ROBB TODD
Someone actually let me have a book. My first collection of fiction is on sale. You can even enjoy a Kindle edition.
Search
© 2012 Robb Todd
TWITTER FEED
Loading Tweet...
I ALSO HANG OUT HERE
OTHER PEOPLE'S STUFF
-
-
Another Drums Along The Hudson Pic. #inwoodpark #inwood #inwoodhillpark #washingtonheights #washheights #newyork #city #newyorkcity #nyc #Uptown...
-
“No one is ever really alone. You are part of everything alive.”— William S. Burroughs, Queer
-
Skull Crystal LED Door Knob
-
-
-
-
“Malia and Sasha and a bunch of my friends and Michelle had sort of like a roast, a little private roast, each one of them read something and Malia...”
-
“I’ve no light in me
but that I reflect of you.
You are stars to me.” -
1316
Look, single dudes, the world will never be in short supply of
ticking-clock women who want kids, so just stay in a little bit of...
Tag Results
6 posts tagged 1 train
WE WILL NEVER DIE JUST YET
This is important (and do not ever let someone who is successful at life tell you otherwise): There is a building near my office that was used as an exterior shot on a famous sitcom about a group of friends. It has been off the air for almost a decade but the show is syndicated. Tourists stand on the corner and take pictures of it. All day long. The show was not even filmed in this city. This is our culture. Tourists. Photos. All. Day. Long.
I took two pictures of food today. I do not have a healthy relationship with food nor money but I get along with liquid fine.
Remember when we saw the plane writing in the sky?
The approaching train sounded like lasers. On the train, a man with a torn jacket said to a little woman wearing a red coat, “Excuse me, miss. What day is it?”
She pulled her earbuds out. “Friday.”
He said thank you. At the next stop, he said, “One of these guys should give you a seat.”
She could not hear him. She had her earbuds in again.
“They should give you a seat!” He had an unopened can in his pocket, something to drink. “Is this 59th street?”
Another man said, “When it stops, bro.”
The man with the torn jack held out his hand with the cross dangling. “Could you spare a quarter?”
Outside the gym, a man walked past wearing green jeans. Does that mean anything to anyone any more?
Inside the elevator to the gym, a woman told another woman that she has a student whose name is pronounced “shu-thead” but it is not spelled that way. It has an I and no dash. The other woman laughed and said she has a student named La-Dasha, spelled La-Dasha, with a dash.
Inside the gym, a sweaty man wore a T-shirt that said, I HAVE DOUGHNUTS AT HOME. The view from the yoga studio is sick.
Outside the gym, two giant dump trucks stopped for a little old lady jaywalking with a cane, a pile of dead Chistmas trees near a no-parking sign. A blind man in white fur coat stood on the corner, tapping things. A little girl with a pink, rolling backpack stomped down the sidewalk making angry noises.
Relationships, my life, my feelings blahblah I do not know how it is for other people.
IT IS LATER THAN YOU THINK
He will not eat an egg for breakfast because he worries about cholesterol but he lights a cigarette and brags about how good the coke was. Cops harass a woman playing the guitar on the subway platform and we climb into the cold night, avoiding a step with a mound of human shit, a bite taken by a boot.
He says he has been flossing all week because he has a dentist appointment in a few hours that he is probably going to cancel. I tell him that is like cleaning your apartment before the maid comes. He says he does that, too.
The sidewalks are crowded with Christmas trees and I breath them in. A long flatbed with tall slats holds hundreds of prone trees. Several men are lying on top, mattress of green needles, chopped trunks, hands behind their heads, staring at the sky. Clouds and city light hide the stars and it is silent for a moment and, here, if you miss that then you miss everything.
That’s not a hat, that’s his hair. Elevator Operator is a dope job, especially since I could push the button myself. Makes me feel wealthy: “Yo, hit that button for me. I don’t want to dirty my finger.” Closest I’ll ever get to having a doorman.
Felt any good books lately?
A great book is an amazing thing, and that might be why there are so few of them. I need a book that is going to do something to me, alter my DNA, pop a cartoon lightbulb over my head in a thought bubble, rewire my brain coils.
Everyone loves Jonathan Franzen right now and I read a sample of “Freedom” and I am not a lover. I am not a hater, either. Just not my thing. It’s not how I like my food cooked, and I guess I am a picky eater. I can’t stop eating “Jesus’ Son” by Denis Johnson.
I pick it up, flip it open and feast from wherever my eyes land. It is billed as a story collection but it reads like a novel inside of a poem. That is because he leaves out so much and your mind scrambles to hear the unsaid sentences. You have to feel those parts.
Anybody know any good books to feel? I want it to feel like this and this and this and this at the same time.
I want it to torture me with dilemmas that are more difficult than deciding which pizzeria bakes the best pizza pie in the city. I want it to cure cancer and bacon. I want it to end the drug war in Mexico. See, the United States hates the drug war in Mexico and we hate the drugs and immigrants that sneak across our borders. We hate that shit so much that we buy those drugs and hire those immigrants and supply the cartels with guns and grenades. Funny how that works. That’s more than a dilemma, it is also hypocrisy.
I thought about all of this on the subway, wrote most of these words on my phone. I took the 1 train instead of the A train to mix it up and I guess the uptown stop where I wanted to get off is closed forever. Well, a year, but not just on weekends. All the time.
At first, I was pissed about having to get off at the next stop, just a few blocks away, but I thought about something someone said to me once — someone I care about as much as I can care about someone, the way you should care about everyone but don’t. She said something that reverberated when I needed it. I rethought the situation.
It was cool beautiful out. I walked through an interesting neighborhood I had never seen. Leaves fell and the sun set and the air felt good in my nose and chest. Spanish chatter everywhere, dogs barking. I looked for a taco cart someone told me about and found it. I ordered three then told them to make it four. I ate them and they were good.
