Brooklyn Transit Museum

The Brooklyn Transit Museum in downtown Brooklyn, housed inside a former subway station. Where old trains go after they die to be preserved like mechanical mummies. Worth a trip if you're into vintage New Yorkia.


A 5443 Lo-V from 1924. Like riding in a German tank.


And interior.


A BMT 1407 dating from 1907. Classy ride, eh?


An R-11 #8013 prototype from 1949. Looks like the interior of an aqua-submarine. Note the portholes.


A BMT Q-Type #1612C. Originally from 1907, rebuilt in 1938. Paint job by the Crayola Factory, presumably.


Advertising was so quaintly earnest in those days.


The IRT R-15 from 1950, the first to contain an air conditioning unit.


Inside an IND R-7A / R-10 1575 from 1938.

The Authors

The Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors (poets included) who have always influenced you and will always stick with you. List the first 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes, and they don't have to be listed in order of relevance to you.

Alright fine. (Like I don't have better things to do... grumble... gripe...)

In chronological order:

Carl Barks
Margaret Sutton
Robert Arthur
Arthur Conan Doyle
Dashiell Hammett
Raymond Chandler
Jack Kerouac
Henry Miller
Ernest Hemingway
Franz Kafka
James Joyce
Thomas Pynchon
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Louis-Ferdinand Celine
David Foster Wallace

Brainstorming Session

Considered titles for my novel:

The Happy Dirigible
Entertain My Fiasco
Womb Puppet
Empire State Bildungsroman
The Man Who Shat in a Minefield and Blew His Ass Off
The Elephant Chair
The Mexican Hat Rack
Blind Man in a Lightbulb Factory
Tubercular Bells

Also in the works, an off-Broadway musical about the rise of Lynyrd Skynyrd, tentatively entitled Don't Cry For Me, Alabama.

Hollywood Formula #76

HERO: I discovered your secret hideout and found out all about your nefarious scheme. You're not going to get away with it.

VILLAIN: Then I guess I'm going to have to kill you before you reveal my secret. [Pulls out revolver]

HERO: [muses] Perhaps I should have thought this through a little better.

VILLAIN: So long, chump. [Fires]

HERO: [clutching chest] Wait, I already sent copies of the evidence to all the major newspapers. [Collapses]

VILLAIN: Well, you probably should have told me that first.

Greenwood Cemetery

The imposing entrance to Greenwood Cemetery in the Kensington area of Brooklyn. Notable residents include Horace Greeley, Henry Ward Beecher, Samuel Morse, William M Tweed, Leonard Bernstein, William S Hart, & Jean-Michel Basquiat.


Valley Water.


Boss Tweed's gravesite. Wonder how much of the construction cost went to line the pockets of the fat cats.






The luminous morning sun made these a little too cheerful for my taste. I'll have to return on a gloomier day.


As good a name as any for an avenue.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Corpse

My first album is a set of youthful, energetic songs celebrating youth and energy. Boys copy my hairstyle and girls mail themselves in packages to my hotel room. The whole world is a feast of Dionysian delights.

My second album is loaded with weary songs about life on the road, drug addiction, and sketches of the eccentric characters encountered along the way. The word "mature" is the common denominator in reviews. Sales are high. So is the band. I fire my drummer for substance abuse.

My third album is a self-produced concept album entitled Bok and the Toad People, ostensibly about the role of a musician in society but most listeners find the plot largely impenetrable. Epic in scope, soaked in obscure metaphors, it was dubbed "commercial suicide" by the record company and critics alike. Frequently used in elitist circles as a device to shun undesirables who do not "get" it. More talked about than listened to.

My fourth album is an attempt to return to my roots. Critically lauded, commercially modest, quickly forgotten. Soon to be a deleted title.

My fifth album is a contractually fulfilling greatest hits package. Soon afterward I retreat from the spotlight into an extended retirement of woodcraft and botany. I spend ten years crafting my memoirs which, at the time of my demise, remain unpublished. A month later a box set retrospective hits the shelves. A memorial concert hosted by the ghost of Elton John is aired on TV. Sales of my back catalog skyrocket.

Is it Art?

-Is it Art?
-Depends. How much did you pay for it?