New Year's Day

I watched most of my club kid friends and former bosses, promoters, DJs, employees and employers stumble around like mindless, flesh-lusting zombie freaks. Most were internally hosting their personal limit of a frightening cocktail of drugs and alcohol. Some were on more. Some on less.

Add lack of sleep--for them and for me--and, lemme tell ya, it was a stark and sobering scene. Oh, and don't forget the usual array of crackheads and crack-dealing gangsters that the neighborhood regularly features.

So, I stood outside in the rain and was ranted at by this red-headed kid with a crust of coke booger from his nostril through his mustache to the edge of his upper lip.

From what he told me (in a nonstop, frantically and furiously acted-out, stream-of-near-consciousness filibuster) he was a black belt killer in several martial arts, after studying with some of the most legendary practitioners who have ever lived ever.

He was also a direct descendant of John Dillinger.

He'd been working in strip clubs since the age of fourteen, both here and in Chicago, where he was beloved and had many nicknames, given (out of fondness) by the older thugs who ran the joints.

He had once carried a burning log from the wood-burning stove, wrapped only in his arms and an Armani suit jacket, while on acid at his best friend's wedding reception.

He was an advanced practitioner of the magickal arts too (chanting fresh incantations for me on the spot).

Anyways, you get the picture.