The last time I was in New York, I was interviewed for Chris DeRosa’s Loud and Curious podcast! THRILL as I describe my artistic process in agonizing detail. GAPE SLACKJAWED as I tell the story of my first staged photo. SHUDDER when you hear my actual unlistenable voice. Click here to start the horrors.
“I love you” he says, softly and sincerely. Your eyes grow large, your breath catches, you stop what you are doing with him. He turns suddenly to you in the bed, his eyes also grow large.
“I meant…”
“No, I know that was accidental.”
“Oh shit.”
“No, it’s okay, I know it’s too soon.”
“Yeah I was just caught up in the moment. I meant to say “I love you being here” but ran out of breath.”
“Okay.”
Your apologies and explanations stumble over each other, the walls recede, the bedsheets catch on fire. Somewhere in the distance a air raid siren starts wailing, the bomb goes off, and your last thought before you are vaporized into tiny particles is “thank God at least we wont have to talk about that tomorrow…” and the blast hits the building and breaks your body into sweet sweet gay radioactive ash. Continue reading
“Maybe this is how it starts” you think to yourself, as you wait at the passenger arrival gate at PDX. This isn’t the first time you have had this thought, and you have even been close to being right before. You look at the faces of all the other people there: the gruff, hardened, emotionless middle aged man. The white family who has signs made for whomever they’re waiting for. The young black girl, she’s wearing a knit hat and coat maybe a little too large for the November weather. You love her the most, she’s also wearing headphones that may or may not be plugged in to anything, and a headset microphone in front of her mouth which reminds you of Janet Jackson’s Rhythm 1814. Your suspicion that she may be high-functioning autistic is reinforced when she lets out a loud squeal of pure glee when she sees who is probably her brother coming out of the doors, only then does she tear off the headphones. Continue reading
Dear BLCKSMTH,
Hi hello. You haven’t posted anything in like two months. What’s up with that? Signed, Mike S. in Portland
Hey Mike! Your name sounds suspiciously familiar, have we met? Well, truth be told, I’ve been working on my webseries a lot lately, and am close to releasing the first episode! Besides that, I’m also learning how to speak truth to my newly awakened interest in politics.
Also, I’m interested in my writing about being single evolving. I’m a privileged white male, and whining about dating can only get you so far before it sounds like you’re releasing a Taylor Swift album, complaining about boys while the world is burning. I’m in charge of my own happiness. That doesn’t mean I’ll stop sharing the horror stories, though! We’re all in this crazy thing together.
Dear BLCKSMTH,
I’m getting on the dating apps for the first time ever. I’m 47. So, how do you overcome the feeling that you got in first grade and all the cute gay guys will not pick you for dodge ball time? Signed, J. in Cleveland Continue reading
I wake up much later than the alarm clock says I should. I sit up in the bed, the sheet falls away. I take in the room: decent sized, comfy queen bed, there is a vintage bike mounted up high on one wall. Maybe it’s not vintage maybe it’s just dusty? Anyway. There are books and comic books high on the other wall. The light through the window is high and hitting the floor, it’s almost noon here. There is no one else in the bed, I slept alone, but then a memory comes fast and sneakily: a perfect morning almost two years ago, not this bed, when I had flown in overnight and got under the covers. I kissed the back of his neck repeatedly; he made a soft, pleased murmur in his half-sleep every time I kissed it, his neck always got so so bristly in between haircuts. I shake my head, literally swat the memory away. Ugh, that again? And then another even more disorienting thought: Wait, where am I?
Oh. That’s right! I’m in New York. Continue reading
Set the story in the winter of 2015, in Portland. You will have just been broken up with by a dude you were bonkers in love with, in a way that rattled you to your core. Go grocery shopping, feel it coming on, leave the grocery store before you burst into tears on the way home. Think to yourself, Can we all agree that grocery stores should not play slow, sad Christmas songs any fucking more, please? Or at least have a trigger warning beforehand? Imagine it like that, fully: a red and green-striped rotating light descends from the grocery store ceiling, spins silently. Shoppers look up: some keep shopping but others abandon their carts, drop their baskets. Eggs shatter, a ball of iceberg lettuce rolls down the aisle as they leave the store in a row: the lonely old cat lady in her housecoat, the gutter punk in the pleather jacket, the middle aged bearded gay man wiping back his tears. Behind them, the beginning strains of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” start playing in Safeway. Continue reading
You keep it together like this: you wake up, you get groceries, you pick up cat food for Ned from the vet. You do this all successfully without crying! You celebrate these little victories since the breakup, these small signs that you’re getting better. You get online on the dating apps (major shout out to the dudes trying to look serious and smoldering in their profile pictures, who come off looking crazy and murder-y). You look at the New York guys to see who might be available to date once you move out there, but instead you’re interrupted by a vivid mental image of every single one of them taking turns on your ex who lives there, all of them lining up for a chance at him, the line extending around the block, extending across the Brooklyn bridge into Manhattan, all the men eager with hungry, mean eyes and bodies far more muscular than yours, and at the head of the line your former love’s door, occasionally opening, letting one out, letting another in, him closing the door gently like he used to with only you, and now a revolving door of sex with anyone but you. You shake your head of this image, grab your keys, head to your first therapy appointment. You have no clue what you talk to therapists about, it’s probably a bad fit because he’s not even gay and what the fuck would he know about your life. You go up to his office, greet each other, look at his walls lined with books. Maybe one of the books has the right sequence of words to make you better again, the magic incantation to make you as good as you were with David. The therapist says: “What would you like to talk about?”
You burst the fuck into tears. Continue reading
Tears of happiness stream down your face as you think: thank you God. You are sitting across from him on his bed in his apartment in Bed-Stuy, you flew here a week after he called you and said he was sorry, that he’s had a rough time without you in his life, that he’s missed you since the breakup. You didn’t tell your friends about the call, you secretly flew out on a redeye after work one day. You went to his apartment, and after hasty greetings to his roommates (who scrammed the fuck out of there quickly), the two of you went to his bedroom and talked about everything: the expectations, the communication that was absent until it seemed too late, the pressure that social media puts on a public relationship. You find a common ground, you make commitments to mend what was missing, you hold hands, you cry together. The two of you call your families, your close friends, agree to keep it off of social media for the time being, maybe forever. Later, you hold him in your arms, you smell the familiar smell of his neck, of his hair and his sweat, and you get a full night’s sleep for the first time in almost two months. Continue reading
As I do every year, I’m taking December off to reflect on the year. I lost at love this year, but gained a new horizon to chase. BLCKSMTH will be back in January with some amazing projects lined up (haha j/k just more dumb pics and heartbreak). Happy holidays, and hold the ones you love close for me, please.
Do this, exactly: Wake up on your forty-first birthday in 2014 on Thanksgiving, and finally feel happy, feel ready for what’s next. Realize that although there’s a lot you have in common, break up with a very sweet man who you’ve been seeing for a few months. Hunker down and make some fun art, take some silly pictures, spend Christmas in a snowless Portland winter. Spend time with friends, miss your family who you can’t see very often around the holidays because of your day job. Continue reading
The text appears mid-afternoon, when you’re at work: “Hey, can we talk?” You go home in a daze, set your things down, lift the phone to your ear when it rings. He says words, you say words back, hang up. Just like that, it’s done: you woke up this morning in love with a man you’d loved for almost a year, whose family you had met, a man you thought you would have a long future with, and tonight you will go to bed no longer in love with him, you will go to bed alone. This is how things end. Continue reading
I’m getting off the A train in Brooklyn around Hoyt, and I look back to see if David is following nearby (he is). He’s wearing a bright teal t-shirt, and I’m wearing my short shorts with a white and blue striped pullover, so naturally we fit in among the sea of navy and black bustling around us. “Why are you walking so fast?” he asks, probably in Italian or German. He’s obsessed with learning and speaking other languages. I’m obsessed with frustrating him to tears by pretending I don’t understand or can’t hear him. “Because New York” I say, and he silently nods his understanding.
I look behind me again to see if the G we’re connecting with stops here or further down the platform. The G’s I’ve been on so far are frustratingly tiny for the amount of riders in this part of Brooklyn, so much so that it’s sometimes just two cars. It wouldn’t surprise me if the MTA reduced service to just a Little Tykes train that holds a few toddlers, running over the rats along its route with its plastic tires. Ok, yes, the G stops further down. I start to turn around when I notice a guy in a pristine white t-shirt and basketball shorts gesturing at me. I think at me? I’m not sure. Until he shouts “Yeah, you!” Continue reading
First published, in abbreviated form, in PQMonthly.
This is how it happens, and in retrospect it couldn’t happen any other way. You look at the dating app Scruff one day, having been single for three years, single at 41. All of these faces scrolling by. Some familiar ones occasionally post new photos, where maybe they have a little more grey, or they’ve lost or gained weight. Maybe they look a little more tired from the search, a little more cynical. Maybe they’re almost ready to press “delete” and just leave meeting people to fate and natural circumstances. Their faces say they’re ready to just trash every dating app and get on with living life, spending more time with their friends, creating more art. Maybe their weary faces say they’re a little scared that they’ve already experienced all the love they’re ever going to.
Or maybe that’s just me, you think. You open up a dating app, yeah that one, see a handsome bearded face. He has a boyfriend, because of course he does, and they’re exclusive. You chat a bit, and he won’t even flirt with you because he’s taken. He makes an impression on you but the conversation fades away after a few days.
All of a sudden, months later, Continue reading
Once in a great while, an artist comes along who pushes boundaries, gives viewers opportunities to rethink their paradigms, and creates bold, brave art that’s sometimes not fully appreciated in its time. Occasionally, that artist is honored with a retrospective, and given a chance to participate, bringing their beautiful creations to a larger, more mainstream audience. That artist was Marina Abramovic.
But now, we have been graced with the Björk retrospective at the Museum Of Modern Art. This quirky singer, originally the lead singer of The Pixies The Treaclies The Sugarcubes, debuted her solo album in 1993. It was called Debut. She’s known for her unconventional style and eclectic production design of her music videos. She’s also known by basics-at-large mostly for wearing a dress that looks like a swan to the Academy Awards in 2001 (seriously, people can’t let that go). I visited New York last month in balmy February, and was given early access to what is by all accounts definitely a retrospective. Continue reading
Pumped-up Kicks
photo by Helen Darby
Breathless with the cold, eager eyes open to everything around me: this was a trip I was looking forward to…it’s my third visit in a little over a year. In between seeing friends I hadn’t seen in a long time (and in the case of my very first boyfriend, I hadn’t see him in 20 years!), and making new ones (Nina Robinson’s photography is awesome), I got time to check out some inspiring art that fueled my own brain’s creative juices…and yes, handed out more than few of those crazy business cards. Saw stuff that you should check out too. Except in one case, I tried to pick longer-running stuff to include here so by the time you read this, it isn’t over already. So away we go: Continue reading