Diary of a Bushwick Bedbug, 4: There Will Be Blood?

Hey Folks,

How’s things? I got out again this weekend. This time I hitched a ride on Minnesota to the movies. She went to the Brooklyn Academy of Music to see "There Will Be Blood."

SPOILER ALERT: I gotta be honest: I thought there would be more blood.

I mean, after all, I’m a blood feeder, so I was hoping for more food porno for Bedbugs. Like watching the Food Network, you know? But there just wasn’t that much.

So I thought these alternate titles might work better:

--There Will Be Acting
--There Will Be Bad Midwestern Accents By an Irishman
--There Will Be Moustaches
--There Will Be No Female Characters
--There Will Be Death By Drill Bit, Pistol and Bowling Pin

Or maybe "There Will Be Ample Time For A Bed Bug To Scamper Around And Bite Every Single Moviegoer In The 5th Row." I got a little bored with the flick so I crawled across the whole row, sampling the flavors. It was like a buffet! A 10 course meal, even!

It’s amazing how fast that rich, real butter flavor makes its way from the popcorn into human blood! And mmm, that’s good butter! And Junior Mints really are refreshing, aren’t they? The Japanese girl on the end of the isle was scarfing them down, so her blood tasted choco-minty! Awesome! But I can tell--coffee at B.A.M. isn’t so good. I think Minnesota makes a better pot back at her place. Hey, maybe those free-range, fair trade coffee beans really do taste better.

Anyway, the movie was directed by P.T. Barnum’s great grandson—P.T. Anderson. It stars Daniel Day Lewis and a whole bunch of other no-name-nobodies who aren’t worth mentioning, except maybe the kid who played "the kid".

That Daniel Day Lewis is a real fucking ham. Minnesota was watching "Gangs of New York" a few nights ago on cable in her Bushwick loft, so I creeped out of the baseboard and took a look. I’ll be damned if Daniel Day Lewis doesn’t cop some dumb accent for every role he takes. I mean, come on. Who, anywhere, ever spoke like he does in this movie? A Dubliner trying to cop a dust-bowl accent, that’s who. Method acting? You want a method? How’s this: Let the words speak for themselves and stop glowering at the camera.

There were some other actors too, but I don’t really remember any of them, except the kid. That kid is the next Haley Joel Osment! Which means he better save his earnings from this turkey. I think Osment is doing dinner theater in Canton. Or maybe he’s the actual Haley Joel Osment! Wait, does Osment have the same disease as Gary Coleman, Emmanuel Lewis and Joe C from Kid Rock’s band? Shit. That’s sad.


Okay, so here’s a question about the movie: Where the hell were the women? Was the main character gay? Was he asexual? Or was Daniel Day Lewis some kind of mine pervert? Maybe he gets off on basalt and gabbro. I don’t know. But there was hardly a woman in sight in this flick. Maybe there was a little homo-Oedipus going on? The whole thing was pretty creepy.

So, crawling around in Minnesota’s papers the next night, I saw that the critics are lining up to fondle Paul Thomas Anderson scrotum, telling you it’s a grand American Film Masterpiece, but don’t be fooled. The score by Johnny Greenwood from Radiohead is pretty cool, the photography's nice and it’s got some funny moments, but otherwise, this one’s a hollow stinker.

So long for now,

Curtis

Diary of a Bushwick Bedbug, 2

Hey, how’s it going? I woke up and was feeling kind of hungry, so I went for a bite and I guess I got lost because I wound up in that Minnesota girl’s jacket! Man, it was chilly when she went out, but I got inside the lining and made out okay on the subway.

We get off the train way uptown and she met her boyfriend on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum! Cool! I never been before! But I almost got crushed when she hugged her sweaty, bearded boy with his tight pants and Dr. Who-looking scarf.

When we walked in, they were laughing about the "conservative stuff" in the collection. They stiffed the suggested donation all together and went in to the Modern Art section. I guess I figured there was going to be a lot of portraits and shit, but boy was I in for a surprise. I mean, I'm no art critic--I'm just a bedbug--but there's some real shit passing for art out there!


First up we saw some hamburger paintings by a guy named Rothko. I call ‘em hamburger paintings cuz they have three layers (bun, meat, bun) and take about as much talent to assemble. These fucking things made me want to spit blood on them! If only this chubby, organic Minnesotan chick would get me closer. Then again, spitting blood from her lapel might blow my cover…

Next was a piece of sculpture. I couldn’t make out the title, so I’ll just call it "Huge Hunk of Junk". It was next to a work I’ll call "Towering Pile of Crap #63" and its companion piece "Garbage." I didn’t care very much for these pieces. Because they sucked. And because I could have made them, if I’d been born a human instead of a bed bug Then we came to an interesting piece I’ll call "The Emporer’s New Clothes (milk cartons and eggshells on canvas)."

I’d like to tell you more about why I hated the next piece, but there was some visual interference, so I think of that work as "Total Sham Obscured by Art Student’s Jewfro" which may have been an installation, come to think of it.

After sneering at the Met’s collection, the hipsters went to some galleries downtown. But they were pretty cramped, so I couldn’t see the titles. I guess "Fat Waddling Prick with i-phone," was a standout. Maybe he was part of a series with Jewfro, disrupting art experiences all over town.

Also notable was a series that may have been called "Preposterous Hoax in Tin Cans and Newspaper #1 (Downpayment)." This work was a preposterous hoax, done in tin cans and newspaper. Following hot its heels were "Preposterous Hoax in Tin Cans and Newspaper #2 (First Third of Principal)" and "Preposterous Hoax in Tin Cans and Newspaper #3 (Mortgage Paid)." There was also the perhaps more directly titled "Ripping Off My Dealer (1997)" and "Milking My Dealer for another $80,000."

All the while, the cutie from Minnesota and her boyfriend were sort of smooching and snarking at how passe the work was and talking about going to see the Kaiju Big Battel later. I have no idea what that was, but while they talked about it, I took a look at a piece called "The Flatulence of Time," or something.

Anyway I got sleepy and before I knew it we were back in the loft in Williamsburg! So, I settled in to the bed with not one, but two servings of Bushwick hipsters to choose from! I must confess, I opted for the buffet.

I can’t say I really enjoyed most of the art, but I will say wandering around those galleries and museums sure worked up an appetite. It also gave me a bit of a headache. But I’d do it again! I love seeing the world. I’m so glad these hipsters are coming to Bushwick. Maybe I’ll hitch a ride to the Kaiju Big Battel some time and find out what that is.

Well, until next time…

Curtis

Signs The End Is Nigh: New York Has Given Up

Time was when New York could be relied upon to roll out the murder stats to show off its street cred. But not any more. Because the cowards and lily-livered pansies that make up the nation's largest metropolis have gone soft. The murder rate in New York has dropped to an ignominious low not seen since good numbers became available in 1963. The Big Apple is on pace to have fewer than 500 homicides this year. Perhaps we should change the city's nickname to "The Big Pussy," "Magical Unicorn Village of Love," or "Candyland."

What in god's name is happening to New York? When did The City That Never Sleeps become such surrender monkeys? Was it the day a bank branch opened on every single corner that wasn't already occupied by a Starbucks/Subway/McDonald's? Was it when the Yankees stopped winning everything? Was it when the hipsters started moving to Brooklyn and brought their yuppie girlfriends, boyfriends and LP collections to Bushwick?

But more importantly, how can New York reclaim that foundational murderous rage that has kept the city throbbing, sweating and working since Peter Stuyvesant tore off his own leg to club the Native Americans off of HIS chunk of Manhattan?

Here are some recommendations to get New York back in it to win it with this murder rate thing. Come on, New York. You can do it.

1. Install fire axes and sawed off shot guns in every subway car: Imagine the subways as a mass-transit Mad Max with insane homeless men battling junior high schoolers whose Ritalin has worn off, disgruntled postal employees, out of work writers and the odd coked up wall street douchebag and you've got a good start on reclaiming past glories.

2. Board up every Starbucks in the city: The resulting caffeine withdrawal and screeching of angry coffee junkies scrabbling for a fix should be enough to set off the bodega owners, who've been making better coffee than Starbucks for 1/3 the price. Result? Class war.

3. Ban baby strollers from Park Slope: The uber-cultured, monied mommies will soon lose their veneer of civilization when they actually have to carry their whelps AND their breast pumps. Then when they realize the Starbucks is closed (#2, above), they're doubly likely to freak out and try to club the nanny with the Baby Mozart DVD, improving our "blunt impact" numbers.

4. Block all Spanish language television broadcasts: Combine this with #3 and watch the effect on the underpaid, maltreated illegal immigrant nannies from Guatemala who can't see their telenovelas anymore. The crankiness levels in half of Brooklyn's homes will skyrocket. "Look out, Mom, Guadalupe's got a knife! And she's not using it to cut my afternoon snack!" This is not even to speak of what withdrawal from the shouts of "GOOOOOOOOOOOOL!" will do to the underpaid illegal immigrant men who keep the city functioning.

5. Outlaw Pest Control: Between roaches, bed bugs and rats, New Yorkers without the services of exterminators will simply freak-the-fuck-out, day and night. After 48 hours, the paranoid entomophobic hallucinations kick in and suddenly it's "I thought he was a giant roach, officer!"

Diary of a Bushwick Bedbug, 1

Well hello there, you sweet, tasty thing. Where’d you come from? I bet with that snow white skin, the Belle and Sebastian record playing on repeat on your ipod as you slept and the pimples on your chubby liltte dumper, you’re from Minnesota. I don’t know why. Let me just throw Minnesota out there. What the hell?

You’re cute. And you taste good too—like you just went organic two, three months ago when you got to New York for college and your roommate turned you on to the chemical free life. But there's still that residual growth-hormone-laden cheese flavor. Maybe that's how I came up with Minnesota. Ah, what do I know? I wonder how long you been in the neighborhood.

Me? I been here for a while. That is, my people been here a while. Though they ain’t exactly people. You just set me up pretty good for a week, maybe ten days. Actually, if need be, I can survive on that little meal for 10, 12, maybe even 18 months, since you’re organic and all. And I can see I didn’t hardly leave no mark either, so you may not even notice I bit you at all. Sweet!

What’s that? You object to me calling this neighborhood Bushwick? East Williamsburg, you say? Hey, that’s got a nice ring to it. You go ahead and call it that if you want. I don’t mind. Sounds kind of exotic to me. I mean, Bushwick is what I always called it, but don’t let me stop you.

Thing is, the neighborhood’s been getting so interesting lately. Lots of variety. I bit a Japanese kid last week when he was sitting in that little café with the cushy chairs and reading that art magazine. He tasted like ginger. And a week before that, I bit some guy with a beard who was riding a fixed gear bike when he left his apartment. The walls of that place were all lined with funky looking canvases with string and shit hanging off ‘em. He tasted sort of like an olive mixed with a smoky humus, if that makes sense. Very rich.

I don’t know. Some of the locals are complaining, but I like what’s happening to the neighborhood. All this delicious new blood—so tasty, so adventurous. It’s nice. A bedbug could get used to this kind of variety. I think I like gentrification.

Anyway, I gotta crawl back into the baseboard since the sun’s getting ready to come up again.

See you soon, sweety.

Curtis