The Discrete Charms of the Bourgeoisie

madmaxmfp @ 2006-12-18T22:42:00

2006-12-19T02:42:33Z

It's amazing how much of New York's physical appearance seems like it's been here forever, but has really only existed in my (our) lifetime(s). I already knew, and I bet most people do too, that the streetsigns used to be different colors for every borough. Well, almost every borough - Staten Island was yellow and black, just like Manhattan. They were like that until the green/white vinyl came around in 1986.

But those little glowing green orbs above subway stations? They mean a 24 hour station, and they've only been there since 1982.

The most stolen books, by author:

2006-05-24T22:26:05Z

Martin Amis, Paul Auster, George Bataille, William Burroughs, Italo Calvino, Raymond Chandler, Michel Foucault, Dashiell Hammett, Jack Kerouac and Jeanette Wintersun.

The Bataille might be entirely due to my friend Mike.

madmaxmfp @ 2006-05-15T13:10:00

2006-05-15T17:11:36Z

AMAZON.COM IF YOU DON'T SEND ME THE NEW GUYOTAT TRANSLATION RIGHT NOW I WILL RIP YOUR FACE OFF. I ordered that shit THREE MONTHS AGO.

madmaxmfp @ 2006-05-14T23:21:00

2006-05-15T03:33:00Z

At midnight, it will be Paraguaian Independence Day, as well as The Feast of Saint Jean-Baptiste de la Salle, as well as the 76th birthday of Jasper Johns, 70th birthdays of Ralph Steadman (Hunter S. Thompson's illustrator) and Paul Zindel (Staten Island children's book author), 69th birthday of former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, 58th birthday of Brian Eno, 55th birthday of namesake Jonathan Richman, 53rd birthday of Mike "Tubular Bells" Oldfield, 44th birthday of Melle Mel (lead rapper of the Furious Five), 39th birthday of fireball pitcher John Smoltz, 37th birthday of Emmitt Smith of the Dallas Cowboys dynasty, 31st birthday of murder-acquitted Baltimore Raven Ray Lewis, 26th birthday of the Red Sox's Josh Beckett, and 25th birthday of The Soprano's Jamie-Lynn Sigler.

madmaxmfp @ 2006-05-05T16:22:00

2006-05-05T20:27:16Z

A Gram Parsons cover of my favorite Dolly/Porter duet? SIGN ME UP DOGG!

madmaxmfp @ 2006-03-30T15:02:00

2006-03-30T20:04:09Z

I just got (for me) really nice new headphones - meaning I spent $15 on them rather than $5. The least expensive type of Sony padded headphones. Anyway, now I can listen to music on my computer without buzzing built-in-speakers. You can tell from my music choice below that it sounds pretty rad on a 60 degree day.

madmaxmfp @ 2006-03-26T21:03:00

2006-03-27T02:05:48Z

Did anyone call me really early this morning from a payphone in Jackson Heights or Corona? I got a call at around nine AM this morning, and it came up as a payphone number on 32nd Avenue in Queens.

madmaxmfp @ 2006-03-06T00:27:00

2006-03-06T05:29:20Z

I just got terrifed that, because academic success comes so easily without earning, success in the real world will not come. And this will be a slap in the face. My work will get rejected, my writing will be proven poor. Scary.

madmaxmfp @ 2006-01-31T23:59:00

2006-02-01T05:00:38Z

Apparently, in 2003, they sealed up all the entrances to the abandoned "haunted" monastery near the apartment I grew up in. So, if any of you are looking to go exploring there, it's probably a no go. Which is a shame, because when I went into the building as a kid, it was fucking SCARY - even during all the times I went in during the day. There used to be a huge collapsed roof on the 2nd floor, and a big rope that people used as a swing, and that's where I stepped on my first syringe. Plus there was this gigantic tiled shower room. I only went down to the first sub-basement level, though there are supposedly fifty (and on the fiftieth you find the monks' skeletons.) More realistically, though, there are about ten levels, and it probably gets impassably flooded at around four. The first one did stink like death, but it was probably just tepid, filthy underground garbage water. It's built into the highest point above sealevel on the east coast (south of Maine) so ten levels isn't outlandish.

It's still pretty spooky from outside, though. I kept hearing people talking about going, so if the trip hasn't happened by the time I come home in the beginning of March, I'd be glad to organize a trip up there. It's literally one block from where I was born, and I'd love to go back to the monastery (besides, I've been getting irritably and warmly nostalgic for my early childhood recently. aah memories the color of polaroids.) There's a couple abandoned, spooky things on Staten Island - moreso than other areas of the city because they're located in fairly non-occupied parts. There's the boat graveyard, the abandoned mental hospital, the creepy statue in Moravian Cemetary, the Vanderbilt Tomb etc etc etc. Besides, I have heard that the cement sealing the entrances isn't very thick, and kids bust holes through to get back in there - which are then sealed up the next week. So we might catch it on a good day. I have to warn you, though, it'll probably be a lot darker in there than it used to be. And if it was scary as hell when it was all busted open and lit up...

madmaxmfp @ 2005-11-20T19:02:00

2005-11-21T00:06:51Z

Uhhh I guess these are seven songs I listen to/sing to myself lately when I'm biking. Or just songs I've been listening to recently. Or at least that's how Rosie explained it, with the biking...

Fifteen, "Communication"
Hellshock, "Walking Death"
Oedipus and the Motherfuckers, "Blind Peephole"
Young Jeezy, "And Then What?"
Husker Du, "Pink Turns to Blue"
Crimpshrine, "Second Generation Junkies"
Celtic Frost, "Dawn of Meggido"

madmaxmfp @ 2005-11-15T06:46:00

2005-11-15T11:49:39Z

THIS IS NOT WHAT I WANT. I can't write correctly, and I hate it when this fucking happens. It's seven am and I know what I want to write, but it is not coming out properly. I want to write like myself but I'm writing like Italo Calvino and I don't ever want to write like that but I can't help it. I am so glad I decided not to take creative writing as an academic major.

madmaxmfp @ 2005-10-22T21:12:00

2005-10-23T01:14:50Z

Rosie and I found this awesome stray cat. Well, "found" meaning it chased Rosie and she ran away screaming and thought it was gonna eat her (because I was scaring her at the time about things in the bushes.) I let it in the house, though, and fed it, and it's awesome. It's the nicest a cat has ever been to me (ask me about me and cats sometime.) I want to name it a) Nikki Sixx b) GG (after Allin) c) Roast Beef. Mike wants to name it Bataille. I think he's gonna keep it because our landlord doesn't allow pets. BUT I'm about to say fuck the landlord, and keep the cat anyway. Apartments are cheap and plentiful here, if we get evicted I can find another one and mad keep this cat.

It also purrs constantly. Does anyone who owns a cat know if this is a problem? I read that it can mean, besides being happy, that they are showing submission to a threat or superior and trying to make themselves seem harmless and also that it could mean they're calming themselves down.

madmaxmfp @ 2005-10-20T13:36:00

2005-10-20T17:36:33Z

Looks like it's gonna be another day of listening to Fifteen nonstop.

madmaxmfp @ 2005-10-19T17:20:00

2005-10-19T21:21:52Z

I really like the English Dogs and I don't give a fuck what anyone says. Oi or no oi, nationalist-themed or not, metal-influenced or not they are seriously pretty awesome. SO DON'T EVEN GIVE ME NO GUFF.

madmaxmfp @ 2005-08-10T00:34:00

2005-08-10T04:35:26Z

I'm sorry, but those Burger King commercials with the chicken skull wearing heavy metal band are the greatest fucking thing on television ever.

Pierre Guyotat

2005-07-27T20:05:30Z

Like the artist Jean Dubuffet, who likewise toiled with "matter" and "texture," Guyotat drags, prods, and sometimes gently eases language as close as possible to the brutest facts of existing. In his case, this first demands a close-focusing on the necessary locus of the self, the body--especially its secretions and excretions; second, a maniacal preoccupation with the minutest details of sound and rhythm. To the corporal materialism of Eden, Eden, Eden and Tombeau pour cinq cent mille soldats is thus added, in Prostitution and Progénitures, a "linguistic materialism" fanatically sensitive to the slightest phonetic or graphic phenomena. The result? A prolonged, repetitive, numbing, inebriating, dizzying and, it must be said, thoroughly exhausting linguistic dance--yet whose frenzy and especial ambition is unique in French literature.

John Taylor, Reading Pierre Guyotat

madmaxmfp @ 2005-07-27T14:58:00

2005-07-27T18:59:05Z

The Conflict shows at CBGB are not only after I go back to school, but cost twenty five dollars a ticket. Fuck CBGB, I'm glad that place is closing.

madmaxmfp @ 2005-07-18T23:13:00

2005-07-19T03:13:57Z

Excuse me?

Why is John Singleton so fucking awesome?

madmaxmfp @ 2005-07-08T19:53:00

2005-07-08T23:53:39Z

Seriously, I've got to stop thinking about leaving New York.

madmaxmfp @ 2005-07-04T04:19:00

2005-07-04T08:21:28Z

Other people's parents are awesome. So are fireworks test runs, bike rides down a deserted 2nd Avenue Midtown at 2:30 AM, and Twilight Zone episodes about Binghamton.

madmaxmfp @ 2005-06-23T00:35:00

2005-06-23T04:38:46Z

David Sedaris offered me zero (0) free food products, and plugged his editorship of a short story anthology which including Richard Yates and Joyce Carol Oates (who he referred to as J-Co.) I fucking despise David Sedaris, nearly as much as Dave Eggers. I wanted to go up and be like "KNOCK KNOCK MR SEDARIS, WHERE'S THE FICTION OF MERIT? SHITTY HUMOR PIECES/MONOLOGUES ARE NO GOOD FOR ANYTHING."

madmaxmfp @ 2005-06-20T20:27:00

2005-06-21T00:28:16Z

Whoops, I think that meat was bad. Now the question is, am I going to die? Fuck you, supermarket, that was MAD not "sell by June 19th."

madmaxmfp @ 2005-06-19T16:13:00

2005-06-19T20:17:18Z

I don't know why, but I seriously haven't felt like doing anything since about noon Saturday, besides sitting around my house eating and drinking coffee. It's sort of nice, sort of not. Someone ought to make me do something tomorrow.

madmaxmfp @ 2005-06-12T01:18:00

2005-06-12T05:28:58Z

Things I want to accomplish in life:

Get elected to L'Academie Francaise (i dunno if they only accept native francophones or 2nd languagers.)
Get mad fat, OR become the skinniest person I know. (I think this kid Lucas is skinnier than I am.) Then again, I don't think I CAN physically gain weight, and I'm not sure y'all understand how much I eat. I drink whole milk (or sometimes 2%) constantly, I eat tacos and burritos more than anything, I sometimes eat 4 or 5 seperate meals in a single day, a lot of my favorite foods are fatty organ meats, I drink mad forties...I CAN'T GAIN WEIGHT!
Get published and have some people hate my work so I can get MAD HAUGHTY about that shit! Also so I can get free reign to be a critic for the New Yorker, and then use that as a vehicle to hate on other writers. Like "Yo Jonathan Franzen's new novel is MAD GAY. p.s. I heard Jonathan Franzen slams mad dudes."
Start that queercore band.
See xlimpwristx (SOOOOOOOON!)

madmaxmfp @ 2005-06-10T01:02:00

2005-06-10T05:04:25Z

Actually, I just had an epiphany: I really do hate everyone OR I can only really truly like myself because I'm the only one I can fully control OR books and being alone is better than people.

However, should you still want to loan me a typewriter, I would appreciate it. ALTHOUGH NOT IN A FRIENDLY WAY- PURE BUSINESSLIKE.