tpc/welcome to brooklyn

saw tokyo police club tonight at this place called The Syrup Room (oh, golly, realm of utter abandonment off the morgan L thats a little skeezy & a lot full of puddles lack-of-drainage-hope-this-isnt-sewage-im-high-maintenace rah). they apparently hired someone, or goaded a somewhat older, almost-intimidating almost-stocky friend, to stand outside the door to this warehouse to greet every passerby - or every Oh You Know The Type passerby with $8 in her wallet, because honestly theres NO other reason to walk this street - with a howdy-do "its in there," end of sentence, end of story, end of conversation (save for the momentarily confused grunting "oh" "um" "hunh" sounds), because seriously theres no other way to find the arbitrarily-named Syrup (a door among doors, but maybe with a little bass vibrating through the cracks in the sidewalk). as for TPC themselves, im totally impressed. it was really intense (k: "you look like you want to stab both eyes out") but not in a performance-, emo-, rock-out-intensive sort of way; it was just really good, really solid, serious (and seriously good at grit and minors) sort of rock, solid the way its hard-but-fun to pick a single off a really excellent album, solid the way it platonically Should Be, you know, right.

theres a reason i dont talk the music talk after all, and though i feel somewhat guilty about making k leave after their really pretty short set without even hearing the uhhh "headliners" i guess thats what theyd be, "the ballet" oh no wait "land of talk,"as im sure she would have enjoyed going out for more than an hour or so, one i wanted to get back because my neighborhood is NOT the best & as it turns out im BAD at finding my way back from the M oh block-and-a-half, and two i finally figured out that thats just about the only way i can enjoy a show (well, its one of many constraints, saving the possibility of being half of one of those really, atrociously annoying couples, one of whom would always be embarassing the other if they werent both blinded by their everlasting love, gloria estefan, etc, and really, who actively wants to do that? [not the everlasting, i mean the blinded] i think - i hope - it just sort of happens, it victimizes): basically, to admit when im exhausted or bored or cant take the Scene any more and go home, no regrets, no feeling the need to milk my $8 for all its worth, no overdosing on nicotine to keep myself awake. because ill do that on the way home as part of looking Purposeful and Aware and generally do-not-fucky, because one im nervous anyway & two on the way out i got more than enough Hey White Girl, Hey Whitey.

maybe im uptight but im actively gentrifying so hell nuh-uh im not too comfortable with that, there it is, so be it; as h. said that van (oh, god the van) my mom rented is the giant, fantastic (in the fairy-tale sense), white, virginal, take-no-prisoners beast of gentrification so maybe we might scrape a little paint off the roof in the pathmark parking garage (the clearance bar may SAY 6'6" but who the fuck reads them? youre supposed to clear the clearance bar, right? which we did, with flying colors) but lo, youd better just move, sugar (unless of course youre an already-gentrified concrete ceiling, in which case you win).

i keep pretending im just here as an experiment, not-for-real, a test subject who happens to have a lot of film and a little time to kill. exactly what im protecting myself from remains unclear. but with a good nights sleep (ah yes, back to sleeping; its great how some experiences translate almost directly into reassurance and confidence when you most need it) and cabinetsful of groceries (the scraped roof was for something, after all) so i can cook and, like i said, a few rolls of film AND tv on the radio tomorrow im very, very excited, and not as weepy/stressed as i thought, and my room is really very nice; turning out to be in fact cozy and not just cozy-euphemism-for-incredibly-fucking-small.

good, good. i want to keep things the way there are, so full with possibility, so unclosed-off, so im-almost-there where i can feel through the barriers like sisters, like patience, like theres nothing to judge, like theres a past that tells you only that theres a future, that, if youre good enough, and do your own, there just will be, and even if theres not there should have been, and well all know it.