The new home of "The Frank Report."

links open windows

  It was a good 15 minutes before I finally realized this morning that it was raining. I feel like I’m still in Ireland where showers were so ubiquitous that there was no point in ever closing an umbrella.

Saw a homeless man sleeping in a doorway this afternoon who was absolutely RIPPED, fantastic muscle development. Yet another reminder that life is not fair. I hope that when I become a homeless alcoholic that G*d compensates me with a 6 pack. Same thing with the gym. The guys with the WORST form have fantastic bodies, while those of us with perfect form continue to slog away for minimum gains.

The car dealership and I are playing a most interesting game. They pretend that they will call me and not admit that in fact they have lost my car while I pretend to overlook their stalling and check in religiously twice a day on the status of said car. The blue book value is ridiculously low. I’m not adverse to a cash settlement.

posted at 11:58 AM

  I'm very hypersensitive to extreme shifts in class status; maybe it comes from spending so much time around dogs. I started the morning getting chewed out by 14 year old girls for being late to my riding lesson. Later, I was offered the opportunity to clean horse dick. (No, I am not making this up.) Apparently, when the horse dick gets full and drops down, it's a good time to grab the special shammy cloth and rub the crust off their pecker.

I declined.

Then I drove up to Staten Island to check up on my Uncle who lives in a dilapidated shack. The whole neighborhood where he lives (one block from the beach) is run down; a far cry from its hay day as a solid middle class enclave. On my way back to the bridge, I took a short cut and almost ran over a homeless man who was laying face-up unconscious (dead?) on the curb in the rain. A mad scramble followed, as I attempted to find a pay phone to call 911, while dodging all the shady characters who were eyeballing my shiny new rental car and fat wallet.

I drove past ground zero on my way over from Staten Island to Manhattan, which means that I've been to each of the three crash sites. While waiting at a stop light I saw two guys on bicycles pull up next to each other, whip out some coke and a tube and do a line right there on the bike path. Don't know about you but the last thing I'd want when doing a cardio workout is to take something that would DOUBLE THE HEART RATE.

One hour later I was in a mammoth Manhattan condo being handed champagne by waiters and rubbing shoulders with lawyers, investment bankers and academics. I attempted valiantly to get buzzed on 15+ glasses of champagne, but alas, only the good stuff goes to my head.

The next morning it was domestic coziness with the host and hostess in their mammoth upscale apartment, before heading down to street level and mingling with the grime, graffiti and chaos of the polyglot enclave. Two hours after that I was in bucolic northern New Jersey ("The Skylands") surrounded by screaming white-trash children and bikers in full regalia....at a cemetery.

On the drive back, I passed "Gingerbread Castle" which in its day used to be one of the few places you could take children in my home county. The Castle (8+ stories high) has fallen on hard times, with broken windows and a crumbling facade. It looks like the supervillan hideout for a Batman comic, or a good place for a Sabbat pack to lair. I did not have my Danny Elfman soundtracks with me but they were running through my mind as I watched the Castle fade into the trees in my rearview mirror.

Two hours after that, I was in the horse country of New Jersey, with houses bigger than those seen on "The Sopranos", being fed mozzarella and provolone by my insanely rich relations. We talked about the addition on the house, the Porsche, commodities trading in New York, which prep schools offered the best programs - all the usual stuff.

Three and a half hours after that I was sitting in Steph's living room discussing bondage, kinky sex and OWBN with her and the husband. Thirty minutes after *that* conversation I was stuffing dollar bills into a strippers g-string a stone's throw from a prison. Twenty minutes after that I was having whiskey with a very nice, buffed, yuppie crowd at a moderately upscale bar. Thirty minutes after that I was driving through the blighted ghettos of Baltimore. Five minutes later I was in a solidly middle class neighborhood idling at a red light watching two groups - man whores vs. hispanic catholics - studiously avoid their obvious presence on opposite sides of the street.

One hour later I was home.

I don't live my life in a bubble, but I'm starting to crave some consistency in the various circles that I move through. Either white trash or high class, doesn't matter to me. I'd just like to pick one and operate in that sphere. Given the economic barriers to entry (points on the board for buzz word use) white trash looks like more of an option than high class.

posted at 11:28 AM