your correspondent was peacefully enjoying a movie starring one
of his weird celebrity crushes, when the front door bursts open...
i hear, "oh no, oh no...[church of al]!...[church of al]!"...then the
bedroom door flingsopen..."we have cable," the mammal asks a little
confused...i nod...he yells, "we have cable!...[church of al] i am finally
an american!"...i nod again as he closes the bedroom door and turns
on the television in the living-room...i hear, "[church of al] i am
pausing h.b.o., i am pausing h.b.o.!"...then he becomes worried,
"oh no, we shouldn't have cable, i am never going to leave the house"
...i tell him that people will come for us, shout up from the street,
"[church of al], [mammal], where are you"...and we will respond,
"go away we are watching old dharma and greg reruns"
...the mammal adds that they will force their way into the
apartment and we will scream, "don't turn on the light!"

....the next morning i woke early around  9:30 and the mammal
was on the couch, in the dark drinking a mimosa and watching
back episodes of 'the wire' (his favourite show)...i left the apartment
and came back at four in the afternoon, and he was still there on the couch,
passed out, in the dark, with the telly blaring...he woke,
looked at me and said, "you have to help me, i can't move my legs"...

later that evening when he finally decided to move,
he again bursts into my room..."do you have any old crappy
band shirts?"...reluctantly i ask why...he responds, "tonite
i am dressing up as a trashy jersey rock chick, i have the
makeup and the denim skirt, but i need a good shirt"...i told
him i didn't have any ratt shirts or bon jovi,
(which of course is what he really wanted)...i then
asked if he was wearing his get-up to the comedy club
he manages..."no," he said, "the brothers will give me shit,
at three [a.m.] when all my work is done, then i will dress up"...
the picture in my head was magnificent, drunken' revilers
still out at three a.m. would witness the half
man-half beast shadow of a tart (a la the mammal)
roaming the high-heeled, vomit riddled
streets of the city...

this morning mammal was taking his usual extra-long shower, talking to himself and yukkin' it up...meanwhile i am in my room waiting for his completion, because i have a serious bowel movement brewing...he finally gets out of the shower, and even with the bathroom door closed, he hears me come out of my room..."[church of al]" he yells, "is that you"..."yeah [mammal], look i really need to use the bathroom"..."jesus," he replies, "hasn't anyone ever taught you to hold it," he continues, "do you have to pee"..."no [mammal]," i reply "so hurry up or i am going in your room!"..."god, i have to shave, if you want to go you come in and go while i shave, i don't mind"...this is something that your author will not do, and i tell mammal as much adding "can't i have this one thing for myself?"...of course he is relentless, "not in this apartment!...jeez, [church of al] you are such a prude, if you really have to go get in here!"...[authors note: the bathroom is about the size of a closet and it would be difficult for the both of us to fit at one time no less shit and shave together, also there is an exposed water pipe that is fiery hot that one has to avoid]...now i am annoyed so i shout back, "i would but i am afraid you would like it too much!"...he continues his ridiculing and then shouts, "oww, i just burned my naked ass on that fucking pipe!"...indeed karma is a bitch...he finally is done shaving but he still holds me up showing me the "metrosexual makeup" he has on his eye which is simply wrinkle remover...after i finish he returns to the bathroom to primp and we continue the conversation...
"[church of al] you are such a prude what would happen if you were in the army?"
"i'm not in the army [mammal]..."
"but what if they instituted the draft?"
"i would move to canada..."
"but what if the u.s. took over canada?"
"they wouldn't take me because of my health..."
"but what if they lowered their standards..."
...and this banter continued until finally, with beret perched firmly upon his hairy skull, he strode confidently out into the misty manhattan morning...

i have not seen the mammal much lately, so most of his hi-jinks are inevitably happening to some other lucky soul...i did see him last night and i tried to provoke...i yelled, "i hate joe lieberman"...to which he burst through the door..."i hate him too," he replied, "but we should be focusing our energies on winnable races...sure it gives a reason for all those liberal bloggers to pat themselves on the back, but it doesn't change policy"...i replied to egg him on, "yeah but i am happy he lost the primary, i am not a democrat and i take pride in petty victories"...he continued, [addressing the liberal bloggers] "to all the liberals i say fuck you! its about policy! its about furthering the democratic policies!"..."but mammal," i say, "i don't care about policies, lieberman was a conservative bastard and i am glad he was embarrassed"...(this continues in the same vein, me provoking him on issues i do not care about, and he yelling 'fuck you!' to liberals (never mentioning me specifically but indirectly meaning me))...when i got tired i stopped arguing and he eventually was moving towards the door..however, on his way out i couldn't resist, i said, "joe lieberman sucks"...to which the mammal came back in and resumed the argument full bore shouting louder and louder to imaginary foes, "fuck you, fuck you!"...this time i did not say anything on his way out, because the mammal will never leave unless he has the last word...he then took a shower singing "louie louie" at the top of his lungs (obviously still not out of his system from the all night louie-fest a week prior) and shouting to the walls, "oh yeah, show us the pussy!" while intermittently doing his version of the 'human beat box'...as he was leaving the apartment he shouts "au revoir" in a french accent, so i shout "adios"...to which he again shouts "au revoir", to which i reply "what?"...and he closes the door still mumbling with the accent "what [in english], no francaise?"...

i walked into our place with a mutual friend 'j' in tow...the mammal was in his room, sitting at his computer, wearing only his boxers...when he saw us he started screaming as if he was in the middle of masturbating to a political article he was reading...then he came out to sit on the couch and regale us with stories...'j' remarked, "[mammal] put on some fucking pants!"...to which the mammal replied, "i most certainly will not! if you don't like it you can leave"...then the mammal sat down on the couch right next to 'j' and started berating him about his politics...during the conversation (in which i was sitting directly across from the mammal), he shifts in his seat so that his sack is showing..."mammal!, i yell, will you sit up and shift your shorts for chrissakes"...at first he doesn't understand and thinks i am criticizing his political views, but finally he gets the message...

after the conversation was over the mammal retreats to his room and closes his door, but minutes later bursts out wearing a pair of turquoise short-shorts..."sometimes this bar i like has short-short nights and these are the ones i wear, though sometimes its rough because a girl will be grinding me and i will get an erection, and won't be able to hide it, but hey there is nothing i can do about it so i just roll with it"...'j' remarks, "you should invest in a good pair of boxer briefs so as not to be walking around with an obvious erection"...the mammal did not seem too sure...then, still wearing nothing but his blue short-shorts, he unrolls his 'stretching mat' and remarks, "i have to do some stretching" and lays on the mat and begins stretching between us...he only stretches for a minute or two but continues to lay on the mat and talk to us for about twenty minutes...we make plans to meet up with him later, but of course they fall through because of the mammal's ineptness, and inability to respond to any voice or text messages in a timely fashion...

it is also worth noting that the night prior to this incident, a friend 'a' decided to sleep on this dirty-dusty mat we keep under the couch rather than sleep in mammal's double bed with mammal...drunkenly he explained, "i am sure that this thing is cleaner than [mammal] is"...he then laughed hysterically and passed out...the mammal went off to bed, unaffected...

i went into the bathroom last night and noticed to my dismay that the toilet paper was vanquished...normally this would not bother me, but before the mammal came home it was more then half full...as i stared at the empty canister, i pondered the mysteries of the universe, foremost in my mind of course was how one goes (without explosive diarrhea) through a half a roll in three hours...i asked the mammal about it and he replied..."it was one massive shit"...personally, i think he just wastes toilet paper...

another similar story...i was sitting on the couch watching the game and the mammal was taking a shower...he was going through his usual antics, shouting, singing, yukkin' it up...i hear a scream and then only the patter of water hitting the shower curtain...i become concerned and yell..."[mammal] you alright in there"..."yeah its okay," he replies, "i had turned off the water and forgot to wash my ass thoroughly, so i turned the water back on, it was ice cold and i slipped"...at least if nothing else, the mammal believes in good rectal hygiene...

the mammal came home late last night with that eighteen-year-old i told you about in an earlier blog...along with them were two other friends of hers, a russian male and an american female...both around the same age...i was still awake, but in my room trying to sleep...i could hear the disgust in the mammal's voice...he was like a teacher dismissing students, or someone acting well above his guests...parental like...and for good reason...they were functioning with eighteen year old brains, and the mammal was only humouring them for the 'nookie' so to speak...at one point the mammal even lowered himself to the dreaded 'helper monkey' role, when he had to go out to the unforgiving streets (leave his heart and hearth) and fetch o.j., because god forbid the girls have a vodka martini, instead of the more forgiving screwdriver...but, as always the ever horny mammal obliged...i had to venture out of my room later to use the loo, and was greeted tersely by the russian adolescent, who obviously was protecting his domain (a la his woman)...later, i awoke around five in the morning, listening groggily to the song 'louie louie' emanating from the mammal's room...on repeat!...at that point i was too tired to stumble out into the mess (which i knew existed in the living-room), and then into his room to turn it off...therefore, your correspondent proceeded to have horrible dreams in which the song 'louie louie' was prominent...in the morning the mammal was remorseful, although i was not angry...and when i asked him what the deal was with 'louie louie', he responded, "yeah, i don't know what i was thinking, it seemed like a good idea at the time...were you the one that turned it off?"...and so ended another mad night with the mammal...

the mammal filled me in on the bar that has just opened below our building..."i went there last night late and it was a type of hipster rock 'n roll place...it was alright except the money men were there sucking each other's balls"..."they were like [spoken in an italian accent] 'yo, this guy made his money in real estate'...'yo this guy made his money in milk'"...

later i told him that i read the article on hillary clinton in the atlantic and it made me dislike her more...he took offense, "comon' if she is president that means that bill will be president again"...of course i didn't agree and thought (my thoughts here only for the good of the blog) that she should realize she would never be elected president and begin to act more liberal and less conciliatory...i stated, "i mean she is even going to these bogus prayer meetings with republicans"...with that the mammal launched into a strong tongue lashing of my point of view shouting, "i want to see some poll numbers! i don't want to hear any more of your assumptions!"...he rounded it out with a strong shower rendition of m.c. hammer's 'pray'...(from the shower) "pray, (pray) pray (pray), [now with me joining him] we've got to pray just to make it today!"...and on and on until he left, singing a combination of that and "me so horny" by 2 live crew...

the mammal burst in the door..."you'll never believe what happened to me today"..."what?" i ask slowly rising from the grotesque couch, shifting my gaze from the boring baseball game on the rabbit-eared telly..."i went into this hipster tee-shirt shop this afternoon...first of all i was drawn in by the walter sobchak tee in the window talking about how he doesn't roll on shabbat, but that was sold out" he adds, "i am assuming the jews bought them...[church of al] i am telling you every time they show that movie in isreal everyone cheers that line"...[author's note: the mammal, though not jewish, has his finger on the pulse of the jewish nation]...continuing, "i saw this great shirt of jimi hendrix with all the hindu gods around him, you've seen it right?" [i nod in the affirmative] "well i am usually a medium so i asked the girl if i could try it on, she let me, but evidently it was made for one of those bone thin guys because my nips were showing"..."then i asked for the large and had the same result, so i asked for the extra large"..."at that moment the manager came out and said, 'i am sorry you are not allowed to try on new shirts only vintage shirts'"...to which mammal replied, "that is fucking crazy!"...(as an aside to me he states, "i mean [church of al] am i just supposed to get home and realize my fucking nipples are showing, then what am i gonna do?")...it proceeded like that for a few minutes and then the manager told mammal, "alright get out"...and the mammal could not believe that he was getting kicked out of a tee-shirt shop...i agreed that he was not drunk or disorderly and should not have been shunned, but the mammal felt regret even though he did not do anything wrong...as he said, "i mean it was a black guy with dreads, i expected him not to follow the man's rules"...then for the rest of the night the mammal was thinking about how he could work his 'nips' into his comedy set...

one other note...on columbus day he went into the pizza place on the corner and remarked to the neapolitan owners, "happy columbus day!...columbus was from the north right?" [he receives an affirmative answer]..."well then fuck columbus!" [as he gives the double middle finger salute]...[author's note: for all that do not know, naples is in the south of italy and the mammal was by no means trying to consciously insult the proprietors]...to the 'fuck columbus!' remark the pizza men said, "no, no its okay"...to which the mammal again protested, "no, no fuck columbus!"

today i left before the mammal woke...as soon as i get uptown my phone begins to ring and you guessed it, its the mammal...he asks me if i remember this girl i dated in high school's cousin...i tell him of course i don't..."well" he says, "we've been messaging on my space all afternoon"..."she found me through [my old girlfriend's my space] and wants to hang out"...i ask the obvious question, "is she hot?"..."yeah, at least from her my space pictures, but you can never be sure about them, she lives in texas but will be back for the holidays"...mammal tells me that they had a brief make-out moment when she was fourteen and he fifteen..."you kissed her?" i asked..."no but i came really close to her neck"...he procedes, "its weird how girls remember their first erotic experiences so vividly"

he also filled me in on how last night ended at the magazine party..."oh man it was out of control, i was hitting on this girl i kind of recognized but couldn't think of from where"..."it turns out she was this girl that married one of my friends at burning man...they found a rabbi at burning man to marry them"...he told her "oh man i haven't bought you a wedding present" so he drowned them both in vodka for the rest of the night..."oh by the way [church of al], i got vodka coasters last night so we are now going to be a coaster family"..."alright," i replied...

the mammal did not get a chance to do the sean paul song at karoke [unfortunately, because i have to hear it for another week]...he had to manage the comedy club so he arrived at karoke late...therefore he said, "i didn't want to waste it on an anemic crowd"...instead, in tribute to kim-jong-il[sp] and his maddening nukes, karoke was all about north korea, so the mammal did 'back in the u.s.s.r'...he said it went over well..tonite late night he came home for a moment with one of his comedian friends...they were going to a 'heeb' magazine [author's note: that is the name of the magazine not a racial slur] party, which he invited me to..."i have to make an appearance" he explained...i declined the invite, but his comedian friend seemed very concerned with both my use of mammal's computer and my racial orientation...i told her i didn't have a computer yet and that i was an american...that of course did not satisfy her, but fortunately the mammal dragged her out the door before she could find out too much more about me...

nothing new with the mammal this morning except that it is again karoke night...and this week he will be performing "get busy" by sean paul...so all morning i have been listening to him sing "shake that thing, miss..." and on and on...hopefully it will be more of a hit than last week's song...

today was quite an eventful one...the mammal asked me to go to brunch with him...i declined of course, because on hungover sundays the only thing i do is lay on the couch and watch football...but he was excited...he wanted to go to this french place he enjoys and have his favourite, 'steak tartar'...he explained that most people were disgusted by raw meat but that he found it no different than sushi...i replied that i found raw meat more grotesque than sushi (which i enjoy)...he responded, "oh raw beef fills me with so much energy, after i consume it i feel as if i could [he pauses to find the correct analogy] rape and pillage algeria!"..."i feel as if i could have the courage to break away from canada!"...

later he was ready to tell me about the girl he slept with last night..."oh man [church of al] she was this eighteen-year-old rich girl from [school deleted by author] in 'y'...her father owns a luxury car company in [a european country]...we took the subway to my friend e's birthday and the entire way i was listening to eurotrash songs on her i-pod and she and her friend were dancing suggestively...then i fucked her on my friend e's bed...it is funny that it was e's birthday and i was the one getting laid...oh man does she give great blowjobs...and after we had sex she got sick [i chose not to point out the humour to him at that moment]...then i offered to pay for their taxi home, but she declined...i mean how great is that?"...i of course agreed....later this evening one of the mammal's friends came over to shave [another story not to be explained here] and the mammal related the story to his friend...his friend, obviously knew it was a little too good to be true, so he asked what she looked like...the mammal hesitated for a moment and his friend took that pause and pounced..."jeeze [mammal] if you have to hesitate, then she must not be that attractive at all"...we enjoyed that while the mammal desperately backtracked...she text-messaged him while we were sitting around and the mammal asked us what he should do about the situation...i replied that he should try and see how much good lovin' and cold hard cash he can get from her, and the mammal's friend agreed...

i was reading with my door closed this afternoon when the mammal awoke...i could hear him stumbling around, and fumbling for the coffee filter...then he went to the sink and mumbled something low...a second later he repeated it in a loud sing-song voice..."its the [mammal] show!"...and indeed it was...next he started singing sly and the family stone at the top of his lungs, "thank you for lettin' me be myself, again" (singing the bass line as well)...and rounded it out with a few screeching lines from the sex pistol's song 'bodies'..."she was a girl from birmingham!"...then he mellowed for a few moments, began to drink his coffee, while blasting sabbath...with ozzy wailing in the background he paced the apartment working out new fragments of his act...they consisted of everything from dane cook to his hippie college days...(all i could really make out was the line, "don't you hate it when some crazy guy is trying to tell you that someone else is crazy")... finally he burst into my room, a little dazed, and said he was going to get the wireless computer receiver...i asked him to make sure it worked with a 'pc', and he responded, "how are you ever going to be a hipster with a 'pc'"...i responded that i wasn't a hipster...he brushed that off and referencing an old picture of me, the mammal, and p. guth from california a few years earlier, said how if he had only known about layered haircuts sooner he would have been famous by now...he saw i was reading a book about bill clinton and remarked, "i love the stories of bill eating and drinking with helmut kohl and boris yeltsin, all three of those guys just love life" and like a flash he was gone...

a brief note on monday's karoke...the song "suicide blonde" did not go over as well as he would have liked...about the experience mammal remarked, "i thought it would kill, but the response was lukewarm"...

every monday night the mammal goes to karaoke night...and every week he learns a new song...i know this because i asked him if he was one of those folks that is known for always doing the same song, or a different one...and he replied, "oh no, i do a different one every week, that is part of the my thing, they are like 'what song is [mammal] going to do this week'"...well this week the mammal was doing 'suicide blonde'...therefore, most of the early night consisted of the mammal playing the song over and over as loud as possible...he played it while eating, while showering, and while primping...each time singing more and more of it...he tried it out a few times on yours truly and asked me what i thought...i told him that his hair (shoulder length) achieved the proper effect being wet and suggested he gel it back for the night..."oh no, i never put product in my hair" was his response...he wondered why i thought he should employ 'product' because the original singer of the song he said, "didn't look like that"...i of course did not know what the original lead singer looked like (whenever inxs came on i tuned it out), but to the mammal's credit he always did his homework...

one more point worth mentioning is that the regulars at karaoke call him "rapist [mammal]" or something to that effect...of course he is not a rapist or fond of the nickname, and as he put it, "i can't help it if some girl wants to get up there with me and wants to grind...of course i am going to oblige"..."but i wish they would stop calling me that, i mean what if my mother hears about that, she's in n.o.w."...and with one final playing of the song, like a flash he was away, onwards into another new york city night...

the other night i awoke at 3:30 am feeling sickened...the only reason i relate this point is to emphasize that the mammal did not wake me up...he came in a half an hour later bumbling and fumbling...he put on air america, grabbed an i.p.a. from the fridge, and fiddled around for some food...the mammal does not keep food in the house of course...he always eats out by his own admission...and because i had recently bedded down in the domicile i did not have much...i could hear him rifling through my cereal, drunkenly gnawing at the oats and grain...the moral of the story of course is 'eat your dinner' and do not leave leftovers...because although the hairy mammal will not cook your food at four a.m...he does know how to use the microwave...and will heat up anything, unremorseful at four in the morning or the day after...

*author's note: at this point the author does not care about the mammal occasionally eating his food...but we will see in the future if he has to start buying for two...due to the mammal's voracious appetite...

the mammal and i had a long discussion the other night encompassing many subjects...the one important for this entry is social dynamics of twenty-somethings on the lower east side...he told me that there were two types...the 'scenesters' whom he defined as young rich poseurs that dress in black-framed glasses, tight jeans, and vintage clothes...and the 'hipsters' who are mostly identical in dress, but are usually fairly destitute (for former suburbanites), and interested in liberal politics and free living...a type of urban hippie so to speak...he acknowledged that the hipster has become somewhat of a bad word, but he was trying to raise it back to its former glory... he also said that the most important quality of the hipster was an extreme grasp of the ironic...he classified both of us in this hipster category...and i do agree that he is certainly a hipster and not a scenester, and embodies both good and bad qualities of that group, however i tried to argue for a third group...on the fringes of the hipsters...more of an urban scumbag (marginally non-homeless)...holding some of the same ideals but not being able to pass freely in hipster circles because of a corrupt sense of style, tact, and 'scene' knowledge...the mammal however was not ready to accept this...either way, we both agreed that unfortunately the 'scenester' gets most of the really hot chicks...you see, even on the lower east side, the ladies gravitate towards the green...

day two: moving in i needed the mammal to watch the van with my belongings while my brother, his former roommate 'm', and yours truly lugged everything up the stairs...this time, being illegally parked, i burst into his stuffy room, and implored him to arise and merely stand by the van...again he protested, but reluctantly awoke...a half an hour later, while the three of us had been busily moving stuff into the already cramped apartment, the hairy mammal appeared, and stood by the van...as we hurried and sweated he stood, spoke to the stragglers on the street, and lifted nary a finger...occasionally i would come down to get something and he would make a biting comment while leaning on the van..."you still use c.d.'s, man you're behind the times"..."where'd you think you were moving to with all this stuff, amherst?"...he was talking to the latinos on the street about their dissatisfaction with another white person moving into the neighbourhood...and the next time i came down the stairs, he would exclaim, "hey [church of al] they don't want any white people in the 'hood"...and i, sweating and tired, picking up another heavy item would respond, "well [mammal] you live here too so what can we do about it"...and he would respond "i guess i could move out"..."i guess you could" i would breathlessly retort...and the banter would then continue on along the same lines...occassionally he would recognize a passer-by and shout, "hey [so and so] what's up, this is my friend [church of al] he is moving in here"...the madness continued onwards until all was unloaded, and his job of leaning and barbing was complete..."i'm going to get something to eat," he said, "see you later"...and i would not see him again until the next day...

i entered his domain on a late saturday afternoon, and the mammal was still asleep from a russian wedding he attended the night before...the place was in total disarray...bottles on the floor, garbage in every direction...this was the first sign that the guise of civility that the mammal constructed for his fellow mammals in the outside world was a facade...slowly i approached his room, and the stink was evident...i stopped by the kitchen table and poured myself a vermouth and water (the only two condiments, food or drink, that were suitable for consumption)...i steadied myself before waking him because as we know, waking the mammal before five o' clock in the afternoon can be dangerous...i tapped him hard and he rolled over, looked at me and let out a fierce screech...i asked him "[mammal] why has your roommate not moved out, you informed me two days ago on the phone that your domain was livable?"...he responded groggily, "arrh!, i told him to, what else do you want me to do?," i stared and then he responded, "welcome to my life"..."so is that your answer?" i asked, and he responded in the positive, rolled over and went back to sleep...i left and later that day [seven p.m] received a phone message from the mammal..."hey uh, just woke up and am still drunk, i'll call my roommate and see what i can do"...and that was day one with the mammal...

*author's note on this blog: this is intended to be an anthropological study and is as objective as i can make it...it is not an attempt to ridicule but only to chronicle...i only put myself in the stories because it is absolutely necessary, but try as much as possible to keep my opinions to myself...i have chosen this subject because of his gregariousness and proximity...