Devil Monkey Boy

Today a drawer sheared the skin off the knuckle of my middle finger. There was a lot of blood for such a small wound.

As I walked away from Shanna's desk, bandage in hand, she stopped me. She said something about the men from Argentina and their videoconference. I didn't really hear her until I walked away. I just nodded my head as I stared at my finger. Red flowed into the tiny wrinkles of my finger. "Shanna, I'm going to come back when I'm not bleeding," I said.

The blood soaked the generic Eckart bandage. I watched as tiny pink dots appeared through the translucent material. These combined into an amorphous pink blob. Eventually clotting set in and dispelled my fears of hemophilia.

By the time I got home and washed my hands, the bandage was done for. When she moved out, my ex left behind some Blue's Clues Band-Aids. Six months of nicks, cuts, abrasions, and blisters brought me down to two, then one after today's injury. Blue was made of sterner stuff than the cheap work bandage. He was opaque, inscrutable. He gave no hint of what might be happening beneath the surface. No clue, no matter.

Tomorrow morning I will shower. The Band-Aid will become unpleasantly damp, if it doesn't fall off altogether. I will dress the cut in the last of Blue's Clues.

I am prone to the sort of superficial injury that a Band-Aid can treat. I guess I'm lucky like that. I could be prone to the type that sends you to the hospital. But my hurts have usually been of the minor sort. Wash it, wrap it, and let time do the rest.

There really was a lot of blood for such a small wound, but nothing Blue and I couldn't handle.

In August of last year, I decided to move to New York City. I can safely say it was the toughest decision I've ever made. Tough because I love my friends. Tough because I love Minneapolis. Tough because I fear change. So I wrote this post to my LiveJournal, both for myself and for my friends. Tomorrow will be the one year anniversary of my arrival in New York, so it seems like a good time to revisit what I said then. As it turns out, it is just as true now.

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When I was growing up, we had a maple tree in our front yard. This tree was a thing of beauty. It was the tree that taught me what trees are, or at least what they should be. It had a thick trunk that rose about six feet or so before the branches exploded outward in every direction, supporting a perfectly coiffed arboreal Afro. It was the kind of tree that made perfect strangers return with their camera. This happened mostly in the Fall, but occasionally in the Spring, Summer, and even once in the Winter during a magical frost-covered day.

I was a climber from a very young age. On family vacations, my mom would feel a cold rush of panic as I scampered up, down, and across rocks... to the edge of cliffs... over safety railings... and so on. At home I had to content myself with trees and scaling along the edge of my neighbors' split-level. Confined to my own yard, I had two options: the apple tree in the back, or the maple in the front. Actually, that's not true. When you're three feet tall, you only had one option: the apple. It was a good enough tree, and resulted in a yearly bounty of apple sauces, pies, and ammunition for neighborhood wars. Its welcoming branches offered many steps and handles, so that even the most novice climber could join in the fun. And fun it certainly was, but not very challenging.

I don't think I spent much time agonizing over the fact that I couldn't climb the maple. I was a kid. When you're a kid, there are lots of things you can't do, so you keep busy with what you can do. But that near-mythic tree loomed large in my mental landscape, next to a crudely painted sign that read simply, "Someday."

It was summer, and we had family over. It was probably my birthday, given those particulars. But that's not what I remember. I remember standing in front of the tree. I reached up, and the tips of my fingers brushed the lowest branch. "Yes," I thought. "Finally. I can make it. If I jump, I can make it." I didn't make it on my first attempt, but I got close enough to know with certainty that it could be done. Finally I found myself with my arms around the thick bough, hanging there. I hadn't really thought past that point, but it seemed like the thing to do would be to pull myself up. Tough to do when you've got pipe-cleaner arms, though not quite as bad when you've got a pipe-cleaner body to match. A battle of wills ensued between me and that harsh mistress, Gravity. We've fought many times over the years, and I've rarely come out the better for it. But this time, I was the victor. I found myself sitting on the branch, legs dangling on either side.

What was it about that day? If I had tried the day before, I probably would have succeeded. But I didn't try then. I just wasn't ready to try. I climbed the maple when I was ready to climb the maple.


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At the end of October of 1996, I went to New York City for the first time. The city didn't scare me, not initially in any case. I'd been to London, Paris, Rome... big fuck-off modern metropoli, and foreign to boot. I was ready for New York. Ready enough for a tourist, in any case. Plus I had two excellent guides in the forms of Cordelia and Christopher.

The seed was planted on that very first visit. "What if...?" the question began. It usually ended there, too. It was an idea too overwhelming to even give inner voice to, let alone speak aloud. Over the course of the following years, I visited D and Chris many times. Their friends became my friends, and their city my city. The seed slowly grew. "What if I moved...?" I was finally able to venture. But the very idea scared the hell out of me. I could visit, sure, but to live there? Still, there was something that kept me coming back to this idea. The city sells itself. Each visit added more entries to the Pro column, plus one or two on the Con side of things. The city sells itself, yeah, but it's also its own worst critic.

Eight years later, I'm standing here looking at what that seed became. Maybe I could have climbed it last year. Maybe I could have, but I wasn't ready. Am I ready now? Hell, I don't know. I might not be ready enough to succeed, but I'm ready enough to try. I could slip and fall. I could skin my knee. I could break my arm. It might be a mistake, but it's a mistake I'm willing to make.

Nearly eight years to the day from when I first visited, I will be moving to New York City. I can't say how long I'll be there. Months, years, longer? Your guess is as good as mine.

I love Minnesota, and I adore Minneapolis. It's fun. It's comfortable. It's home. I have many good friends here. I'm going to miss them terribly. That will be the hardest part of leaving here, the hardest part of living there.

But I need to go. I need to try. I need to answer that question, "What if I moved to New York?" If I don't answer it now, I don't think I ever will. Life gets you where you need to be when you need to be there. So here I go.

Once again I'm eying that branch. If you look at the whole tree, it's always seems too big to climb. But if you look at the branch, that first and lowest branch, that's when you realize it can be done. "Yes, finally," I'm telling myself once again. "I can make it. If I jump, I can make it." Wish me luck, friends.


It's not goodbye. I'm just taking the long way around.

"By the time this is over, you're going to be sick of this song." That would be the director. Also, the producer, cameraman, grip, best boy, craft services, and my roommate, David.

It's a Sunday afternoon, and we're at the MTV offices. These are the offices, mind you, not the studios. They look like so many other offices, with the exception that most places don't have filing cabinets labeled 'Viva La Bam' and 'Pimp My Ride'.

My ride has been good and well pimped. It's a mailcart pressed into service as both a prop and dolly. David has fastened the camera to the cart with an array of tape that would make MacGyver (or maybe Rube Goldberg) proud.

My direction is this: I am to deliver mail while lipsynching the male parts of "Daisy Chain 4 Satan" by My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult. My expression should be passive, unemotional. Considering the wailing and screaming of the song, this takes some getting used to.

I breathe. David starts the music. And, we are rolling.

The woman, whose footage has already been shot, says:

I live for drugs, it's great
I freaked out very very badly
I freaked out on acid
I'm the White Rabbit

Then I start screaming. Of course I can't scream. Too emotional. So I open my mouth like I'm breathing with a headcold, nasal passages all stuffed up. Then the words:

Here where I sit alone lost
Here I will dream
Why give me a drink
I need a think now
I have to rid my stinkin' brain

I drop mail at random cubes. I pull up some sense-memory crap of crap office jobs. And... cut.

Second verse, same as the first. Different hallway, same song.

I live for drugs, it's great
I'm the White Rabbit

Black boots, highway broads
Dope forever, forever loaded

It flows better. I work on my pacing, slowing my steps. Another cut.

We run through again.

Live for drugs, great.
Freaked out very very badly
Acid
White Rabbit

And again.

Drugs
Freaked
Acid
Rabbit
Lost
Dream
Drink
Think
Stink

I lose track after the fourth run. David was right. I am sick of the song.

Finally we finish. He's got enough footage in the can. Now he'll begin the editing. My part is done, and so ends my brief life as a video star. We head back to the crib for Courvoisier and Cristal.

"She lives for drugs," I say, as we exit the Paramount Building.
"That's great."
"You know who she reminds me of?" I ask.
"The White Rabbit?"
"Yeah. The White fucking Rabbit."

Two good days in a row. It feels fishy, like the other shoe is going to drop at any moment. I do remember a time when this wouldn't have been suspect. It's too soon to tell, but maybe those days are here again.

My coworker brought in some RAM for me, effectively doubling what I have. This is a big deal, since my PC uses the Betamax of memory.

Then he did me another solid by letting me know that Ted Leo and the Pharmacists were playing tonight at the South Street Seaport. Ted Leo's one of my favorite discoveries from the past year, so I was mad chuffed to see him in person, for free, on the most beautiful night of the summer.

Ten months in and I finally saw a live band. I'm not sure what took me so long, but I hope it's the first of many.

I have never felt so at home in this city as I do right now. The day was perfect by every measure. Even work. Yes, even work.

Then I left work and went out for drinks with the crew. Este was there. Our Waitress, the only one I'd grant a capital W. She took care of us.

We toasted and razzed the interns. After Jay spent an hour on his drink: "Hey, we can't all be doctors. Some of us gotta be nurses." I'm not usually the trash talking sort, but sometimes you've gotta. Besides, we kid because we love. I'm going to miss those kids.

Tomorrow we may go out again. One last hurrah.

On the way to the train station I passed Racquel, Monique, and Geraldine. They pegged me for drunk even though I held it together. We laughed as we ambled down the street. All was good.

Now I'm on the train home, sobering slowly. One more stop to go. Days like today, this city is easy to love.

I have a nice, lovely post trapped on my Blackberry. My dead Blackberry. Rather than wait for it to charge up enough so I can send it to myself, I have decided to post this lame-ass post. See, I had a mind to post every day this week. Think of it like this: blogging is like eating a meal. Ordinarily, I peck at the best thoughts of the day, leaving the lima beans and mystery meat untouched. I eat what I want, when I want. But when you decide to post every day, you are basically saying, "I will clean this plate, cauliflower and all." That's the only way to explain this post.

Wow, that was a tortured metaphor... about a tortured post. The worse the metaphor, the more apt it becomes. Blech. This is all getting too meta for me. Jesus, a pun too?

I'm embarassed to hit "Publish Post".

And yet...

I have a friend who lives as far away as you can and still be on the mainland and on American soil. Or close enough as makes no difference. She has been there for eight years. Eight difficult years. She came with inspiration, hope, and passion. Seeking same.

Recently she had a moment. You humans in the audience will know what I mean when I say "moment," or you will if you really think about it. I mean one of those moments that change our outlook completely, those moments that give us a swift, spiritual kick to the head. Those moments that either affirm or challenge our current course. In this moment, L.A. became its better angels. It became a place of wonder again. It became a place filled with dreamers. But most importantly, it became a place she belonged.

I could have shed a tear right then, as I read her words. I could have, but I'm a manly, masculine, male-type, stoic sort of man-man, man. I'll admit my lip quivered a bit, and a big geyser of happy welled up from somewhere near my sternum. Okay, fine. If that makes me a big softy, so be it. But I'm a sucker for a good story.

And that's what L.A. is, it's a good story. In her own words, "It's a place for dreamers...and those who dare...and people who will put everything else on hold to tell a story."

She's out there telling a story and living one too. It's just the sort of thing that gives me inspiration, hope, and passion. I live in Bizarro L.A. I live in its mirror image. Mirror images are not opposites, despite what lazy writers may say. Mirrors show ourselves reflectedly strangely.

I am ten months into my life here. Three hundred odd days. Some good, some weird, some filled with hope or passion or inspiration or some combination thereof. I've had moments that affirm and moments that deny. I'm not so much waiting for that Moment, as living vigorously on my way to it.

When that moment comes, I hope to hear it say, in a strong, clear voice, "Yes."

I don't yet know the question.

But I will.