My Blog Hiatus

I know it's been a really long time since I posted here. I had what was certainly one of the best summers of my life, yet there's very little record of it here or in any journal of mine. Why was it such a good summer? I got published several times by New York Magazine -- once in paper and three times on the website, saw great concerts, had delicious food and beer; speaking of that I turned 21 and had most of my best friends come up for an unforgettable party. I lived on my own for a month and learned to love cooking for myself and going to my interesting, dynamic ten to six. I felt like an adult! Few things are as pleasing as when you feel yourself maturing, even when it's a false sensation. Isn't that feeling part of what underage drinking and smoking are all about?

So in a nutshell that was the glory of my summer. Why didn't I write about it here? Well the first day I got home from my internship at the Magazine, I sat down at my computer and wrote breathlessly about my thrilling first day on the job -- a day that in retrospect was pretty mundane. I was on cloud nine at the time.

The next morning my boss emailed me: "Sam, please come see me." I normally don't assume I'm in trouble in this kind of situation, but I got the sense that I was this time. I scurried eagerly to her desk, and entered the cubicle to the sight of my blog page up on her screen.

"Is this yours?" she asked.

"Yeah...," I said, not sure whether to expect praise or admonishment.

"You have to take it down immediately," she said. My post had made brief mention of the stories I was helping with; the magazine couldn't afford to let that information leak. "Several editors told me to tell you."

How several editors came across my blog post in one morning I'll never know, but the experience brought me to this shockingly obvious conclusion: anyone -- no, everyone can read what I write on this blog. Something about the scolding and my internet epiphany spooked me so bad I couldn't consider coming back to this open diary for the rest of the summer. It was something more insidious than writer's block, something like... writer's trepidation. That doesn't sound quite as good though, does it.

The Roots: Selflessly Perfect

I just got back from the most awesome -- in the dictionary sense of the word -- concert of my life.

The Roots rocked the house at the Highline Ballroom, and it was mostly thanks to their brilliant selflessness. Some of the premier jazz talent in New York City (read: in the world) took the stage with ?uestlove and Black Thought and set the crowd in motion with its fervent swing.

A few highlights stick out in my mind:

The stage boasted at least 20 different musicians over the course of the show, with maestros switching in at every instrument -- keyboard, keyboard 2, bass, guitar, guitar 2, drums, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, and mic. There were frequently at least 10 people on the stage at once.

For the last half of the show, three people (including ?uestlove of course) were simultaneously jamming on the one drum set -- seamlessly.

Finally the show came to a beautiful, perfectly climactic end... and then the keyboardist went into a Michael Jackson song -- the buoyant I Want You Back. Having expected to be done, legendary drummer ?uestlove gave him an exasperated look before diving into the beat with the kind of gusto only a recently deceased immortal can inspire.

Halfway through the instrumental ecstasy, the guitarist realized something was missing and jumped boldly to the mic, bringing the song fully to life.

The song came to its natural close, and the keyboardist stood up for one tantalizing moment -- then hit the cool opening notes of I'll Be There. ?uestlove looked at him in tired wonderment; then sure enough, right on time he came back in. Someone we hadn't seen ran on stage from the back and started singing with authority. On the chorus he turned the show democratic, pointing the mic out to the delirious crowd.

"I'll be there... I'll be there!!!"

"Where there is love, I'll be there..."

Too soon, the song came to its epic, glorious end. ?uestlove played the end like it was really, really the end. And it was.

Except for the insatiably generous energy of the keyboardist. No sooner had the song come to its climactic end than he set off into Rock With You. ?uestlove rolled his eyes in disbelief, waited a few beats and joined in. The house went crazy.

Last night Alison and I discovered a new NYU dining hall. This one allows the diner to collect unlimited amounts of food. Being the glutton that I am, I didn't realize I was full until I found myself halfway through my third plate of food, my innards bursting with dull, painful agony. At that point I decided the rest of my food would be more useful to others than it would be to me.

So I brought the rest of my tofu teriyaki to Tariq. It was my second time bringing him food. I felt determined to please him, after watching my first food delivery crash and burn. Once again Tariq was talking to some friendly people I'd never seen before when I plopped down next to him and eagerly put the styrafoam container in his lap.

"What did you bring me this time?" he excitedly drawled.

"I got you some tofu; it's good," I said. I gave him the fork I'd taken from the dining hall.

His simple response made me feel truly appreciated: "Man... you cool. And he brought a fork!"

Then, "Ay, you got a dollar?"

I wasn't sure how aghast to be. "Man, I just gave you some food and now you're gonna ask me for money?" I not-really-jokingly jibed him.

"Yeah man!" he volleyed back.

"What are you getting with this money?" I asked.

"Some beer, man!"

Then I realized I was squabbling over a dollar with a homeless man who'd accepted me at some level just minutes after first laying eyes on me. He'd opened my eyes to another social dimension of this park that I otherwise would have blinded myself to.

Still, there was something that bothered me. Tariq turned back to the people he'd been chatting with when I arrived. Sitting on his other side, I could see how it would be a bit awkward for him to talk to all of us at once. But I suddenly felt passé, like I was the exciting new guy but not anymore. Like Tariq has been living on the streets for decades, and he's seen my type come and go -- the open-minded, middle class white guy who feels cool, urban and gritty for hanging out with relatively happy homeless guys. Tariq directed a story at the others about some rich girls who had summoned him excitedly to the street one night and bequeathed him a trunkful of leftover, gourmet catered food. It sounded grand. I stood up, bid him farewell and walked home.

I got to the park late tonight, about 10 minutes before its midnight closing. I scanned the crowd of new characters huddled around the music, finally feeling at home again when Tariq emerged and cheerfully greeted me.

Tonight was less idyllic than other nights have been. There was another "nut", according to Tariq, but he was a lot less appealing to me than Steve or Harv. In very little time, I found myself breaking up a fight between him and an exasperated regular.

A police van rolled up to disperse our crowd just as the two men's tempers subsided. The nut asked a fellow hobo for a sip of his drink, and was turned down. All I remember is what rang out into the dark, empty night as I walked away from the smattering of stragglers.

"No one ever gives me anything, and you wonder why I fuckin' do heroin! Look at my arm!"

I wrote the following as the latter half of a post about my first day on the job at New York magazine. The next day I was told by my superior said she had received complaints from editors that I was giving away our story topics on my blog. So I had to take the post down. Anyway here's the part I was allowed to keep up. It's a moot topic because I never did get to do what I fantasize about below, but hey, maybe one day I will.


On Thursday, assuming I get press access, the real show starts. I'll be the only person from New York mag at the 2009 NBA Draft, and I plan not to let this rare opportunity juke me out. I'm reading Hunter S. Thompson's famous piece on the crazed depravity of the Kentucky Derby for inspiration.

Both spectacles have a certain tantalizing aspect to them. As Thompson observed in The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved, the crowd is replete with "thousands of raving, stumbling drunks, getting angrier and angrier as they lose more and more money." No matter how drunk you get you're still going home with empty pockets. And what's the best that can happen for a fan at the NBA Draft? Your team picks a player who might pan out in the NBA, and now you have to wait four months for the season to start. Or you might stand around bitching and moaning because your team picked the wrong guy.

I expect the Draft to be somewhat more sober than Thompson's Kentucky Derby. Even boring, maybe. But somehow or other, the same zest that carries basketball fan(atic)s from across the country to a ceremony which uses no ball or hoop -- there's something in there.

"I don't know their life story, I don't know their personal shit, but I know how they treat me. They treat me good. Now that's some shit to write about."


Steve gesticulates at nobody. Every now and then he lets out a fleeting, sing-song yelp or a melodic whistle -- his form of participation in the homeless people's singalong which brings life to Washington Square Park every night.

"I've known Steve for a while. He's a nut. You know there's the village drunk, the town fool -- Steve's the nut," says Tariq. Tariq has been around for many years. His gray, wizened dreadlocks and upbeat spirit attest to that. "Everyone says there's something wrong with him, and there is. But I've noticed there's one thing he always does. He always wants to share with people. You know, he comes up to people with a drink, he offers you the straw -- people can't accept that shit! People don't understand him 'cause they don't know him. And I get it! People have their fears. But he's completely harmless. I've never once heard of him yelling or cursing, getting in fights, nothin'."

"He's so well put-together," I say, marveling at his tidy goatee and matching, fitting outfit.

"Oh you like his uniform?" Tariq says. "He wears that thing every day. But it's the strangest thing -- I've never smelled his body odor. Hey Steve! Come over here, I want you to meet my new friends!"

Steve looks over, his feathered hat whipping around with his attentive glare. He steps a few feet towards us and abruptly launches something at me as if it had just bitten him. "Yuhwahmuhshuht?" he earnestly offers as I bend down to pick it up.

"No thank you," I awkwardly stammer, taken aback despite Tariq's unforgettable warning. I hand the t-shirt back to him and he throws it right back in my face.

"Thanks, but it's your shirt!" I insist.

This time he accepts, clutching the rag to his chest, where he already holds an armful of folders overflowing with haphazard messes of paper. He jabbers incomprehensibly for a bit with an explanatory look in his eyes. Words mix seamlessly with flatulent bursts of air shoved through his pursed lips. I back away, cautious of his raining spittle. But there is none. Steve walks away, urgently gesticulating.

On my last evening in Córdoba I got to see a corrida de toros -- a bullfight. I'd wanted to experience the 300 year old relic of Spanish tradition since I'd come to Spain, but could never gather the moral self-assurance to act on my curiosity. I felt wrong giving financial support to a sport -- or is it an art? -- that cheers on the bloody death of innocent, disadvantaged animals.

Toreros, asesinos -- bullfighters, murderers -- was graffitied
in several places on the outside of the ring.

But, as is usually the case, my curiosity got the better of me. Not only is bullfighting an integral part of Spanish culture, but I realized that for me at least, the very fact that it would be hard for me to watch was the reason I needed to see it. A few months before Federico García Lorca's 1936 execution, he wrote one of his famous plays La casa de Bernarda Alba, in which the domineering title character proclaims, "Y no quiero llantos. La muerte hay que mirarla cara a cara." -- "And I don't want to hear any crying. Death must be confronted face to face."

Death is a natural part of life, I figured. If I can eat animals daily, I should be able to stomach watching them die from hundreds of feet away.

That evening I walked to the bullring with my friends Josh, Mary and Fatima.


We had paid 10 euros and little thought to the spectacle we'd soon see and probably never forget. Of course we knew that bulls would die in front of us, but I don't think any of us had wanted to imagine what that might actually look like.

In the modern bullfight, the man-bull interaction is divided into three main phases. In the beginning, the bull gallops out into the ring, each one of the six beasts bigger and more aggressive than the last. A few men stand around using pink capes to attract the bull's attention, then run away like the physically puny species we are when it charges at them. (Contrary to popular belief, it's the movement of the cape -- not the color of it -- that gets the bull to charge.) Eventually the bull gets annoyed by this fruitless game, and rams the closest horse. Unfortunately (for the bull) the horse is well-protected by some kind of thick padding, and is mounted by a man who proceeds to jab his spear into the area behind the bull's head.

Notice that the horse is blindfolded.

But the nape of the bull's neck hasn't been tenderized nearly enough yet. In phase two, three of the men leave behind their pink capes and pick up a pair of colorful knives. As the bull charges each one, he jumps aside at the last second and drives both knives into the same spot on the bull's back. This picture (not taken by me) shows the result:


Now, with the bull panting and bleeding, he is weak enough for a single man to go cara a cara with him. This third phase of the bullfight is the most renowned. The color red takes center stage, as the torero's red cape tantalizes the bull over and over again until one final charge, when the bull's exasperated sprint comes up with nothing but air and a sword driven down to the hilt in its back.

Of the four bulls we watched die, the majority tended to react to this fatal blow by walking around in a daze for a few moments, then slowly retreating from the men to die on its own. It would become obviously exhausted and start spitting up blood.


When it neared the very end of its life it would let out a few heartwrending groans and sit down, with an almost docile air. Finally, and mercifully, it would keel over onto its side:


The torero with the red cape then kneels over the bull and takes it out of its misery by repeatedly stabbing it in the same, softened bloody spot. After the bull's body stops its macabre writhing the torero slices off an ear as a kind of trophy for a fight well done. And the crowd goes wild.