More photos at the end of this Flickr set.

Then this guy came around the corner and topped that sundae with a shiny red cherry:

He was on his way to brunch, too. For real.

The way I see it, being an asshole is a temporary condition like being hungry or having to go to the bathroom really bad. It comes and goes like waves on a pond, and it’s useless to think that you’re NEVER going to be an asshole. It happens, you deal with it, apologize when you can, and move on.

I think that you should try to wring as much enjoyment out of life as you can. It’s too short not to have somee fun every chance you get. And as long as you’re fated to be an asshole sometimes, you might as well enjoy that state while you can, too. Assholes are really, really good at having a good time at the expense of everything else. Sometimes that’s a pretty good way to be. Just know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, and enjoy that great big drippy burger topped with cheese, beets and fried eggs with a side of whiskey while you can.

That’s what I had at Five Leaves and asshole or not, it was spectacular.

Then I will tell you that the live show I am promoting is in New York. I know, we are being a little New York-centric with the past couple of posts. But we can only do live shows in places we are. Perhaps we can fix this in the future.

Anyway, Brian Wecht is the co-producer of Story Collider, in the video he is at our old show in Long Island City. Tonight, Cyndi will be doing his show and I will be there to drink. The show is at Pacific Standard, which is where we are doing our new show, The Standard Issues, which will be on the 24th of this month and the theme will be “Jerks.” So if you like what you saw of Brian, come check out the show tonight and, if you are not in New York but liked what you saw, I am currently plugging through my back log of storytelling videos and will bring you more as soon as I get them cut.

And by men, they don’t mean me.

So, it’s always an education. But some things are not spelled out and it is up to you to figure out what it all means. And so, I give you Defa Lucy and her packaging. There are an infinite number of ways Lucy’s cryptic copy can be interpreted. The simplistic view is “Oh, those crazy foreigners who can’t speak English.” But I tend to think there is more going on here. You have to think of the demographic.

These dolls are being sold to the children of people who have left their homes to come to a place that is (no matter how many planes land at JFK in a day) far away from everything, because they have some idea of what the place offers them in the way of a future. There is something in this broken English that speaks to me of what these folks want and what they expect and what they think is expected of them in their new home.

So you have the straight up material issues, sure. But don’t we all want to be fashionable and pretty. God knows I do. I also enjoy having my hands and legs bend. Lucy can also move freely which does indicate a misconception about the size of apartments in New York.

There are also misunderstandings about the over all chemical effects of caffeine. It must be heart breaking to find out that you get jittery and irritable in America just the same as the rest of the world. I think they are thinking of ecstasy. And, again, there is that coffee shop, vagina conflict.

This is just some screwy English. But in its clumsiness it does bring up that little girls dream of the same thing everywhere: a romantic wedding day, that they will remember forever, to a man with a full head of hair and who owns a set of attractive clothing.

That means that if you are out there right now, wearing a T-shirt with Darth Maul on it and a pair of Birkenstocks, without a decent suit in your closet, there is not a single nationality of woman who is not disappointed by you.

Lucy either has an Ed Hardy nine millimeter in that drawer or a pair of heels that qualify as a weapon.

You know, most people in our neighborhood come from places where, at best, dogs are nuisance scavengers if not sometimes a necessary part of the food chain. The idea that you could come to America and take in a random mammal to suck off your income like a giant furry tick, well we really are stupid rich up in this joint.

But, I am glad that they grant us the benefit of the doubt and think that the doggie spas in Midtown are because of an excess of mercy and not because we have more cash than brains. That’s generous.

Well, in the end, I think that for most families that make the journey to America, it comes down to more than this. But identity, and the opportunity to express it, these are vital things and not to be discounted. In some of these countries, such things can have you imprisoned or shunned by your community. In this way Defa Lucy is a bright shining light of freedom, a better life, an infinite number of possibilities, and lots of pastel.

Lots and lots of pastel. Yes, Defa Lucy is a Lady Liberty for a new era. And I salute her.

Asary, however, is just a tramp.

By the way, please feel free to check out my blog – www.billyjoesboy.com.

When I was a kid I’d take forever to walk the dog, walking as slowly as I could so I could safely gaze into open windows while still moving down the street. Stopping to really take it in or moving closer into the bushes, that’s creep territory. Usually my dog would smell a squirrel or something and yank me away before things got TOO weird.

There are several high-rise apartment buildings across from my office building. Sometimes when I’m on the phone I look out there and see blinds opening and shutting, people walking in front of the windows, sometimes leaning out. It blows my mind, to think of all that eating, sleeping, cleaning and living that goes on right over there while I have my face up against this electronic lotus flower.

Somebody else must have found my tossing and turning the other night to be pretty mind-blowing, too. When I woke up yesterday morning, I could see two perfect handprints in the dust outside my bedroom window:

You can see them there in the top third of the photo, especially that one in the top right corner.

They either climbed up the fire escape and tried to slide the window upwards with their flattened palms, or they sat there transfixed with their hands on the glass while my girlfriend and fought over the blankets. I don’t think they sat there and tracked the progress of my morning glory vines like I do every time I come home, that’s for damn sure.

My girlfriend left around six, leaving me to fight waking up just as hard as I fight falling asleep. When I saw those hands hovering over my plants, I didn’t even really freak out as much as I could have. Or as much as I should have. Calling my landlord, calling the cops, placing my hands over the prints just to make sure they really were on the outside … all that stuff would come in time.

But for a few minutes I just laid there and savored it, felt the creepiness and the mystery swirl around. For just a few moments, I was part of my own private Blue Velvet. My fear was fighting my fascination, and no matter which one won, something special and rare was happening. And man, you got to savor those moments when you get ‘em.

D.Billy’s also been slogging it up and down 95 on various buses to see his lady, a process that I am abundantly familiar with. That really, really sucks, because you can’t even complain about it properly. I mean, shit, you still got a girlfriend at the end of the bus ride, right, so who are you to fuss?

There is ALWAYS somebody who is either 1) freestyle rapping to their headphones 2) eating something deep-fried or 3) wearing huge sunglasses and an empire-waist dress and talking in a nasal whine about some guy they’re “just hanging out with, whatever,” on the four-hour slog out of New York on the bus on a Friday night, though. And lady at the end or not, that gets mighty old.

None of this is a valid excuse for not blogging much, though. The real reason this blog’s been fallow lately: we both just tired as hell.

I’m pleased to report that D.Billy has not been too busy or tired to throw up a new Site Intervention, though. Check this bad thing out:

You can see the rest of his Site Interventions here.

There’s a pretty powerful, fast-moving scavenger ecosystem in my neighborhood. People (I think) snatch up clothing, books, whatever like crabs picking over a fish carcass on the sea floor. There are a lot of forgotten bike frames chained to sign posts around there, stripped of their seats, wheels, chains, pedals — anything that is remotely mobile or useful. Sometimes you just see a chain looped around a sign post. Whenever I see that, I always think “Damn. Another one of those bike-eating sharks must’ve got that one.”

I’ve been walking past this bike that’s been locked up on Broadway under the Williamsburg Bridge for YEARS. It looks like it was dragged up from the ocean floor, doesn’t it? There’s the requisite grease and grime there, but it’s covered with a thick patina of dust, dried river mud and pigeon shit. The mirrors are useless, covered with old dirt.

It’s always sitting upright, though, and always in a slightly different position. Sometimes it feels a little warm, like it was ridden just a few hours ago.

I like to think that some slippery creeping beast shambles up out of the East River every night and stumbles to the bike with thick, dripping footsteps. Its shoulders steam with a green toxic runoff, and its face is half-eaten away, revealing a horrific skeletal grin. It turns up its moldering jacket collar and slides a Bob Seger tape into its Walkman, then sets out to cruise the neighborhood, working out some “Night Moves” …

Anyway, the reason I’m bringing all of this bizness up again is that they have also been so kind as to include yours truly in their NEW book, Urban Interventions: Personal Projects in Public Places.

I am absolutely thrilled to share a volume with people like Mark Jenkins, Joshua Allen Harris, William Lamson and tons of other artists who endeavor to smack the urban landscape with the giant cartoon glove of whimsy, and I hope y’all will check it out.

Urban Interventions is 69 beans if you buy it direct, BUT, as of this posting, it’s 37% off if you buy it on Amazon!
Or you can just wait until it’s in the big bookstores and hunker down between the rows, all sprawled out taking up aisle space.
I know how you do, ’cause I do it too.

[DBILLY.COM]

I’m not letting this dog die, dammit. Not yet.

Zach Timm and Matt Rivera’s brief documentary about the Williamsburg Hair Man and subsequent Gawker phenomenon debuted at Filmshop’s “Unprotected” last Saturday at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. I went with D.Billy and some other folks, and had no idea what to expect. And as it turned out: it was really good! I loved it, and it definitely got the best crowd response.

I talked to a bunch of folks about it ahead of time, none of whom could make it out. Fair enough. Zach’s a nice young man, and was kind enough/self-promotional enough to post the video on Vimeo. Here it is, see for yourselves:

The Williamsburg Hair from Aligned Creative LLC on Vimeo.

I have to say, I never thought about the actual effect that all this Internet hoopla would have on the human being who actually chose to have that haircut. Having a haircut like that is a choice. Especially when bald and balding guys everywhere are totally allowed to shave their heads. I do — and unless Chris has a nest of purple tumors on the back of his dome, that option is available to him, too.

Admittedly, it’s a one-size fits all option. But you can’t really go wrong with it.

Some of the comments in the film really got me. The line “He looks like Wolverine and a penis had a baby” cracked me up, got huge laughs from the crowd.

When Chris said “I kinda thought I was camouflaged here. I thought nobody would bat an eye at me in New York,” I had two simultaneous, conflicting reactions.

The first one was “Oh man, what have I DONE? That really sucks, picking on the poor guy for flying his freak flag here.” New York is where everyone runs screaming, away from their repressive small towns (or Washington, DC in my case) to really let themselves be themselves. And it’s got to be heartbreaking to think that just when you thought you could be yourself, the same petty assholes you’ve been trying to escape your whole life are still there passive-aggressively mocking you in a way that’s not only painful, but indexed by Google.

The other reaction was “Dude. You were rocking a Hare Krishna haircut. And were those pink Croc boots in the video? Clearly you’re after a certain amount of attention here, don’t act like you’re not.” We all know the Williamsburg uniform for dudes: Giant beard or Depression-era moustache, skintight jeans and a vest over some sort of vintage t-shirt. Bonus points if the t-shirt has a deep V-neck. Mash together the ’30s and the ’80s and presto: you’re in style here, utterly unfuckable anywhere else.

That’s how the rest of this neighborhood expresses itself: by looking totally unacceptable to the rest of the US and the twenty first century, yet blending in with everyone in the immediate area.

Like I said, I feel both reactions equally. But I’m glad Chris is out there doing his thing. And I really, really hope he’s not too upset. If everyone was the same, everything would be boring. I ran here screaming like he did and I’d be really sad if the Internet got rid of this weird haven.