Robb Todd's Blog, page 2
October 22, 2012
COURTESY PROFESSIONALISM RESPECT
A cop on a motorized trike...
COURTESY PROFESSIONALISM RESPECT
A cop on a motorized trike blasted a weird siren and rolled onto the train with a “Scuse me big fella.” The guy next to me dug in his bag and pulled out a newspaper.
I followed a herd of halting feet up the stairs and it was sunny and cool outside and I was breathing and thinking about breathing.
October 17, 2012
My duct-tape wallet was getting pretty frayed. I thought I would...
My duct-tape wallet was getting pretty frayed. I thought I would have to throw it away and get a new one but I finally realized … I could fix it with duct tape.
My duct-tape wallet was getting pretty frayed. I thought I would...
My duct-tape wallet was getting pretty frayed. I thought I would have to throw it away and get a new one but I finally realized … I could fix it with duct tape.
October 16, 2012
BOMB
I took a car home from a reading in Brooklyn last night....
BOMB
I took a car home from a reading in Brooklyn last night. Told the guy I lived in Inwood. He said forty. I said thirty-five. He said okay. I told him to take the highway and he didn’t. He cut across from BK to Chinatown and drove ALL THE WAY UP BROADWAY. Took forever but I figured the meter wasn’t on so fuck it. I’ve never ridden almost the entire way up Broadway and last night it was awesome and wet. I got an email in the cab and it was this:
September 19, 2012
SUBWAY SOLO
Nike and Red Bull and STDS and department stores and...
SUBWAY SOLO
Nike and Red Bull and STDS and department stores and airlines and other things I hate. Everywhere my eyes landed. No avoiding them once you plunge into the subway. Do I have the right not to be advertised to in a public space? Clearly, no. No. No. On the train, an ad for booze. Why is it rum and Coke and not rum and Dr. Pepper? Why not a whiskey Pepper? That would be delicious. That should be an ad. I would buy that. But not until an ad tells me to.
August 22, 2012
TACTICS IN SUBURBS WITH THANKS
A friend—no, not a friend....
TACTICS IN SUBURBS WITH THANKS
A friend—no, not a friend. Someone I knew once. He confessed to me that he had someone murdered. Hired a guy. He was serious. He told me if I ever needed to have someone killed, he could arrange it.
He was still angry about what the dead man had done to him. Well, it was not what the dead man did to him. It was what the dead man had done to the woman he married. But the dead man did it before they were married. The dead man did it before he even met his wife. It was impossible to have the dead man killed again and my friend was angry about this. We were not really friends.
He said to me that night: You watch commercials on television all fucking day and you listen to commercial music and watch commercial films and read commercial books and you are not bothered by commercial whaling or advertising for pharmaceuticals. He said: You live in a commercial. He said: Your life is a fucking commercial.
I said: You still hang on to the notion that just because you do not like something it’s bad.
People are not good nor bad. Everyone is good and bad. That is what someone told me. Another someone told me that life gets better when you say what you mean and do what you say. So does your death. You can hire someone for that. Someone with a gun. To honor the true wishes of the founding fathers, gun laws should allow all citizens to own as many muskets as they wish. But only muskets.
The guy I knew reached in his pocket and dropped a bunch of strangely labeled condoms on the table. He said: Found these in the bathroom at a bar last night. He said: Have some. I said: I’m good, thanks. He said: This is gum right? He blew a reservoir-tip bubble. He said: It tastes weird.
When you stop saying the convenient thing. When you know that this is not the way it is but the way it isn’t. When you enjoy the weather. All weather. I enjoy weather. Put the Riunitie on ice.
TACTICS IN SUBURBS WITH TANKS
A friend—no, not a friend. Someone...
TACTICS IN SUBURBS WITH TANKS
A friend—no, not a friend. Someone I knew once. He confessed to me that he had someone murdered. Hired a guy. He was serious. He told me if I ever needed to have someone killed, he could arrange it.
He was still angry about what the dead man had done to him. Well, it was not what the dead man did to him. It was what the dead man had done to the woman he married. But the dead man did it before they were married. The dead man did it before he even met his wife. It was impossible to have the dead man killed again and my friend was angry about this. We were not really friends.
He said to me that night: You watch commercials on television all fucking day and you listen to commercial music and watch commercial films and read commercial books and you are not bothered by commercial whaling or advertising for pharmaceuticals. He said: You live in a commercial. He said: Your life is a fucking commercial.
I said: You still hang on to the notion that just because you do not like something it’s bad.
People are not good nor bad. Everyone is good and bad. That is what someone told me. Another someone told me that life gets better when you say what you mean and do what you say. So does your death. You can hire someone for that. Someone with a gun. To honor the true wishes of the founding fathers, gun laws should allow all citizens to own as many muskets as they wish. But only muskets.
The guy I knew reached in his pocket and dropped a bunch of strangely labeled condoms on the table. He said: Found these in the bathroom at a bar last night. He said: Have some. I said: I’m good, thanks. He said: This is gum right? He blew a reservoir-tip bubble. He said: It tastes weird.
When you stop saying the convenient thing. When you know that this is not the way it is but the way it isn’t. When you enjoy the weather. All weather. I enjoy weather. Put the Riunitie on ice.
August 13, 2012
LEAN OVER EDGE
Her shirt meant to say No. 1 but it said No 1 in...
LEAN OVER EDGE
Her shirt meant to say No. 1 but it said No 1 in big type. No one is perfect. I am no one, too. Still, it raises questions such as “Why does every pizza joint in New York also sell Jamaican beef patties?” and “Remember when running out of film was a thing?” These questions are more complicated than a duck’s vagina. I also questioned why no one got off the train when it stopped at a late-night station. Long florescent lightbulbs leaned against every I-beam on the platform. Bunches of them. Dozens. Nobody was smashing them. I pressed my hands and face against the glass and started barking.
August 10, 2012
SHE YELLS GOD IS A MAN
Stare at the weird heat. A five-day week...
SHE YELLS GOD IS A MAN
Stare at the weird heat. A five-day week weekend. Here is a lesson in how to have a life: freshen your roses with Clorox. Orgiastic reality in a house of no mercy. This is called confirmation bias but when when you both feel that way, you will love each other better.
August 7, 2012
THE CLAD WAS SCANTY
Was I devouring my life properly? It is...
THE CLAD WAS SCANTY
Was I devouring my life properly? It is difficult to own yourself completely. The way sizzling meat sounds like hard rain. A boy at the table across from me prayed over his slice and a man came back with two drinks and set the small one in front of the boy. “I wish god was here right now so he could buy me more pizza,” the boy said. That fixed my rictus. The man laughed and a woman’s phone rang and the ring was a song and the song was a ballad and ballads are mostly lies, although there is something useful inside every obsession.
