I'm not one to get violent. I'm not one to lose my cool. I have before, many times, to my detriment and I learned that losing your cool is not conducive to anything, really. I learned this in middle school and I've been pretty chill ever since.
So, having definitively realized that over $600 has been stolen from me this past Monday, I have been impressed with my temperament. Not gonna lie. Because all sorts of thoughts have crossed my mind.
But that's Baltimore. We live in a city of disappointment, a city of devastation, a city of hoping for a better tomorrow that may or may not come. We live in a city of anger. As I work on my novel, I can't help but think about this fact. We live in a city trapped in a cycle of anger, a city continuously wrapping itself around its worst parts. A city unable to look past McCullough and Preston, Butcher's Hill, Bel Air Eddison. And those who I hate the most, those who could possibly drive me to violence, are those who fled a long time ago, sharing strange, tacit nods with each other as they understood the need to move North, as, a block South, a black family moved in.
The people who fled.
The people whose offspring flood the city now, but only on the weekends and only in certain neighborhoods. Because you can't go anywhere else. It's too dangerous.
And those in the county wonder why a person like my housemate would think it OK to rob me. They don't want to admit that they did it first, robbing the city of any chance. They don't want to admit that the anger started with them.
That's when I get violent, these days, when I think like this. When I really look and see the ruin of this city and how it could become great, were only people to care about it anymore. And although it's an old song but a good one, I can't help but love Straylight Run's "Hands In The Sky (Big Shot)" in times like these. It encompasses it all. The anger, the violence and, most importantly, the obviousness of the problem: "Tear it out of these open pages" indeed. It's all there, written clearly on the streets for anyone to read.
- Kid
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
16_Lifting Weights
Mark your calendars: Thursday, July 26th, 2012 was the day that I, Kid Brother, signed up for a gym. I've been involved in the Glitterati's cardio challenge this past week and a half and joining the gym seemed a good way to keep myself on track. Plus, when you spend $70 ever thirty days on something, you tend to want to use it.
So the past few days I've been gyming hard, lifting weights and running on treadmills and such, trying to undo some of the damage I've done to myself over the past few years of relative inactivity.
And it feels great. Well. Sorta. My legs and my lower back disagree with that statement, but I, in general, feel awesome. At least I feel like I'm doing something. Which is a big help.
And hey, if this schedule of willing myself out of bed at 9am continues, I might even find time during the day to get some writing done. And that would be magnificent.
- Kid
So the past few days I've been gyming hard, lifting weights and running on treadmills and such, trying to undo some of the damage I've done to myself over the past few years of relative inactivity.
And it feels great. Well. Sorta. My legs and my lower back disagree with that statement, but I, in general, feel awesome. At least I feel like I'm doing something. Which is a big help.
And hey, if this schedule of willing myself out of bed at 9am continues, I might even find time during the day to get some writing done. And that would be magnificent.
- Kid
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
15_Chronic City: Baltimore Edition
I just finished reading Johnathan Lethem's Chronic City and the timing couldn't have been more appropriate. You see, in that book, among the various other happenings in Manhattan is The Tiger, a mythical beast that destroys buildings in the city seemingly at random. As the story progresses, the buildings destroyed by the Tiger begin to directly effect the characters.
It seems like something out of a work of fiction, right?
I give you Light Street, just a block north of the Harbor. A water mane burst yesterday, flooding all the important streets Downtown and making travel through the city almost impossible. So was it just an accident, a random happenstance, or has the Tiger migrated South to Charm City? We shall see...
- Kid
It seems like something out of a work of fiction, right?
I give you Light Street, just a block north of the Harbor. A water mane burst yesterday, flooding all the important streets Downtown and making travel through the city almost impossible. So was it just an accident, a random happenstance, or has the Tiger migrated South to Charm City? We shall see...
- Kid
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
14_Plans
In one hour, my week begins. I've come to see my life from a true bartender's perspective: my weekend is Monday and Tuesday, my week begins after that. Now that Josh is moving across country and I'm picking up almost every shift of Yonko's while he drives with Josh, I will be completely incomunicado for the next few weeks, spending my time off not being out at a bar, for fear of the Vietnam-esque flashbacks that that may bring on. (Speaking of which, I just started Dennis Johnson's Tree Of Smoke and so far, so good.)
Last night, I tried to cram it in a bit, knowing that for the next six days I'd be chained behind the bar, more or less. Janine and I ended up at Sticky Rice for some karaoke because we both wanted to see hot tattooed people, something you rarely see in Federal Hill. This neighborhood is where conversations about punk music, anarchy and other generally alternative topics, come to die. Not that I'm terribly into anarchy, but it is a nice break from the usual barely repressed NeoCon dialogue we get down here.
Hot tattooed people there were a plenty. To the point where it was almost sensory overload. We escaped to BAR for a nightcap. Also, Janine totally won karaoke with a rather sultry rendition of "Black Velvet". It was pretty hot, not gonna lie.
And so upon waking up today, a thought struck me. If I'm going to go on vacation up to Philadelphia at the end of the month, once Yonko gets back, why not take the opportunity to see what the world of Philadelphia ink has to offer me? So off it was to peroogle Philly tattoo artists. So not only do I get to escape Baltimore, escape work and get to see some of my best friends (who I haven't seen in WAY too long, by the way), I get to get started on my long awaited sleeve on my left arm. I. Cannot. Wait. It's going to be amazing.
Pics, of course, will happen.
- Kid
Last night, I tried to cram it in a bit, knowing that for the next six days I'd be chained behind the bar, more or less. Janine and I ended up at Sticky Rice for some karaoke because we both wanted to see hot tattooed people, something you rarely see in Federal Hill. This neighborhood is where conversations about punk music, anarchy and other generally alternative topics, come to die. Not that I'm terribly into anarchy, but it is a nice break from the usual barely repressed NeoCon dialogue we get down here.
Hot tattooed people there were a plenty. To the point where it was almost sensory overload. We escaped to BAR for a nightcap. Also, Janine totally won karaoke with a rather sultry rendition of "Black Velvet". It was pretty hot, not gonna lie.
And so upon waking up today, a thought struck me. If I'm going to go on vacation up to Philadelphia at the end of the month, once Yonko gets back, why not take the opportunity to see what the world of Philadelphia ink has to offer me? So off it was to peroogle Philly tattoo artists. So not only do I get to escape Baltimore, escape work and get to see some of my best friends (who I haven't seen in WAY too long, by the way), I get to get started on my long awaited sleeve on my left arm. I. Cannot. Wait. It's going to be amazing.
Pics, of course, will happen.
- Kid
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
13_Food Stuffs
Now, I'm not one to brag. That is to say, I subscribe to the Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil type of bragging: "It ain't braggin' if ya really done it." And last week I really did make an amazing batch of homemade falafel. So for the benefit of anyone with a food processor and an ever-growing dislike of their local middle eastern takeout spot, I present to you my falafel recipe:
NOTE: This makes a lot. I don't think that there is such a thing as too much falafel, but you could half the recipe if you wanted to.
Ingredients:
2 cans of grabanzo beans
1 red onion
4-5 cloves garlic (depending on size)
1 healthy handful of parsley (About 1/4 cup. I used the dried stuff and it worked fine, but you could use fresh if you want to.)
1/2 of a handful of cilantro
Red pepper flakes
Salt
Pepper
Flour
Panko bread crumbs
Oil
Directions:
Drain the garbanzo beans and put them in a food processor. Pulse until they are mushy, but not pureed. Dump them in a large mixing bowl. Pulse up the onion, garlic and herbs (if not already chopped finely) and add to the garbanzo beans. Add in the salt, pepper and red pepper flakes to taste. You can eat the mixture raw, so it's easy to adjust the seasoning as you go. Once seasoned, begin sprinkling in flour until the mixture binds to a sort of dough. Don't be afraid to mix with your hands.
Once the mixture begins to hold together as a dough, form it into small patties, about a tablespoon and a half each. (This recipe will make about 15 patties, give or take.) Dredge the patties in the panko, making sure to pat the bread crumbs into the patties so that the panko sticks.
For frying, I used a small pan filled with about a centimeter of oil and did it in batches. I think that should keep them from getting too greasy. Let the patties fry until golden browned and turn (about 3 or 4 minutes on each side).
Serve in pita or with salad or cucumber sauce or however your heart desires. You can't really go wrong. I did mine in pita with lettuce, tomato, yogurt and feta and they were pretty amazing.
Also, if you're afraid of frying, I've seen recipes online that advertise baked falafel, but I haven't looked into them. I'm sure this recipe would work in the oven, I just don't know what sort of time or temperature you'd be looking at.
Enjoy!
- Kid
NOTE: This makes a lot. I don't think that there is such a thing as too much falafel, but you could half the recipe if you wanted to.
Ingredients:
2 cans of grabanzo beans
1 red onion
4-5 cloves garlic (depending on size)
1 healthy handful of parsley (About 1/4 cup. I used the dried stuff and it worked fine, but you could use fresh if you want to.)
1/2 of a handful of cilantro
Red pepper flakes
Salt
Pepper
Flour
Panko bread crumbs
Oil
Directions:
Drain the garbanzo beans and put them in a food processor. Pulse until they are mushy, but not pureed. Dump them in a large mixing bowl. Pulse up the onion, garlic and herbs (if not already chopped finely) and add to the garbanzo beans. Add in the salt, pepper and red pepper flakes to taste. You can eat the mixture raw, so it's easy to adjust the seasoning as you go. Once seasoned, begin sprinkling in flour until the mixture binds to a sort of dough. Don't be afraid to mix with your hands.
Once the mixture begins to hold together as a dough, form it into small patties, about a tablespoon and a half each. (This recipe will make about 15 patties, give or take.) Dredge the patties in the panko, making sure to pat the bread crumbs into the patties so that the panko sticks.
For frying, I used a small pan filled with about a centimeter of oil and did it in batches. I think that should keep them from getting too greasy. Let the patties fry until golden browned and turn (about 3 or 4 minutes on each side).
Serve in pita or with salad or cucumber sauce or however your heart desires. You can't really go wrong. I did mine in pita with lettuce, tomato, yogurt and feta and they were pretty amazing.
Also, if you're afraid of frying, I've seen recipes online that advertise baked falafel, but I haven't looked into them. I'm sure this recipe would work in the oven, I just don't know what sort of time or temperature you'd be looking at.
Enjoy!
- Kid
Thursday, June 14, 2012
12_Summer Reading List
I have to admit that I hate going into book stores. I suppose it's the same way pet lovers hate going to pet stores: it's that absolute need to leave with something.
So when I found myself in Red Emma's yesterday perusing through histories of Spanish anarchy, I knew I'd be leaving with something. I was tempted to pick up some of those anarchist histories, but I meandered over to their fiction section instead. There I found Borges' Labyrinths, Phillip K. Dick's The Divine Invasion and a complete copy of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen. I was tempted to pick up the massive Metamaus, the supplementary volume to Art Spiegelman's Maus (of which I now own a beautifully bound complete volume), but I figured my chances of actually reading all of it were pretty slim, so it stayed on the shelf for another day.
Much perusing, dragging of feet and $52 later, I walked back out into the midday traffic on St. Paul street feeling pretty upbeat about my purchases. One of the greatest short story collections of all time, another Phillip K. Dick book (always something to be happy about) and one of the greatest graphic novels of all time. Yes please. Plus, while I've been picking my way through Johnathan Lethem's Chronic City, I've also been sending up some pretty bad literature karma by reading Ian Flemming's original Dr. No, with all of its terrible writing and thinly veiled racism. I suppose if you're going to read something trashy, summer is the time to do it.
So off I go to spend these beautiful, glorious summer days the way they were meant to be spent: inside, reading. Time to get my literature karma back on track.
- Kid
So when I found myself in Red Emma's yesterday perusing through histories of Spanish anarchy, I knew I'd be leaving with something. I was tempted to pick up some of those anarchist histories, but I meandered over to their fiction section instead. There I found Borges' Labyrinths, Phillip K. Dick's The Divine Invasion and a complete copy of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen. I was tempted to pick up the massive Metamaus, the supplementary volume to Art Spiegelman's Maus (of which I now own a beautifully bound complete volume), but I figured my chances of actually reading all of it were pretty slim, so it stayed on the shelf for another day.
Much perusing, dragging of feet and $52 later, I walked back out into the midday traffic on St. Paul street feeling pretty upbeat about my purchases. One of the greatest short story collections of all time, another Phillip K. Dick book (always something to be happy about) and one of the greatest graphic novels of all time. Yes please. Plus, while I've been picking my way through Johnathan Lethem's Chronic City, I've also been sending up some pretty bad literature karma by reading Ian Flemming's original Dr. No, with all of its terrible writing and thinly veiled racism. I suppose if you're going to read something trashy, summer is the time to do it.
So off I go to spend these beautiful, glorious summer days the way they were meant to be spent: inside, reading. Time to get my literature karma back on track.
- Kid
Thursday, May 17, 2012
11_Distinctions
Let me be clear. I will not use this blog as a journal so that I can spill out my anxieties and fears and angstyness. Although, being a writer, it's bound to come out at some point. But I do need to be clear about some things: the fact that I'm enmeshed in a life-long battle with depression (and some anxiety, to make it interesting) is no secret. I will not go on in too much detail about this because, quite frankly, the nature of what depression really is and how it affects people has been fairly exhaustively covered by the rest of the Interwebs.
I will say one thing which I think is fairly relevant: if you want to do mental health a disservice and boil depression down into only two types, you would have on one hand the more situational based depression. "I am sad because my puppy died while he was driving his little puppy car drunk." On the other hand, you'd have the deeper, chemical depression where there's nothing you can do about it but wait it out. It's a matter of your brain chemistry being out of sync. It's not brought on by anything, it just happens. That's where I am right now.
Which is why I'm determined to start seeing my weekly goals through and to take those baby steps towards leading a life more suitably geared towards staving off emotional pitfalls. And while it is usually good for your writing to have your characters teetering on the brink of one emotional pitfall or another, it's not fun being there in actual Real Life. It certainly doesn't make it easy when Well Intentioned Nasty Editor tells you with as much patience and affection as is possible that everything you absolutely love about the story you've just shown her doesn't work.
Which leads me to another distinction I would like to make. Faulkner, aside being famous for being a terrific writer, was also famous for the much-quoted saying "kill your darlings." Meaning, don't be afraid to get rid of an element of a story simply because you think it's really neat. I would like to amend that a tiny bit. Don't kill your darlings, keep them on cryostasis. Your darling may not be right for that specific story, but you never know when it will be needed.
GRAD SCHOOL WATCH: Looking up programs. The least fun part of it, I think. Once I move in to Bro's house in two weeks I'll have a nifty chalk-board wall in my room on which to draw really cool charts detailing my progress and deadlines and...aliens? Sure. Fun. But until then, it's the tedious process of narrowing down this Vast Country's offerings of further education to twelve or fifteen programs that might take me.
- Kid
I will say one thing which I think is fairly relevant: if you want to do mental health a disservice and boil depression down into only two types, you would have on one hand the more situational based depression. "I am sad because my puppy died while he was driving his little puppy car drunk." On the other hand, you'd have the deeper, chemical depression where there's nothing you can do about it but wait it out. It's a matter of your brain chemistry being out of sync. It's not brought on by anything, it just happens. That's where I am right now.
Which is why I'm determined to start seeing my weekly goals through and to take those baby steps towards leading a life more suitably geared towards staving off emotional pitfalls. And while it is usually good for your writing to have your characters teetering on the brink of one emotional pitfall or another, it's not fun being there in actual Real Life. It certainly doesn't make it easy when Well Intentioned Nasty Editor tells you with as much patience and affection as is possible that everything you absolutely love about the story you've just shown her doesn't work.
Which leads me to another distinction I would like to make. Faulkner, aside being famous for being a terrific writer, was also famous for the much-quoted saying "kill your darlings." Meaning, don't be afraid to get rid of an element of a story simply because you think it's really neat. I would like to amend that a tiny bit. Don't kill your darlings, keep them on cryostasis. Your darling may not be right for that specific story, but you never know when it will be needed.
GRAD SCHOOL WATCH: Looking up programs. The least fun part of it, I think. Once I move in to Bro's house in two weeks I'll have a nifty chalk-board wall in my room on which to draw really cool charts detailing my progress and deadlines and...aliens? Sure. Fun. But until then, it's the tedious process of narrowing down this Vast Country's offerings of further education to twelve or fifteen programs that might take me.
- Kid
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)