> tapioca world tour

New York was, as usual, a 36-hour adventure that felt more like 360 hours. Aside from getting stuck in the rain at midnight without really knowing where I was going to sleep, until N. and J. saved my soggy ass from a cold night on the street, things were cool.

I got to see S. for a glorious day of rain and self-portraits…we went to the Photography Expo at Javits Center, which was filled with shiny new Nikons and Adobe staffers. That was followed by Zak Smith’s art exhibit, which was a major reason I went down to NYC. It was pretty cool. His stuff looks totally different in person than on a computer screen. And, as he pointed out in a blog comment that sat in my spam filter for 6 months, he only uses acrylics, not oils or watercolor. Knowing that, his stuff seemed more impressive. I remain convinced that Zak is one of the pioneers of our generation’s nonexistant urban art movement. Wait, let’s take back that sentence. It sounded really pretentious, when the fact is I have no idea what I’m talking about. I don’t know about art; I just know when I like something. I don’t really know why I like it. I can’t describe what I like about it. And for some reason, despite the female portrait theme of young, hot and possibly strung-out women blinking apathetically through his paintings, or maybe because of it, because he’s found a way to mix edginess and uncertainty with utter realism (and express it two-dimensionally), or maybe because he doesn’t care to impress anybody, so much so that he titled his exhibit “Exquisite as Fuck” — maybe that’s why I like Zak’s art. If you like art, you should go down to Frederick & Freiser Gallery and see it before Sunday, when it’s over. Ok?

Then what happened?

Right, the story of the weekend. After dinner with multilingual Flo & funkmaster poet DeWayne, but before meeting smart cyber-pal G., I met with a successful independent world-traveling documentary producer to learn about the business. He told me what I expected to hear: you don’t need a master’s degree to be taken seriously as a filmmaker; you just need to make great films. Also: you have to sell your soul to the corporate TV networks if you ever want to be able to feed yourself and make documentaries on the side.

“Sorry,” I said. “I can’t do it. I’m incapable of working for anyone I don’t respect.”

To that, he laughed out loud. “Then you’re in the wrong industry,” he answered. Then he asked how old I was.

I’m 27.

He’s probably early-40s, but he didn’t offer up much personal info to me, and I didn’t ask. But before leaving the large leather chair in his spacious Chinatown loft, I asked him: “So in this field, do you have to be single forever?” It was a serious question. “Well,” he said. “It certainly helps. It’s hard to find someone who will trapse around the world with you.” (That’s a conclusion I came to long ago.) “But generally you always end up hooking up with crew members,” he continued, “so you’ll never be lonely.”

“Speak for yourself,” I said. “That’s not for me.”

And it isn’t. Call me crazy, but I’m a big fan of monogamy.
So the struggle to become a successful control-freak global multimedia producer continues. All aboard, people.

Fast-forward to this morning.

Ry had to get his wisdom teeth out, por fin, and long ago I’d volunteered to play Mom. So I took the day off work and brought him to the Doc and watched him drool blood and act totally incoherent, poor thing, and while I shopped for gauze, he waited patiently in Brooks Drugs reading all about Bono until the blood started dripping onto the pages of Rolling Stone. Whoops.

I took him home, got him soup, canned peaches, soy milk, yogurt, applesauce. We watched a dumb movie. He was there for me when I was toothless, so now I’m here for him. I’m still here: rainy Davis Square. Exhausted from late nights. There’s just one more thing I’d like to point out:

Everyone has been extremely pleasant today, I’ve noticed. Even drivers. People are saying “Please” and “Thank you” and “Pardon me” and making jokes and giving me discounts off groceries. The pin on the checkout clerk’s sweater even said “Life is terrific!”

Because it is.