April 2012
3 posts
4 tags
5 tags
Filthadelphia Part 1: The Lights Out at da Strip...
This was my first weekend off in a while. Not only did I have off Sunday but also Monday, so I was going HARD.
I found myself with a 24 pack at some house party.
“Why am I here what am I doing?”
Whatever. I didn’t know anyone there except the two friends I went there with so I just hung around drinking my beers mingling around. We decided to meet up with our friend somewhere...
14 tags
Baltimore day 2: in which the layer of filth gains...
So there I was: smelling like vomit in front of an art museum.
Obviously we went to eat pizza.
We stopped for another six pack of beers on the way to the free shuttle bus. It took us and the beers downtown to a place where I ate a small pizza and ended up ordering another. As the second one came around though I noticed an irritation in my stomach. I started drinking the beer slower.
WHAT IS...
March 2012
3 posts
8 tags
Baltimore day 1: in which a layer of filth forms...
All was according to schedule.
I got dropped off by the megabus on the outskirts of a giant parking lot. I could see a Macy’s somewhere in the distance.
The closest thing to the drop off stop seemed to be a Bertucci’s across a small highway. I set this up as the meeting location with N and made my first attempt at crossing the high-speed traffic. There were no people to be seen...
19 tags
Night of the MANIACS
I have just returned from a strange and wondrous trip. The following took place only two nights ago but was one of the most beautifully terrifying experiences of my life.
I got dropped off in front of the venue, Emo’s East. The place was huge. Instead of going inside I went straight to the bratwurst stand right in front of the door and devoured a sandwich, dripping the curry ketchup and...
9 tags
Rats of the SKY
What have I been doing? Why are there no posts? I am accumulating gross moments to write about.
More importantly: I have a question for you.
Have you ever seen a baby pigeon? A pigeon nest? Even a pigeon youth?
No. And I will tell you why.
If you have ever examined the lives of pigeons as I or anybody who spends entire days on the street with nothing better to do, then you know that the life...
February 2012
3 posts
6 tags
Flatbush Part 1
I don’t have a succinct memory of this night. Therefore I am opening it up to additions and filling. I am beginning with the only part that I feel comfortable attempting to retell. Strangely enough that is the end of the night rather than the beginning.
We had all been awake for far too long. We stumbled out of the house in Flatbush and began our journey to the subway station. As soon as we...
7 tags
Nosebleed Nightmares
The dark moisture settled around us as we swam through the crowd towards the bar.
“Due Long Island, Grazzz”
The tall glasses were appropriately filled 2/3 of the way with liquor and topped off with a splash of coke and lemonade. We quaffed the sugary mixture before stepping onto the dance floor, already covered in sweating bodies, and poured our own concoction into the glasses out of...
12 tags
The International Hairdressers
Just a normal night at Giganti. The bar was full of American tourists and the regular scumbags who came there on a nightly basis like me. It was conveniently close to my house, I wasn’t expecting this night to be any different from others when I went over for my nightly drink before sleeping on my grueling military cot springs. This night however I saw three outlandish characters sitting at...
January 2012
10 posts
8 tags
Drugs and Bath Tubs and the 7/11
The hours between 2 AM and sunrise are always of a rather strange, lucid quality; this is the time in which weirdos become the majority of the living and wakeful, and they freely roam the streets as the individuals who cling to the false-safety of a supposed normality doze off into a dull, useless sleep. I admit that as I age, I am often forced to give into the disadvantages of maturity, the aches...
4 tags
Alphabet City: Summer Sweat Miasma
“If we move down there we’ll pay the same amount because we’ll save on the monthly subway pass. Plus there’s cheaper food there and we can do whatever we want.”
So we crammed a single air bed into the small space at the foot of a twin bed. It left just enough room at the end of the small bedroom to keep a couple of items of clothing strewn about the floor. The only...
6 tags
12 tags
Gypsy Coke
It was after two.
“Meet me at Scholars” slurred the hysterical voice on the other end of the line.
I walked from wherever we had been to the detestable Irish Pub that was usually full of ex-pats, study abroads, and large tourists. L had come to visit from Scotland on one of those Ryanair flights that take you to Rome. You pay under 10 Euro to be herded about into the aircraft,...
7 tags
The consumption of large quantities of expired food over the course of the last four years have given me severe and permanent stomach problems.
I was too lazy to open the fridge because there was a large pile of trash bags circumnavigating it, so all my leftover food aged overnight before its consumption in the morning. I also licked cobblestones and drank abandoned drinks on a regular basis. My...
15 tags
Stories from the Cyst: The Midnight Rat Dance
The cyst, that famed apartment which belonged to a war era. We were separated from the Tiber by just a few buildings. The new Roman Trash law mandated that everyone take their trash out exactly 2 or less hours before the collection trucks came by to avoid any unsightly trash pilings by the ever so dear hoards of tourists.
This meant waking up at the wee hours of the morning, from 5:30 to 7:00...
9 tags
Travis
We didn’t meet Travis, he infiltrated. Sitting at a table at the Yellow Bar near Rome’s central train station. Enjoying our happy hour drinks all the more because they were 3 euro. Listening in on the conversations of Australian and British tourists who weren’t interested in seeing the Coloseum, they just wanted to know where Rome’s hottest top 40 clubs were situated.
His demeanor was Shaggy. A...
dubliketovarisch asked: You write just like I always tried to. I just wanted to thank you for that.
4 tags
Should i shower today?
Or merely continue wallowing in my own filth?
8 tags
Poor but Drunk
The insecurity of poverty can only be overcome by drunkenness. Through the feeling of desperation that you get when you search in the depths and folds of your pocketbook for a lost coin standing in the pasta aisle of the supermarket is difficult to overcome. You find yourself barred from the activities you once used to enjoy. Unable to go out to the bar with your friends, to grab a slice of pizza...
December 2011
17 posts
7 tags
Whatever ∞: Unfulfilled Ambitions, Same Clothes...
I am presently sitting in my bed; as of late, I have been spending about 75% of the day in my bed, waiting for the familiar darkness to come forth. I can only have faith in nighttime, for it is always inevitable - the sun’s descent signals my reemergence into the outside world. My eyes are crusty; I have been wearing the same dirty 2009-era wolf t-shirt for the last six days. The only foods...
12 tags
The Exorcism
After living in the medieval quarters of Rome called Trastevere for over a year I had mapped out the bar scene strategically so that I could always get the best deals on drinks. Directly after class I indulged in 3 euro long islands at Big Hilda’s. I slid up the garbage encrusted steps behind the hardware store up to Freni e Frizione for a 5 euro long island and free buffet of unlimited...
8 tags
Drunk in Public
I have few enemies in this world - of course, I think everyone is an idiot, but I lack many nemeses towards whom I feel disdain, anger, and disgust towards. In fact, before the day of this fateful occurrence, I could have said that I had zero enemies - but presently, this is no longer accurate. I despise not a single individual, but a collective entity that is an especially potent sign of the...
5 tags
Anonymous asked: What kind of manifesto comes without definitions? How is a girl to know if she is doing it right with all this ambiguity? Less mild sauce, more fire sauce.
7 tags
Gross Girl Manifesto
Drinking. Stinking. Vomming. Crying. Sleeping in ditches. Driving through the streets of Trenton, searching for a Taco Bell in some deranged state - upon discovering the possibility of a cheesy bean burrito, one must pounce on it unrelentingly, like the snow fox springs on the arctic lemming. Crossing the Delaware River at five in the morning without purpose or justification, eyes bloodshot and...
4 tags
16 tags
When did I become this thing?
I used to be normal. I was normal in High School. I used to do normal things like walk around outside while it was light out, look at stores, talk to friends about normal things, believing in the laws of society.
I can’t do any of that anymore. Now I’m a freak.
I go back and forth between extremes in a bipolar psychosis. My first natural state is sitting at the library for hours...
4 tags
The Chicken Part Two: In the Trash
This chicken was a Chinese Chicken. Our favorite Chinese restaurant in the area was in a dingy little alley where the wind always blows chunks of trash into your eyes. Ci Lin with its red doors and cheap prices. My usual lunch was dumplings and curry fried rice for 4 Euro. Grease sliding out of the corners of my mouth, pieces of chewed rice and soy-sauce on my jeans.
For dinner I would switch it...
12 tags
The Great Lizard Genocide
Furry and sweet, clean and neat. Little Patchouli has a silky soft white fur with brown patches and a big fat body. She lets you pick her up, she lets you throw things at her, she lets you throw her at things.
It’s a curious thing that cats can be so affectionate towards humans and yet so brutal and vicious to smaller animals.
The steps radiated in the sunlight outside of Napoli - the...
3 tags
Pork Roll was consumed hungover before double...
“a food article made of pork, packed in a cylindrical cotton sack or bag in such form that it could be quickly prepared for cooking by slicing without removal from the bag.”
-1910 Quote about a Pork Roll, Trenton, NJ
8 tags
Naked Old Guy
Rome, Italy. 2010.
The car sped down the cobblestone streets at a frightening speed. I held on to the ceiling, the seat, the door handle for dear life as C made pin-head turns and nearly crashed into every garbage disposal. There had been a bit too much wine at that opening.
There wasn’t any parking near the after party so we said “fuck it” and parked in the garage entrance to the Biblioteca...
6 tags
THE SMELL
welcome to MY LAST FEW DAYS OF FALL SEMESTER. I HAVE BEEN DRUNK BY ACCIDENT FOR THREE DAYS. WHEN I AM NOT DRUNK, I AM EITHER DRINKING COFFEE OR EATING THE ROTTING AVOCADOS ACCUMULATING IN THE FRUIT BOWL. MY VOICE IS DEVOLVING INTO A LOW, UNSETTLING GROWL AND THERE IS A THIN LAYER OF FILTH FORMING AROUND MY EYE BALLS. I AM SEEING THE WORLD THROUGH A FILM OF RED. THE ONLY THING I WILL EVER LOVE...
8 tags
Stories from the Cyst: Military Cots
Rome, Italy. 2010.
Part One: Introduction
If you’ve ever slept in a military cot then you’ll know it’s similar to a sleeping bag on the rocky forest floor. The mattress must be thin so that it can easily fold up into the smallest possible volume. The springs stick through the insubstantial padding right into your vertebrae. You can’t sit on the edge of the bed because you...
8 tags
Stories from the Cyst: Mold Wine
The mold wine is a historical entity. It is one of those objects that has no worth until you discover that it has been sitting in your living room for months gathering dust and growing mold with nobody minding or thinking to throw it away or properly dispose of it.
It was the fall of 2009 and we threw a party in D-17 with our code “blood or bud” implying that the potluck was one of...
7 tags
Collective Californian Mindfuck
What is this phenomenon, rightly dubbed a “collective mindfuck?” It is quite simply what occurs when a bunch of individuals, all containing issues in their brains, combine in one space. The result is an over-inflated brain problem/explosion in which something occurs that is nonsensical and outside the realm of logic or expectation. This is how the weirdoization of society will occur -...
November 2011
6 posts
2 tags
Tales from the Shit: Filthadelphia, In Two Parts
Part One
What is it about Philadelphia? Some may dub this infernal city “Filthadelphia,” others “Illadelphia”, both of these names essentially indicative of the atmosphere which this festering space wrongly dubbed a “city” evokes. The ancient smell of garbage, the unusual variations in temperature, the never-drying puddles discolored with the earth’s...
10 tags
Kurt Cobain Reliquary
Brooklyn, NY. 2010.
Prospect Park was teeming with young children running around and yelling at 2 am. We walked quickly past them with our beers and our drunk feet.
Even though we had never been to this house before we could tell exactly where it was. A bunch of lanky white kids were standing outside smoking Marb Reds and not even bothering to cover up their Old Milwaukees.
Inside proved to...
10 tags
No Floor, Just Bags
New York, NY. 2009
New York is an incredibly accommodating city for underage drinking. I was a regular at the bodega around the corner and the liquor store owned by a couple of Russians just down the street.
One night things got real hectic. We started drinking early. Real early. Tall boys, 40’s, malt liquor. The next thing we knew we had successfully Dadded (Drunk all day) and the...
7 tags
Stories from the Cyst: The Eggs and the Acrobats
Rome, Italy. 2010.
The location of The Cyst was at once ideal and horrific. The location was appreciated in those early mornings when you roll out of bed ten minutes before class and run across the Tiber with half of your books missing and no wallet. It was also ideal for a quick stumble home from the bar, no need for a taxi or shady business.
But attempting to be a real human being was...
14 tags
The Portuguese
Rome, Italy. 2009.
The living room was full of people again. The small white couch which was in a continuous color change to ever darkening beige-grey was filled with nasty asses. The air heavy with dense smoke - slowly filtering through the small slit of a window in the corner of the room. In the middle of the couch sat The Portuguese. The name fittingly describes his nationality as well as his...
12 tags
Keys of the CHRIST
Rome, Italy. 2010
Drunk.
I don’t even remember where I went that night or what I did. I just remember getting home in utmost desperation with knowledge that I was NOT in possession of my house keys. I rang the bell forever, no roommate was home. Who would ever want to be inside of that house anyway?
Time for drastic action.
I rang the doorbell of my neighbor. No response.
Another...
October 2011
4 posts
9 tags
Stories from the Cyst: Rapist Shower Curtain
Rome, Italy. January 2010 - May 2010
The cyst transformed us all. Our physical and mental health.
The shower curtain was really one of the selling points of this apartment. The small shower basin was just wide enough to stand in, and the brim to keep the water from splashing out was microscopically raised from the ground. It was not unusual to go to the bathroom and find a lake full of soap...
8 tags
The Fight of the Kebab
Rome, Italy. 2010 The big O and I walked briskly back to the apartment with fresh kebab in hand. Speaking about the delightful experience that had been entering that shop - the smells, the foods, the prices, the short walk from the house. Arrival at the Cyst. An overwhelming sense of disease. The rooms resonated with a mildewy smell and the essence of darkness. B emerged from the sleeping chamber....
9 tags
The Chicken Part One: On the Table
Rome, Italy. 2009. There’s something about those moments directly after dinner. You’re hanging out with your roommates, smoking cigarettes, listening to music, drinking beer. We decided to invite our friend Stefan over to partake in the chilling. Bring us some more beers while he was at it. It had been a somewhat early dinner, and in the time in between we just didn’t feel like...
10 tags
Trash Man
Rome, Italy. Circa 2009. It’s that unfortunate time when things start to close but everyone is still out on the street. After too many beers and too many strangers B and I chose a group of dreadlocked crust punks to complain to about the bars closing. It’s only 2:30, why can’t people just lighten up? These guys didn’t get it. They just wanted to smoke a joint. We formed a...