Casa de Punk: KOOLMAN

KOOLMAN

Ari and I had brunch in brooklyn on Sunday which is becoming a regular biweekly thing with us. He used to be depressed and getting him out of it was slow going for a long time. But now everything's fast. Last time we had brunch he was coming off a pretty mediocure saturday night. No complaints though and he was asking advice to try and make a better go of things next time. It was amazing. The old ari would be talking about giving up. Never leaving his house again. His only real complaint was a good joke. When the waitress asked if he wanted curly fries, he said no, he wanted the fries strait. He's had had it with curly. This week he was back to curly. "The things is spicier..."

I've been having a renaissance of sorts too. On sunday I finally got convinced to check out the morrissey party and went with Berrin. It was really fun. Everyone dancing, models, hippies, science dorks like me, all walks of life. It felt a lot like the old new york. Except I spent the whole time talking to guys. I'm not much of a party kid anymore, when a really pretty girl took an interest in me (I think she was very drunk), I had no energy to do anything about it. So anyway, my point is, a lessening of my interest in girls (really only down to 50% of my waking and non-waking thoughts instead of 98.5%) has had a George Costanza effect on me. Instead of wasting my free time at work on the phone or whatever, I've been teaching myself spanish, hebrew and Ari's helping me to expand my portuguese beyond telling him to lick my big tasty lollypop post-haste. Probably won't be so useful when I go to Rio this spring...or will it...no it really won't.

Anyway, even on the subway the other day I was taking it all in more. I talked to a mom and her ridiculously cute and precocious kids like a person might in the south, friendly-like with someone you don't know, and then watched a lady carrying tons of flowers home from work. Maybe it was her birthday. She sat quietly and you could tell, even though her shoulders drooped forward from a long day, that she was happy.

The grill made it out this week. Ben, Sarafina and I bought sliced shortribs and beef and pork bulgogi and cooked it all with vegitables on the grill. For those who don't know there's a great korean market on 32nd where you can get everything you need for such things. We cooked the bulgogi on top of piered aluminum foil and the hot coals crisped up the beef and marinade just enough. It was perfect. We had oyster kimchi too and those sweet and tangly yellow pickles.

Lisa had an extra ticket so she took me to the vintage fashion show in chelsea. It turns out that boys clean up there because only girls go. I picked up a 70's Halston velvet jacket and some nice ties. Lisa took home a 60's jacket that made her look like Audrey Hepburn. On the way to grab something to eat we passed this brand new building which replaced the valkarie cafe or whatever that was. Anyway, not groundbreaking arcitecture or anything, but I liked it if only because it made you look up. New yorkers never look up enough past the 3rd floor of anything. Plus I almost like any building in new york that's not flat topped. New York is all about spires and triangles and recessed upper floors.