Well well well. starting to get to know Manhattan now. seeing the other side of it. its not all a bed of roses here. [you know that phrase is a misnomer really – I mean, what would be so good about a bed of roses? Maybe they meant bed of rose petals. But a bed of roses? With all those thorns? Sounds painful to me.] perhaps New York is a bed of roses after all. there is real beauty here and more inspiration both intellectually and artistically than I would ever hope for in one place.

But there is also the other side to is as well. the whole lower half of the island is quite dirty and seedy. There is graffiti everywhere. and the streets get all cockeyed and confused and broken up. there is the aspect of having to walk everywhere in the freezing cold that truly sucks. Or you have to go down and catch a subway and stand in these crazy ass lines and wait a long time and ride in these train cars packed like a sardine with thousands of other people. nothing fun about that. but somehow I find it fun.

I think that at a different income level New York would be everything that a person would want it to be. once you get to a six digit income then I think it would be just grand, once you can afford your own driver really. That's what you need really. That would be the first thing to word toward. For me anyway. My own driver. Getting around here at this income level just really sucks if you are not from here and are not accustomed to it. honestly, and with all due respect towards native new Yorkers, walking around like this and taking the subway everywhere just really sucks and is very inconvenient if you are used to just getting in your car and driving where ever you want to go.

[speaking of being accustomed to something, I recently contemplated the difference between the English phrases of “I am used to it” versus “I am accustomed to it.” we use the phrases interchangeably don't we? But they don't really mean the same thing literally when you think about it. Even though we intend the same idea at this point in their usage. But their original derivation is quite dissimilar when you stop and think about it. ‘I am used to it’ would mean more that ‘we’ are ‘used’ to ‘it,’ that ‘it’ is somehow tired of ‘us,’ that we are no longer ‘new’ to it.  Now seeing that most of the time the ‘it’ we are referring to is most likely an inanimate object, if we really wanted to say ‘I’ am accustomed to ‘something,’ then we should really be saying ‘it’ is ‘used’ to ‘me,’ rather than ‘I am used to it.’ Just an observation.]

The other day I went to the local smoke shop to sit and have smoke with all the other guys from around town. it is quite the scene here in the city. a very special scene, one that I had dreamed of my whole life. and it really does exist. You just buy your favorite smoke and sit down in this lounge area with a bunch of other guys smoking a cigar or pipe and talk about politics or sports or finances or stocks or the latest issues of the day. you end up hanging with all these Harvard business school graduates, and ceos of major companies like office depot and even the mayor will stop in and sit to have a smoke and a talk.

Being in a band, living eating sleeping breathing in the world of rock and roll, all you ever talk about is music and sex and pop culture. So the older crowd more mainstream crowd is important for me to get away to. there are only so many dick jokes you can hear in one day. and that's what being in a rock band is all about. talking about music or girls and lots of dick jokes and gay jokes. Its fun, but you know, it can get tiresome.

So I tend to need to sneak away to a more refined and intellectual scene now and then. Get into a different crowd altogether. And there is no place like a cigar shop to do this. these men are puffing away on cigars that cost at a minimum of ten to twenty dollars a pop. So they are well to do and already quite made. so they have a lot of time on their hands so they tend to study a lot and be well educated. You can learn a lot in a cigar shop. And make a lot of good connections.

We spent a whole evening watching jeopardy. If you can imagine. Everyone shouting out the answers to the questions. Or rather, the questions to the answers. And I must say I was in heaven. So there is intelligent life in the universe after all. I just needed to get to New York to find it.