Bukowski Tonight. Israel Tomorrow.

Israel Tomorrow.
My hope is to write as frequently as I can.

I was walking around New York today finishing things up. Grabbed the repaired trench coat. Stowed the car. Went to the bookstore.

I took a lot of looks at New York tonight. Remembered why I love it.
I love her dirty and sad and full of too much stuff.
I love that she's loud and pushy and smart.
I love her because...apparently she reminds me of me, wait a minute!!

I was at East Village Books tonight, I was in the last minute throws of is-there- something-I-need, and I made my way up to the counter with a couple of last minute finds.

For the very first time, I noticed the 5 tiered bookcase behind the store keeper.
It was covered in Bukowski. From top to bottom.
I asked him what for there was so much Bukowski.
He laughed and said it's like that at Barnes and Noble too.

"The junkies steal it to sell on the street."

"Just Bukowski?"

"Well, Keroac, too."

I looked and saw some of him in the corner on the bottom.

So, junkies have very specific tastes, and the verdict is in. Bukowski is the junky street vendor's author of choice.

See you in Israel.

Sure, But How About My Robot?

I'm about to fly internationally and I have just learned that I may not bring a sno- globe of any kind on the plane with me. I may, however, carry on Toy Transformer Robots. Those have the all clear.

I feel really, really safe.

And glad that no one is being unreasonable about robots anymore.

behind the times

You know, one more thing. I was just reading an interview with Christina Ricci in Time Out New York. She lost a crazy amount of weight for this movie she's in with Samuel L. Jackson. Another movie with Snake in the title. You think he just liked the name of this one,too?

Anyway, hardly my point.

She said something that really stuck with me.

"I've never really enjoyed how my ass looked from behind, in panties. I don't think many women do, so to me it was like waking up after drinking for three months."

Christina Ricci. Don't say that. Let's not reinforce negative body images in each other. You don't like it, you need to step up on the Self Love. You need to stop reading magazines, remember you're Christina Ricci and that every 20-something-plus man and plenty of women would love to sleep with you.

And. I'm NOT Christina Ricci and I love how my ass looks from behind. Especially, in panties. So there.
Come on, guys. Its 2007, Year of the Pig. Stop throwing up. You have a great ass.
There are just a lot of bad panties out there.

Also, not your fault.

Gung Hei Fat Choi!

Hello, Year of the Pig, hello!

Year of the Pig, I am expecting kind, well-intended things from you. I'm really hoping that your swiney presence is going to bump the Whitebread 2007 up some notches. It's been a funny one, alright.

So many holidays happened all at once this past week, as well. We had a New Moon, Valentine's Day, Chinese New Year, Sun into Pieces, Presidents day, Fat Tuesday, and Ash Wednesday. You know what that means? Lots and lots of suspended alternate side of the street parking.

I was with an old flame of mine, the other night, and we kidded that Bloomberg will probably suspend it until election day to make up for what he did after the snowfall.

Jackass.

Oh yeah, I have an idea, let me piss off New York, the only people in the entire country who might entertain the notion of voting for me, and then make a bid for President. Yeah, I forgot about all those other Rich Jewish mayors from New York who easily became President of the Untied States.

I have one word. Schmuck. That's ok. I know some schmucks.

I'm not telling my grandmother that I'm going to Israel and my mother just informed me that if I die she and my sister are running away, in separate directions, I'm sure. A two state solution if I ever heard of one. I see my mom starting over in Utah. She will become the wife of some Mormon man she can hate. Susu will undoubtedly go to Mexico, get into a medical school there.

My stepfather and my grandmother will never know what happened. They will be left to their own devices.

Why is there still so much dirty snow? Oh, right. Thanks. Metaphor.

I was born in 1980. I'm a Metal Monkey. It is supposed to be a fortunate sign to be born under. But, this isn't necessarily supposed to be my year. Lots of travel in the Year of the Pig, but a real mixed bag. Next year is supposed to be great, though. 2008. Year of the Rat.
I'm good with that. I know some Rats, too.

Well, here is to prosperity. Here is to the end of the dirty snow. Here is to travel, peace, love, and friendships.

Gung Hei Fat Choi!!!

My Mother, Mr. Rainbow

A few days after Valentines Day, I told my my mother I was going to Israel in less than two weeks. She said, let me get a pill and sit down.

You ever have one of those weeks?
One. Of. Those. Weeks.
It went better than expected, though. She didn't scream at me, or cry.

She did tell me I was out of my mind, and at one moment she asked me why I was insisting on going to Hell. Why?

Needless to say my mother doesn't think my free trip to Israel is a good thing.

"I have avoided Jews for 99% of my life," she said at somepoint,"why are you doing this?"

Later that evening, when I knew she and my sister were together having coffee, I wrote a text message to my sister, who has known about my plan all along.

"Tell Mom it's gonna be ok."

Less than one minute later I received:

"Mom says, 'F U'."

Like I say, it could have been worse.

I was texting them in the car, which no one should do by the way, on my way to a potluck for which I cooked far too much Cous Cous. But, before I shared my rushed cooking with an army of Jewish theater makers, I had to make a quick stop at the Manhattan Church of Christ. I had to see a man about some songs.

Mr. Rainbow lives above the bar where I work. Mr. Rainbow is a balladeer who wears a derby and the very beginnings of Alzheimer's. He is a fashionable old man who still "has it." He remembers me when he comes to find me at work, but other than that, it's a crap shoot.

I got to his church and said hello to him before he went on. It took a while for him to remember who I was, but once he did, he got up and made an announcement that I was in the house, that I promised, and that I made it.

The first song he sang was My Funny Valentine by Rodgers and Hart.
Thanks, Mr. Rainbow, I needed that.

If you can ever catch Mr. Rainbow, I would, he plays out quite a bit.
And, if you can convince my mom I'm not gonna die in Israel, I would really appreciate it.

Dharma Bums All

Anna Nicole Smith is dead and I feel sad because I feel like I grew up with her. I remember the old guy. I remember the jugs. I remember when, like my friend Donahue, she was one of the most beautiful women on earth.

No, I do not think that Anna Nicole Smith was the Marilyn Monroe of our generation. I do think she was a beautiful woman always trying to make life work for herself but, I feel like reality television and John F. Kennedy have kept she and Marilyn worlds apart. I believe there will be a cloud of confusion around her death for a while;I do not think a senator will ever be suspected. This will not be the same heartbreaking crisis. It will be a three ring circus, for sure, but this was not an American Sweetheart, not in the way that this can be tragic. There is already one very rich family out there patting their pockets and breathing a little more easily.

People are already saying it figures, how else would it end?

A sad, sad woman needs some rest.
Give it.

Meanwhile, a few hours later, last night, I saw No Great Society. A fabulous piece, created by Elevator Repair Service, in which Jack Kerouac is further obfuscated and explained. Someone in the play said, that what we got going on now, in all of our counter cultures, is in part Kerouac's fault.

Yeah, you crazy son of a bitch, you're why I love my car, seek out instability, have taken to drink, and don't feel the pressure to do laundry too often, aren't you?

What do you think Kerouac would say about the Internet and Reality Programing?

Meanwhile, in not a Hard Rock hotel, in not a New York City black box, on the other side of the planet, some people are scrapping on a Temple Mount about praying.
About prayer.


Walking out to my car, after the play, I noticed someone had left a pinata- in the shape of a Rhinoceros- on the car parked behind me. He was purple and happy faced. I almost took him, but then I remembered myself and thought; this is someone else's pinata.

DO YOU HAVE ANY OF THESE SYMPTOMS:
Weight loss?
Coughing up blood?
No appetite?
Night sweats?
Fever?
Difficulty breathing?
Fatigue?

PLEASE SEE THE NURSE NOW !!!


The strangest dream I have had recently, I had last night; it was about this guy I knew a million years ago named Enzo. I knew him in High School. Enzo had somehow died in an EZ Cheeze related incident, the details of which remain lost in a haze of startled- morning- wake-up unclear. In order to understand his death, the entire graduating class of 1998 began emptying cans of EZ Cheeze onto the football fields of a high school that could have been Pacifica High School, but was not, in fact, Pacifica High School.

Through the remnants of the cheese-glop, we were searching for Enzo's killer. The best part was that Enzo was overseeing. My friend Sarah (who did not, as far as I remember, attend high school with me) spotted it first.

Embedded in the Cheeze, which came from one of the cans she was wielding, was a snail, with a broken shell, and a pair of spectacles lodged inside of it. Perfectly intact spectacles inside a scared, damaged snail's back.

-Paging Dr. Freud.
-Paging Dr. Freud.

This is what had taken Enzo in the end. We all knew he would go strangely. Enzo was relieved that we had found the culprit.

I had a better time at the Gynecologist yesterday than I did at Kinko's. It was actually more emotionally draining scanning one picture at Kinko's than it was having my cervix inspected. I was put more at ease by the woman yelling my HIV test results down the hall, with a thumbs up and a smile, at the free clinic, than at the corporate institution where things should be as simple as making a god damned facsimile.

Kinko's once a year. The OB/GYN for life, I say.

The clinic I went to was nicknamed "Gougy."
This adorable, somewhat overly appropriate, little moniker was on all the awards and certificates that hung all over its walls. Little "Gougy" made me feel loved and cared for. Like the first time someone told me my Cervix was a Pink Cute Success.

Love Life Hint: Want a lady to be yours for life? Just tell her that.

At Gougy, I was fortunate to meet the super hero Georgia Pollard. Georgia Pollard had a sign over her desk informing all incoming, that "Nobody notices what I do, until I don't do it."

She had a bible on her desk, six Troll Dolls, and a Spanish text book entitled Usted Y Yo.

Her poster for the NAACP proclaimed it, "the most feared and revered, most cussed, most discussed, civil rights organization in America."

Georgia Pollard runs a program that gets women their yearly annuals for free. She does it all on a volunteer basis, because there is no longer any funding for it. She told me she was at work until nine o'clock the night before and was having trouble reading her computer screen. It took fifteen minutes, give or take 20, to get me signed up for the program.

She put a pink sticker on my hospital card and told me to go get a refund on my co-pay.
Right now. Downstairs. Go.
My vulva and I said, thank you, so kindly, Mrs. Pollard.
Women who are saints work for low income families with very little attention. Everyone knows that, right?

United States Passport

Depending on how long you have known me, and under what context, you may or may not know that Melissa Shaw is not my real name.
It is Made Up.
Not by me, but by my family, a very long time ago.
To make a long story short, and full of Unnecessarily Incomplete Intrigue, it involves kidnappings, traveling across country, and being on the run.

But today, the United States Government, the same folks who gave me an illegal Driver's Licence, Social Security card, and who keeps you safe from terrorism by arresting twenty somethings for advertising stunts, has granted me, Not- So- Justifiably- Melissa Shaw, a Passport.

I never thought I would actually be given one, or if I was, that it would be after many weeks of additional paper work, oh, and lying.

I have found myself in that huge percentile of America that doesn't have a passport, for this long, because my family is completely Off Their Rockers, fear the world, and really anything beyond the boundaries of the United States.

I was the kid with the million and one chances to go Europe but couldn't because of the fear of what it would do to my family. Or rather, what my family would do to me.


However, I, N-S-J Melissa Shaw, now have every reason and excuse to continue to ignore a responsible career path, bum around the world, and kill my grandmother off via a heart attack when she eventually finds out I am soon to be boarding a plane to Israel.


Today, a big thank you to the United States of America. Clap. Clap. Clap. You big lovable dupes. I heart you guys, too.

The saga of my 1998 Dodge Stratus continues or, someone needs to follow me around with a camera.

4 O'Clock yesterday afternoon, I walk out to my car to move it for alternate side of the street parking.

I find that my car has been broken into and that the passenger side window exists now only in a glass puddle on my two front seats. The contents of my glove compartment box are around, too. Swimming in the cracked beauty of the thick smashed glass.

Just as I made the discovery, keys hanging from my hand, a guy walks by.

"Oh..." he says.

"Yeah. Crazy right." All I can say.

"You gotta call the police."

"Yeah," I say. "Okay."

I didn't really want to. I don't really like the police. Besides, all I needed, on top of what had just happened, was for them to look up in the computer how many unresolved parking tickets I have. Goose=cooked. But, sigh,In my daze,I called. And I thought about it again. Man, maybe they would just take the car.

The cops showed up. Took a report. Said nothing about the tickets. Called what happened "criminal mischief."

They had asked me if anything was stolen. If you know my car, than you know there was nothing to steal. There was an atlas, a bad book about acting, a mess of papers and a coupla dumb hats my grandma gave me. My radio was still there.

No. Nothing that I can tell, officer. Thanks.

The thing I was the happiest about was that Luniper and Fuck Me were still there.
If you have never ridden in my car than you don't know the kids.

Luniper and Fuck Me, are a white cat and a purple hippo. They are my constant companions in the car. They were given to my roommate and I in New Orleans by a Vampire, a Lupine, and a Beanie Baby pusher named, Lenny.

They were ok. I was ok.


I had a meeting planned for that afternoon and I decided to keep it.

I called my pal and told him what had happened, but that I wanted to get together anyway. He's a film maker. He asked if he could shoot me. I told him I think maybe somebody should.

He showed up as I was taping a plastic Glad Bag to the now windowless window of my car. He helped in that cute, useless, man way, and took me out to dinner.

Suddenly, he's back into Magic Tricks. In the car, on the way to the restaurant, he told me about this documentary he's making about magicians with his friend, Jason. He kept doing card tricks on me and figured out a way for me to keep pulling the Queen of Hearts. I giggled like a four year old every time.

This morning I got up to deal with my car. My mechanic neighbor across the street got me a deal with his glass guy. Andrew is a life saver. He plows me out when it snows. Global Warming has been killing him though. He lost 10k this year.

I was standing in his garage, waiting for him, and looking at all the cutout pictures of supermodels and movie stars he has up on the wall, and I remembered my friend telling me that nine times out of ten when a woman is asked to think of a Royal Card, she picks the Queen of Hearts.