Posted: 3/4/2006, 3:03 pm
Here is a new section from the new-uber editoin of the novel; just wanted to share...
Standing in the cold, wet dark on Amsterdam Avenue, upper-Manhattan, it all just seems to make sense. I have the Mexican/American pizza-bar behind me; the grand antique looking Hostelling-International building to my left. I hear music gliding toward my ears from a thousand different directions. Garbage pop from a passing car, blaring Latino rap from across the street and clichéd rock music from a hipster coffee shop down the way; and then it all just hits me. Wanting more in a whisper than you can find in a scream. A tear for an ocean, a touch for a beating. We’re just given so much, for so little.
Like a deafening silence of truth and heartbreak. My friends are still asleep, up in our room. All of us here, on a vacation from our lives. On a vacation from what has actually become our lives. All I am is just another blank face; jut another blank face in this nameless generation. A mile after the baby-boomers, and Gen-X doesn’t even care enough to name us. Without focus. Without genre. Without lead. The only common threads—MTV and bad music. No aspiration, no talent. No perseverance. Music has become pop princesses and street thugs living happily underneath the Sony tree.
Scripted reality has become entertainment. This entire city as home, watching the latest episode of Fear Factor. Everyone is so lazy that they will do anything, anything, to avoid having to do an honest day’s work. Throw their lives and dignity away on national television; actually aspiring to be water cooler gossip. Eat earthworms and walk tightropes just to be on TV. To have their name known. They want it so badly that they don’t even care what they’re known for.
“Any press is good press! Any press is good press!” Isn’t that how the old adage goes?
It seems I’m happier alone. Standing here, just me, on Amsterdam Avenue—and I finally feel alive. Pretty soon my feet begin to hurt, so I sit down on a bench, and just watch the people walk on by. A man in a suit; dark blue with old shoes. A pretty woman in a red dress walks by. Probably coming from some fancy dinner party. She begins to try and hail a cab, and almost immediately one appears as if from nowhere to pick her up.
“Battery Park, please.” She quickly says, as she shuffles in out of the cold darkness. The cabbie just nods and begins to drive on. He shoots me a disapproving glance as he pulls off. ‘Probably thinks I’m just another punk kid with no future’ I think. With nothing better to do than stand her on the freezing street and watch the cabs roll slowly by.
He’s probably right.
Standing in the cold, wet dark on Amsterdam Avenue, upper-Manhattan, it all just seems to make sense. I have the Mexican/American pizza-bar behind me; the grand antique looking Hostelling-International building to my left. I hear music gliding toward my ears from a thousand different directions. Garbage pop from a passing car, blaring Latino rap from across the street and clichéd rock music from a hipster coffee shop down the way; and then it all just hits me. Wanting more in a whisper than you can find in a scream. A tear for an ocean, a touch for a beating. We’re just given so much, for so little.
Like a deafening silence of truth and heartbreak. My friends are still asleep, up in our room. All of us here, on a vacation from our lives. On a vacation from what has actually become our lives. All I am is just another blank face; jut another blank face in this nameless generation. A mile after the baby-boomers, and Gen-X doesn’t even care enough to name us. Without focus. Without genre. Without lead. The only common threads—MTV and bad music. No aspiration, no talent. No perseverance. Music has become pop princesses and street thugs living happily underneath the Sony tree.
Scripted reality has become entertainment. This entire city as home, watching the latest episode of Fear Factor. Everyone is so lazy that they will do anything, anything, to avoid having to do an honest day’s work. Throw their lives and dignity away on national television; actually aspiring to be water cooler gossip. Eat earthworms and walk tightropes just to be on TV. To have their name known. They want it so badly that they don’t even care what they’re known for.
“Any press is good press! Any press is good press!” Isn’t that how the old adage goes?
It seems I’m happier alone. Standing here, just me, on Amsterdam Avenue—and I finally feel alive. Pretty soon my feet begin to hurt, so I sit down on a bench, and just watch the people walk on by. A man in a suit; dark blue with old shoes. A pretty woman in a red dress walks by. Probably coming from some fancy dinner party. She begins to try and hail a cab, and almost immediately one appears as if from nowhere to pick her up.
“Battery Park, please.” She quickly says, as she shuffles in out of the cold darkness. The cabbie just nods and begins to drive on. He shoots me a disapproving glance as he pulls off. ‘Probably thinks I’m just another punk kid with no future’ I think. With nothing better to do than stand her on the freezing street and watch the cabs roll slowly by.
He’s probably right.
