Some days feel like garbage. This has been one such day. I blame it on chaotic sleep last night, fueled by too-late consumption of leftover pizza. I was practically doing cartwheels in my attempted sleep, gyrating every which way like a spastic circus performer. My legs kept landing on the floor, and I think the only position I did not assume was 180°, where my head would have been in the feet’s place. I slept until noon but it felt like no sleep at all.
Today’s feeling of gloom caused by overcast skies and threatening rain cannot be much help, either, but all told I could barely find energy to lift a finger to do anything remotely productive or useful. I tried writing a story for the payphone site but WordPress threw another of its inexplicable “HTTP ERROR” messages when I tried to upload an image and that was all it took for me to just say fuck it, nobody reads that shit anyway. I was talking about my presence at the Hotel Pennsylvania last week, on the first day of the HOPE convention. I felt vaguely sociopathic being there, though I use that term with no sadistic implications. You can be a diagnosed psychopath without being a serial killer, and you can have sociopathic tendencies without eating babies.
In fact I’ve used the term “sociopathic” a number of times with regard to the kiosk nonsense. I do not generally stick around to see peoples’ reactions to my noises but when I do (and it’s usually incidental when it happens) I feel like something almost evil, as in someone using the tools of a predator to engage in harmless shenanigans.
I was invited by the anti-kiosk activists to meet up with them and some politicians at City Hall, in a correspondence that seemed to confirm that the activists are unaware that it is I behind the kiosk noises. I thought they knew because I TOLD THEM ABOUT IT some time last year, showing them videos of other exploits I had done, but they seem not to have retained that little bit of information.
I have no interest in meeting with politicians anyway but the scenario of doing so had that whiff of sociopathicness about it, since none of them would seem to know I’m the one causing these little noise disturbances (for which they have probably fielded complaints from their constituents). But further to that it seems as if the subject of the noise would have to come up in discussions, if not with the politicians then with the activists, and considering how they don’t even remember that I told them already I think I’d be unwilling to let them know now that I’ve been the one doing all that.
A couple of months ago I did, in fact, bump into someone from the neighborhood I’ve known off and on for years. I bump into him about once a year, it seems, and last time we spoke (a year previous) the subject of the kiosks had come up. As if to resume that conversation from a year earlier he asked if I had heard any of the kiosks blasting religious propaganda and other loud noises. I just kinda smiled and said nothing, and since he did not wait for me to answer the question I got away with saying nothing. It felt like I had lied, and that sociopathic thing came to mind, but he never asked anything that seemed like I had to answer. I described this encounter to the one person who contributes some calls to this little project, and he pronounced me GOD.
But the dude I had bumped into went on to say that a lot of businesses with these things outside the store do not like the kiosks, partly on account of noises such as mine but also because they attract so many loiterers and layabouts. Both these issues were irritants to some restaurants, he said, because they intrude upon the outdoor dining experiences of their customers. From that day forward I stopped blasting the noise in front of places with outdoor dining, though I may change my mind about this at some point. It’s not that I want to irritate anybody, but I do want people to regard the kiosks as poorly-designed and poorly-planned irritants, because that is what I consider them.
I stayed in most of the day, believing the so-far inaccurate forecasts of torrential rain and thunderstorms. I had planned to meet a friend who was going to help me learn how to ride a skateboard, but rescheduled the day before on account of the rain forecasts. I got a skateboard a couple of weeks ago but did not want to take it out for the first time during the 110° heat wave. I just want to use it for purposes of getting from point A to point B, no tricks or weaving through vehicular traffic or anything like it, and I’m hoping it will shave time off my occasional rambles to the 181 and back, among other destinations. I also just like the idea of boarding more appealing than riding a bike. It looks cool to me, and I’ve noticed people of all ages doing it.
Listening to the organizers of that HOPE conference delivering a post-mortem of what sounds like a tense, uncomfortable three days. Sounds like dudes wearing Trump apparel as well as known Nazis showed up and threatened and intimidated others there. I don’t know what to make of that. They should have paid more attention to the payphones.
I met up with a millennial couple last night. They are completely nice and completely smart, and at 29 they’ve been together for something like 7 years. I had described the kiosk pursuits to them before but last night I gave them the fuller detailed description. In the end I said “this is the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever done” and we all laughed, and the woman said “It’s genius.” That made me feel good. I thought she had said “tedious” so I had to ask for clarity. She had said something about being in the arts, so I asked if she’d seen any shows at the Sinatra School nearby. She said “I graduated from there.” I still can’t figure out what the guy does but it has something to do with Spotify and “the bottom line”.
