11/21
whoa! we're running out the door. i wanted to wear leather slacks to synagogue but erez said, there's no way anyone will invite us to dinner with those on.

yeah, i'm about to go into the melee of upper west side dinner invitations.....aaahhhH!!!!

11/20
you can't script real life

not like i need to get any more self-promoting than i already am, but this saturday, people -- come to the knitting factory!! i dazzle you. juez rocks you. and matisyahu, uh, puts you in hasidic beatbox heaven.

tonight i slammed again, wound up with the opening spot for the third consecutive time -- are the spirits of slam trying to teach me something? -- and i did a poem i'm warming up for saturday night, new stuff, i'm nervous about myself as a performer. there's going to be people from both ends of the spectrum there, the hasidic rabbi, the punk kids, maybe people who haven't seen me since high school. and sandi dubowski, who i wrote a kind of platonic love poem to, and who's never seen me perform it.

and tonight rob and i went out and we talked about our coflating stories of stripper friends being chased around the world by the mob. we talked about how to script his friend's story. he said, you can't script reality. it's just too crazy.

and earlier tonight, i get up in front of 50 people who have no idea who i am, they don't know my history and they don't care, and i just do a poem. that's all they hear. no background. just two minutes of whatever you can offer.

oh yeah. that's why i keep slamming.

11/19
times squared

the exhibit was fabulous. glorious, even. i didn't now how i was gonna fill up 2 hours of space with poems, and we ended up rocking times square like new year's. erez scratching up the turntables like no tomorrow. me not remembering what poems i knew, what poems i had, just launching one after the other in a breathless torrent. i kept pounding on the window and sticking my face against it gloopily until erez told me that it wsa made of plastic and i could break it. he also didn't tell me i wasn't allowed to curse until, what, 90 minutes into it? sorry, times square. but back to the magnificence. a limousine stopped for five minutes to listen. people danced, breakdanced, grooved, even a few businessmen nodded their heads with the rhythm. i couldn't hear anything but i could see people laughing. temima said a girl was on the phone for half an hour trying to figure out who i was, she'd seen me at shabbos dinner and "now he's in the window and he's doing POETRY!" whoo. i can't wait till i'm back on the upper west side. i just wonder where i'm gonna stay.

11/18
public service

i was supposed to meet up with ex-roommate kristen in washington square park. i thought i'd missed her and i was walking around so much that the drug dealers stopped me. "what's up?" they demanded, thinking i was looking for someone to buy drugs from, and i kept turning them down. "no," i assured them, "i'm just looking for my roommate. she's this tall and she wears all purple." they helped me look for her after that.

11/17
hip-hop chop shop

last night erez's exhibit opened. it's a storefront on 42nd street that's covered with transcripts of random conversations, with body-size holes cut out -- one for erez to DJ, one for performers, and one for the movie. last night i was doing sound, erez was spinning, we were all dancing on the sidewalk, a bunch of breakdancers came by, this crazy old man in a dress was doing backflips, and lawyers and bankers in business suits passed by, trying to figure out whether we were selling something.

erez and i were mixing it down in the storefront when this guy walked up, knocked on the window, and pantomimed freesytling. erez shook his head no. then the guy held up a Wu-Tang Clan medallion.

now, for those of you who don't know:
1. Erez is easily impressed by name-dropping.
2. The Wu-Tang Clan is one of the foremost hip-hop groups today, dropping hot single after single, repeatedly busting the #1 billboard charts.

erez let him in.

we had to shut down because the theater next door was starting their play and we were being loud, going over the time limit. but then we moved outside and freestyled till we got too hungry.

afterwards, we walked down the street with erez's mom, ecstatic about nathan lane's triumphant return to "the producers". erez grabbed my arm and sprinted the other way. "what's up?" i said.

"that's puffy!" he hissed.

it's true. one dude in a pinstripe suit trailed behind him. one guy with some heavy leather recording-equipment bags walked alongside him. puff daddy himself wore a puffy white jacket with fur trim, cascading past his knees, big shimmering jeans, white (phat farm?) shoes. and the shades. of course, the shades.

erez dashed up to him, ignoring the weighty bodyguard with his hand up. Faster than any of us could think, i whipped out erez's promo CD and pressed it into his hands, erez pressed the CD into Puffy's hands, the rap mogul himself grunted at us and nodded, and we were all on our ways -- puffy to whatever celebrity bash he had planned, me to the kosher steakhouse on 46th that ran *out* of *salad*.