fed me. And the three of us, all vastly different creatures, occupied the same space and the same time and I felt whole.

The 15th Pt. I

Jeffrey and I in Bushwick

Introduction

I had been awaiting the premiere of “Brothers of the Head” for months. Punk music and filthy looking British twins appealed to me at the time. One of the two still does now. The day turned out to be incredibly important, but for an unexpected reason.

I had been promised a seat as an employee of the IFC Center, but fearing a full house (of people with greater independent cinema worth) my coworker and I arrived early, spiffy and glowing. Both of us beamed through the red carpet and press sign in. In the lobby, where we waited to spy on the others in attendance, I saw a new employee.

I remember two things perfectly clear: I checked him out from toes to crown, while he was facing away from me. This is something I never do and even frown upon. Second, I dismissed him immediately as being too skinny. This sounds absurd, I know, as I am attracted to pencils (being a writer), but that was how it happened.

One week later, across from the fountain at Columbus Circle, I was already discussing with Maggie by obsession over Jeffrey. Much to her dismay, that would be the case for two years.

Jeffrey once told me that based on those first few weeks at the IFC Center, he would have never thought we would develop the friendship we ended up having. I was a hyper little ball-of-light boy trapped in a box. He was dark and cool and sarcastic. It seemed we had little in common. Perhaps we didn’t.

Development

I don’t really know where to go next. It’s all a blur and all about the development of stories. In my opinion, stories are what hold friends together: adventures together, which turn into a story; stories which turn into nostalgia and history.

As soon as he got text messaging I didn’t leave him alone. He would be my last text message of the night, as I’d ask him to tell me a story: about his family, about life, about. We spent a great deal of time together, at work or out of; days and nights. In November of that year, he came to my house in Connecticut for a party. In December, he was the first person I called when my mother confronted me about my sexuality in our driveway in Florida. Outed by a blog, damn googling parents. By Easter, he was with my family and we traveled to Miami. I was in love and it was unrequited.

Upon returning from Florida, he left the IFC Center. It was a terrible day for me, but I adapted. I knew my time there was short lived, as I’d be leaving in the summer after graduation. But we had spent every Friday and Saturday night together, selling tickets and serving popcorn. When he left, however, we started clubbing. Every Thursday, with his best friend, we would go to Hiro Ballroom and every Thursday night I slept beside him in Bushwick. I was a puppy.

Departure

Then I graduated and contemplated departure. Rather than hunt for a job in New York, Jeffrey and I planned a move to Berlin. When we decided we shouldn’t live together in Berlin, I decided my first stop should be Vieques, Puerto Rico. There I wrote a book, and by the end of my island isolation, I was near broke. I decided to delay my trip to Germany and went, first, to Florida. He made his way to Berlin alone. I would call him and he would call me. Berlin: poor, but sexy. Sort of like us. I wanted to be away from family, away from the United States. I wanted to be on the European adventure, with him, that I helped incite.

Friends rescued me from Florida in order to attend a wedding. There, I found myself in New York City once more, surrounded by genuine friends and a beautiful occasion. While back in the city and awaiting my flight to Berlin, I stayed with Owen. Owen had filled in the gap that Jeffrey had left in my life with being in Germany. I met him not so long before I departed for Puerto Rico and from the moment we met, we were on the phone together 20 out of the 24 hours in a day. In a rapid fire decision making process, day of, I decided to miss my flight to Jeffrey and stay with Owen (also, while trying to get my new manuscript seen). I was justified in this action for many reasons. First and foremost, Owen; second, people wanted to read my book. Still, at least once a week I would call Jeffrey. Especially when times got hard. Jeffrey traveled to Paris and Milan, working on the film that I too was supposed to be employed on. Our relationship adapted. He was a long distance friend, a vision, ungraspable and always exciting for me. I was safe from the way I behaved around him. There was no drama. The puppy was gone. It was just communication.

Change

While at dinner with Owen and his family, Jeffrey called. He was coming back to New York City. I was excited, yes, but terrified as to what his effect would be on my new life. I was happy and all of my time was allotted to worthy outlets. When I hung up the phone, I said aloud “he wasn’t supposed to come back.”

We met again, for the first time, at a bar on the upper east side. I swaggered in. I wanted to be mature rather than excited. We were both different people and it was reflected in our friendship. During the next few months, and this is what I’ve come to miss, whenever I’d see him alone, we would brutalize one another. In perfectly choreographed battles of words, we would jab and slice out bits of one another. I’m not sure I’ve felt more alive than with cigarette and wine in hand, his words cut my throat.

Jeffrey once said that he couldn’t imagine two people in the world were having conversation as interesting as ours. We were Auden and Isherwood. We took on the world, yes. But to be so mentally intimate with someone, to have them carve up your deepest darkest insecurities and to know that it was all OK because you loved one another – it’s a place few can reach.

The Beginning of the End

When I was fired from Conde Nast,  Jeffrey got me a job working on the film he was employed by. So there the two of us were, living in a hotel and eating for free in my home state. We spent days and nights together. Every minute. When we weren’t in each others company we had to be on the phone. We had a lifetime of ups and downs in a few short months.

In the middle of it all, we had a fight. Jeffrey punished me in the way he knew hurt me most. He stopped talking to me. He knew I felt power in combat, so he cut me off. This was impossible due to our proximity and the demands of the job. We worked through it, but he said something that came back to haunt me: I was crazy and he never knew which Dodger he was talking to. My fear, the minute someone genuinely believes you are crazy, and he did, they stop taking you seriously. The ground, the foundation of everything, was removed. We took a weekend together in Montauk. His restlessness destroyed me. Our cigarettes and conversation was no longer enough for him.

Jeffrey went to LA and I came back to New York City after my job had wrapped. I attempted to ignore him while he was there and did so successfully until he called me once from the desert. He was who I wanted to share things with and I desperately wanted to know how he was. While he was away, however, I reached out to another employer of Jeff’s and struck up a deal that allowed me to remain unemployed over the summer.

When I confessed this to him, he was not surprised. However, he was angered that my ingenuity struck before his.

Only July 15th he texted me that he was leaving for the Maccias Islands to spend time with the puffins and that there would be no way to communicate with me. Offended, or hurt, I asked him why or with who or when I’d hear from him next.

His response, his favorite Royal Tennenbaums quote, “I can’t even begin to think about knowing how to answer that question” was the last of our mutual communication. He committed to removing me from his life and on January 1st, over five months later, I accepted that we aren’t supposed to be friends.

Paper Coats

Tony is the fashion district’s favorite homeless man. A few days ago he informed me that he has only been in Manhattan for five years but he’s been walking the streets of the fashion district for seven. It makes sense to him and after a later conversation I thought I shouldn’t question the man’s logic.

I am a magnet for the homeless. I believe it to be directly related to the fact that I am unintimidating physically, usually have a smile on my face, and smoke. Tony approached me outside of my office two days in a row. Both days he was wearing a different outift. He asked me if I thought he was homeless. I told him of course not. He has a secret hiding spot where he keeps his outfits. Homeless he is. He doesn’t ask things of me. Rather, he just wants to chat.

We were talking about the economy and he began mumbling. In the jumble I thought I heard him mention the phrase paper coats. I asked him about it and he looked baffled… Before defining a metaphor we together created.

“Money doesn’t keep you warm,” he said. “My coats keep me warm. Fire does. But I haven’t had a fire in a while. Money right now buys coats and fire. But it won’t always. Where are peoples skills with the world? What can they provide themselves? Your coat, it’s a paper coat.”

He was right, in many ways. In fact, on a superficial level my coat was exactly a paper coat, purchased even for look rather than warmth.

I may go a bit further than Tony’s findings. I am covered in paper coats, not to keep warm, but to buffer from judgment. And it seems I am seeking out many more. This realization is not too late to remedy. Seeking money is often an attempt at avoiding seeking skill.

Tonight I ran into Franklin, my actual homeless friend. I was blurry eyed and going to fetch dinner when I walked right into him. He was carrying bags of cans. That isn’t Franklin’s deal. He is the joke man. Times must be really hard for him as well.

“David, where you been man? I’ve been lighting up your phone all winter.”

“Florida, Frank. I was seeking out peace with my family.”

“Peace,” he actually snickered. “I called you tonight.”

“New phone Franklin and I never answer numbers I don’t know. Plus my voicemail is full.”

“Right. Right. Well take it down.” I did, he looked world weary. Some of the fire in his heart from the summer had been extinguished.

“We could have been paid for that comic round the holidays. My kids didn’t have a holiday.”

“I’m sorry,” I told him. I was.

It doesn’t exactly work like that though.

He shook my hand and then we walked off, me trembling and bleary eyed from this illness; him freezing, drunk and weighed down in aluminum.

And then I thought perhaps unfullfilled dreams were paper coats as well. All winter he called me hoping a comic book dream would feed his kids.

Maybe it could. Today isn’t a day for answers, only musings.

Medicines

The company that I work for set a six month goal. If, now, five months from round about this week we haven’t met it I’ve set options for myself. Both options involve isolation. My most successful period of time creatively was in complete isolation. It’s there I will return, not to Vieques, but to starting over alone.

One option, the more depressing of the two, I refuse to even address. The second option is attached to my view in mind to visit a friend in Milan around that time. It would provide the perfect opportunity, after a friendly visit, to disappear completely. I can write anywhere.

Recently I’ve struggled with really intense anxiety and I finally understand why. I’ve always bee spastic, but enjoyably so. Looking stressed in turn stresses others. The medicine I am on is not a stabilizer, it’s a heightener. Its aim is to antidepress but what it is doing is intensifying phobias and paranoias. This, as my mother has explained, is why I am once again craving antianxiety medication. My heightener is not elevating, but swinging me. Rapid cycling.

I’m no addict, but having bounced from zoloft to lithium to the range of medications I am supposed to be on (one of which I do take) I do not know when I am being normal or exaggerating.

My company will make it, so I don’t have to worry about my first ever flight instinct. In the meantime, what do I do about keeping my mind whole for the fight?

You’re a Ghost & a Gentleman

Malbech mixed with a handful of Cinnamon Toast Crunch tastes like a mulled cider. Camel lights and a Diet Coke together, taste like dirt in the mouth after a fight.

I had spent the day cleaning and waiting and drinking various concoctions. Mia had called six times before I had risen to put me on the task of getting us into the Whitney Art Party. She believed that I, having just worked with Blake Lively, a host for the evening, could finagle something.

I showered, considered our options and yielded to the easiest. I emailed Blake, almost knowing that she wouldn’t respond to an assistant from a film that she no longer worked on.

For most of the day I was infatuated with the idea of the party. Art, hors d’oeuvres and an open bar were the perfect reason to get dressed up. I wanted to be a young socialite. I found the lifestyle enviable. I also hadn’t really eaten in quite some time and loved the idea of free, especially when others were paying four hundred for admittance.

To take some time away from my obsessive computer searching, I went house ware perusing with my roommate. We found little of interest.

When we returned I opened more wine, knowing that I wouldn’t be entertaining any time soon. I had been saving it for when Jeffrey came to pick up his duvet and return my belt. I hadn’t heard from him in a few days, so I thought it was time to drink for me. I snatched a handful of the nourishing sugary carbohydrate cereal, and something compelled me to put it in my wine.

I put on a size two model cut Diane Von Furstenberg black mini, organized my apartment and called my mother to tell her I was cross dressing in expensive outfits. She laughed, told me to watch the Celtics play tonight and asked that I call her tomorrow. I set up furniture and looked through paperwork, then put my pants back on.

With the Malbech finished I grabbed a Diet Coke and I then went to my front stoop.

A boy had been passing by for a few days now. Normally he would make a comment. Still out there smoking? Don’t you do anything? Do you live in that building or on those stairs? This time, he stopped.

He introduced himself as Kenneth and sat a few steps below me. He was between fifteen and seventeen, clad in baggy shorts, nearly white socks and athletic sandals. His hair was almost fair. He was too young to smoke, but not too young to flirt with every woman that left my building.

I asked him to be nice. He told me he was just letting them all know how beautiful they were. It would make their day. I thought along the same lines so I let it continue.

He took out a dime bag filled with a decaying lemon lime sort of weed. He emptied its contents onto a dollar bill folded width wise. He then asked me to hold onto it.

We were quickly joined by a bartender from a corner dive. He was double both our ages and toting a large nylon bag of laundry. He placed it down and he disappeared with Kenneth. I sat on my steps holding the boy’s pot and watching the man’s laundry, almost eagerly awaiting their return. None of my neighbors came or went.

A few minutes passed before Kenneth returned and reintroduced himself as Killah.

I was an 88 now, or at least, that’s what he told me.

I asked him what an 88 was and he said it was the gang that he started in order to stay out of other people’s gangs. My eyes went to my boat shoes, up my skinny jeans, stopped momentarily on my white cardigan with no undershirt, my kerchief, brass ring with African sea glass and finally I took off and analyzed my hat. It was a Boshi-Basiik, made of felt. It was in the form of a Panda bear, with the eyes resting on my forehead and two felt ears sticking up. As if he understood that I didn’t feel like I fit the gang scene, he told me, “you’re an 88 for life.”

I asked him what our gang did.

“We don’t rape. We don’t kill. We just make money.”

Naturally, I wanted to know what my role would be.

“A lookout, a cover. You’re a ghost and then you’re a gentleman.” Something about those words struck me. I knew I was both, but I enquired as to what he meant.

“Cops, see, they’re our enemy. They are the biggest gang in the world. When they see me they think what’s going on here? How does that little nigger have money? They don’t see you like that. They don’t even see you. And then maybe when you get into some shit, then they’ll see you and say sir, what’s going on here? Is everything all right?”

“Me, I’ll either have a bullet in my head or end up back in jail.”

“You’ve been?” I asked.

“I’m out on bail. Armed robbery. It wasn’t. It was a shady drug deal.” He laughed.

He took his pot back from me and rolled a blunt. He then proceeded to light it up on my front stoop. He offered me a hit, but I told him I only do prescription drugs.

We then sat in silence while he smoked, occasionally making comments at people being walked by their dogs. For a minute I managed to convince him that the elderly Asian woman who was watching us from across the street had a thing for him.

When all was said and smoked he told me he was going to kill me that night.

I told him many people would cry.

He said if I could name five people before he could count to ten he would spare my life.

“My mother.”

“My roommate.”

“Maggie.”

“Mia.”

“Owen”

“Owen’s sister.”

He stopped me. I could have continued for hours.

“Four people would cry if I dropped dead right now. But at least my funeral would get my mother and my father out to see me.”

I asked if they lived in the complex down on the other side the block as well.

“The projects,” he said, “no, just my aunt.”

After some silence and an odd exchange of expressions he said goodbye. I went upstairs, suspending my hope that I would get into the Art Party – this year.

Scene and Art

My close friend, and sometimes mentor, Ian shares the spotlight of an iconic 1980’s Patrick McMullan photograph with his then boyfriend, Tom Ford. Over the past few months I’ve become obsessed with the photo and all the meaning that I’ve applied to it. The photo was taken outside of Studio 54, when both were in their early twenties. Today, Tom Ford is a fashion icon. Ian is an incredible and incredibly successful artist. But there they were, still children in my opinion, together at a party.

The relationship between scene and art plagues me. All I can speak of are my insecurities and testimonials, but I find for someone like myself the two must be bound.

Perhaps this is a product of Warhol adoration, or the lives of art stars like Ryan McGinley or Keith Haring. All are, or were, well publicized and it seems for social activity as much as their art.

Paul and I dance. A lot. I’ve fallen under the wing of Manhattan’s greatest hosts (promoters). There is never want for a party or free alcohol. Somewhere, out there, one is waiting. I am a Coppola kid. He delivers, hands down, the most interesting and liveliest group of people. I’ve been one of Zackery Michael’s and a Six Six Sick girl. Finally, and most important to this endeavor, I found a promoter who is also an artist: Chris Tucci. We will return to this.

We do not have Studio 54. We do have The Box and Beatrice. And contrary to certain belief, Bungalow 8 is still exciting and The Plumm, when filled with the right people is the most ridiculous of all. The Plumm, more than any other, is ours. So Paul and I go, and we dance and we drink, sometimes excessively.

More important, however, than the indulgences and the sometimes celebrity faces: A. Art is discussed. B.  Art is made.

A.

Paul is a very talented artist with an incredibly sincere and likable style. From illustration to painting to his sketches he continues to demonstrate his unique eye and mind. His art could well stand on its own, but coupled with his personality I have no doubt in his future. He captures life and freezes time.

Chris Tucci’s art is so mind bogglingly detail oriented. It draws immediate comparisons to Edward Gorey, but manic. It has soul, and a twisted one at that. His project: I’ve never had more faith in a peer’s substance and output.

My art… well that is my writing. I have less to show for myself than the others: a blog, two unpublished manuscripts, a slew of prose poems and everyone’s favorite: short stories. Still, I am educated and consider myself an artist. I consider the amount of myself I pour forth into my writing a fundamental part of the artist’s process.

I met Paul at a Diesel party. I met Chris at The Plumm. I introduced them at LaZarza. Relationships were forged with drink and dance. Bacchus would be proud.

And we add substance to this scene, our scene, because we recognize that we exist outside of it to make what our very body lives for. I think that art and its artists must be seen, such is the trend. It is at The Box that I talk manuscripts. It’s at The Plumm where I talk screenplays. It is at Beatrice where, yes, I actually talked web television scripts. Others before us were inspired by similar places, by everything beautiful and grotesque they saw there. We are no different.

B.

The scene is documented. Much like what Patrick McMullan did for Studio 54, a Coppola kid and consistently the richest spirit in the room, Libby Broocks photographs. She is our creator. We are the subject. Both are showcased on Fulltime Friend. (I’ve been having a debate over this for the longest time, perhaps Libby’s subjective vision is the subject and we -the image- are the creator. That’s a conversation for another day. But most importantly…) She finds life in us. In both candid and mildly, consciously staged photos we become the faces defining the scene for our generation.

And what then plagues me? Will Paul and I be the next Ian and Tom Ford? Are we the subjects/creators that will fashion an iconic photograph with Libby? Will we take advantage of  the resources provided by all of us artists thrown together with no inhibition? Or are we just kids partying?

I’d argue we are something more (and can if you’d like me to) and I have no doubt that all of us spend our time trying to prove it, both in the studio and at a club.

Franklin: My Friend, the Homeless Man

When drunk over the summer I gave a homeless man my mobile number. I spent a great deal of time on my front stoop writing. He became a friend. We would chat day and night. I learned about his ex-wife and ten year old son. He accepted my homosexuality and I accepted that he, well, slept on the streets. People would walk by and see a skinny white boy drinking beer and smoking cigarettes on his front steps with a very tall, dreadlocked, middle aged black homeless male, and smile at us. Kids, having a good time, they’d think. (I think.)

At the time, I don’t know if I thought it was odd giving him my number.

Then I realized he had a mobile phone himself. It is his one life expense. Where he charges it, I have no idea. He called a few times over the summer and it was alright.

On the stoop one evening, Franklin and I developed an idea for a comic book about the projects. A savvy superhero tale. It is something that if I had the time and finances, I would eagerly pursue. It became his livelihood, our conversations and this idea.

A white man started seeing his ex-wife and drama ensued. When he took a hand to her, Franklin came to the rescue. And beat the white man up terribly. Franklin went to jail for a few months, and for some reason, so did his ex-wife. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that the “injured party” is white. I figured this out by poking about the projects and asking where ‘The Funny Man” went. That’s how Frank makes his money, jokes.

Now Franklin is out. I don’t have the gobs of spare money I had over the summer, when we were closest. I also work and play a great deal. Thus, restricting the time we could share. But that doesn’t stop him from calling. I have been fortunate not to run into him on the stoop, as his voicemails are growing demanding. It’s nothing to be afraid of. He isn’t.

I suppose that the moral is, with time and money, friends and stories come from wherever you’d like them to.