"Oh No" - The Concretes

July 18, 2007

So I guess this is it, my last day in the big “Manzana” (shit, see what ethnic food does to you? It doesn’t only give you smelly breath and make your pores smell like microscopic garbage disposals, it also makes you roll your R’s and shimmy when you pronounce ethnic words). It was kind of peculiar, actually. I’m in amidst of reading this novel on I-don’t-know-what-yet but it takes place during WWII and as I went to bed, bombs were being dropped and stuff. Well, this morning I woke up to a crazy thunderstorm. And when you’re half asleep/half awake it really fucks with your head. I mean, I thought I was in WWII (just out of curiosity, do you guys read that as “WW2,” “World War 2,” or “WW Eleven?”) with bombs dropping! I woke up and was like, “holy shit, where the fuck is the attic? The Nazis are coming. I’ll kick Anne Frank the fuck out if I have to. I have so much more to live for!”

Anyway, guess what? After going on yelp.com to type in “cheap food” I found a bunch of little places that offered good food. There’s a place in Chinatown called “Fried Dumpling” where I got 2 veggie eggrolls, 5 dumplings, 4 pork buns and a cup of soy juice for less than $3.75. Dude, that’s cheap! Then I went on to a falafel spot where I got a pita and cup of tamarind juice for $4. Yesterday, I was walking around Brooklyn and got a beer and a small pizza for $3. Holy moly, no wonder there are so many fat bums in the city. I think I’m returning to LA with 4 stomachs, like a cow. Who knows, maybe in a few years I’ll be successful and type in “food expensivier” and go to those places where people with good credit eat. Or maybe in 10 years, I’ll even type in “food, moexpensivethanamothafucka” and eat like, Mermaid lasagna or Jessica Alba’s toenail clippings. Tell me you’ve never used your toenail clippings as toothpicks and I’ll tell you you’re impractical. Dude, it’s fucking man vs. wild. If I was in the Amazon basin and I just hunted down and roasted a baboon, and its blue-pink cheeks got stuck in between my teeth, first thing I’d do is go for my pouch of toenail clippings and pick the shit out of those fucking teeth.

Now that I think back on this morning’s thunderstorm, it now seems to be more than just shitty New York weather. This morning, I heard the city cry for the first time…perhaps for me not to leave. I can only hope so.

-- Sonnyred