curiously conflicted -- again

I learned in college that the greatest agony is often the conflict between doing the right thing and doing what you want most. It is always easy to choose right when you don't desire to do wrong. Real heroes in this world are often sad heroes, because they chose some moral right over what they know would bring them bliss.

Rainy days and Tuesdays

I walked down from the Heights today -- partly because Hoboken already gave me my quota for tickets this month. It amazes me how much more real estate tax I pay for something that takes up so little space on the street. Parking laws are all about free money. When the government can't put the burden on the backs of people who can vote them out of office, they hit the business people who live elsewhere but are forced to pay blood money to make a living.
This is similar to concept of sin taxes -- cigarette and alcohol taxes -- which get imposed on people because we as human beings must pay through the teeth if we happen to have a vice.
This is half the reason I dred the former Madam winning governor of New York. She would liberalize prostitution, and, of course, somewhere down the road, some political figure will post a heavy tax on the industry. And while you can always go out of state to get your cigarettes or booze, park out of Hoboken to avoid the tickets, legalized prostitution would largely be a local institution.
I started parking out of town when Mayor Roberts decided to create one-side residential parking and forced drivers like me to play musical chairs every day -- a guarentee the city could issue a ticket or tow and thus make its money. But when I parked in Union City on the road up from the viaduct, I found my car burglarized -- a different kind of tax paid to a different underground economy.
During the months was car was laid up for repairs, I learned I could walk to Hoboken, and for the most part, do that on Tuesdays when I come into town. I drive in only when I have a lot to carry like cameras. Since I had no such obsticals this week, I walked, cursing the two tickets I got last week for the privilege of working in Hoboken.

Trains running through my dreams

The rail road runs behind my house 24 hours a day. But it's loudest at night when the rack of box cars rumbles against the western slope, echoing across the Hackensack River valley.
Wise men and women decided to clean up the water front for light rail and residential development only to dirty up the interior, hiding America's mechanisms here so that we can paint a good face towards NYC.
Sometimes, these trains even run through my sleep, dragging me back to high school when I used to cut classes and hop freights for Suffern, each dream, however, bringing me to some new and unexpected place, and I wake, vaguely aware that I have been some place new, but not knowing where.

Mosquito Park (Lot of love)

up late then up early

Spent hours last night editting the Secaucus debate video in hopes of getting it done for the weekend. There is something magical about such events, bringing together political opponents in one place. It is a shared experience that each participant knows is something that will not happen in the same way again, and at the end, you can see a strange look on their faces as they leave, as if they are relucant. A successful video -- like the Woodstock movie -- captures a bit of this along with the rhetoric.

morning back to work

I screwed up. I thought the Bayonne columbus day parade would be on columbus day so I hired a photographer to cover it so I could get away.
He didn't check, I didn't check, so nobody covered the parade.
Ah, the folly of not checking.
Survived the hail last night, ratting on my roof. It scared the crap out of me the way it did when I was a kid.
Lucky it didn't happen yesterday in the dark when I strolled the beach between the motel and the only shelter for two hundred yards.
Cape May doesn't really have a boardwalk to hide under.

Sun set Cape May 10-10-10

Sun set Cape May 10-10-10

Sunset Cape May 10-10-10

I know you

photo essay

http://www.alfredsullivan.com/dead2.html
Photo Essay: nothing but the dead and dying

Surrender

View of Manhattan from Weehawken

Sun down -- a sad love song

Woke up cold

During my starving artist days in Passaic, I used to wake up on days like this, the first serious chill of the season warning of harder days to come. Winter in a cold water flat was always a trial, an endurance test that weeded out the weak-hearted. In those days, I jogged along the banks of the Passaic River, and the cold inspired me to get up quick, so the jog would warm me.
It is strange how far life has brought me from those days when I envisioned myself living as a writer -- not so much a best selling author, but someone whose words mattered.
Words still matter, but mostly these days to me.

Graphix Avenger strikes again

Satire can be unnerving as I got a lesson in this week with posts on the Graphix Avenger site. I got dressed down like no DI in my Army days ever could, not by some bearded Sergeant screaming obensities in my face, but by an ego stroke.
Scary how vulnerable we all are to the softer side of life, and how behind the soft stroke can be an ever more powerful kick to the groin.