It's Been A Good Run, Folks

As George Harrison once wrote, "all things must pass."

Today is the day I officially retire Holden Caulfield, Etc. for IamMattFried.com.

It's been a great run folks. I have no intentions of taking the blog down, so feel free to visit it whenever. However all new posts will be at IamMattFried.com.

Thank you to every loyal HCEtc. reader. See you at the new blog.

Saturday Night Bacon

Saturday night, I went to a house party in Murray Hill. It was very fun: there was dancing, and booze, and many people who are currently unemployed. None of it, though, was as exciting as something I saw before I even got to the party. That being this pile of yellowed bacon in a bodega across the street.

Even though it's shot on a camera phone, the resolution has in no way changed the actual color of the bacon. Clearly, very disgusting. But was it edible? I asked the guys who ran the place and they responded with the question "What do you want with the bacon?" I said "Nothing." They then responded "Good... you with the cops?" Obviously, I'm not - but all's fair in love and bacon.

Color Me Croc Crap

There are many things in life I will never understand - the public's fascination with Crocs is one of them. However, while back for Thanksgiving last week, I came across this display in a CVS. So, just in case you can't afford the ugliest shoe ever created, now a Taiwanese manufacturer has created a cheap knock-off. And good news, there's a fur lining in it.

I. can. hear. my. brain. screaming.

No Pity For The Hipster Boys

I got a real show last night on the D train - an early twentysomething couple having a fight about nothing.

The argument wasn't about "nothing", of course, but they were both hipsters and 21, at the oldest. So that means anything of importance to them is nothing to the rest of us. The guy was your typical store-bought Brooklyn kid: Killers haircut, scruffy beard, checkered scarf, skinny jeans, an air of prissy insecurity about him. His girlfriend was no different except that she rocked a very smart looking hat. She looked like one of those girls who would dump him for an established blogger. Just in time for the holidays.

None of this would've mattered to me had I been left alone by them. They walked onto the train platform and you could tell there was beef. After several minutes of silence, she decided to plop down right next to me on the bench and leaned her torso towards mine. The boyfriend kept checking down the tunnel for the train and didn't see her until it was too late. Immediately, he stared me down as if to say "She's mine." Yet, true enough to the insecurity of a self-righteous young man, he chose to kept his distance. She was clearly trying to make him jealous and he was trying to act as if it didn't bother him. Meanwhile, she was throwing glance at me in between text checks on her iPhone, trying to look important. He finally acquiesced, came over to the bench, sat down next to her, and awkwardly put his arm around her.

Now even I was beginning to feel uncomfortable. I'll admit: she was beautiful and the answer, if posed to me, would've been "Yes." But I was also irritated that none of this for real. This was just two immature, angry people trying to piss one another off, and I was stuck in the middle. By the time the D arrived, I felt relief for all of us.

On the train, they were ice cold to each other. I was no longer a carrot on a stick to either of them, so I grabbed a seat across the aisle and watched them fume. I was now at my most comfortable: a curious spectator. Quickly enough, the human drama unfolded. He said something stupid. She was being condescending. He knotted his fingers. Her arms were crossed. His face looked like the apocalypse "I'm angry, but please don't dump me." Her's, "I've been sleeping with someone else." They argued all the way to Broadway-Lafayette and kept the show going after the train left.

As I zoomed further uptown, I thought about how beautiful that girl was, but how I didn't envy either of them. I don't miss my early twenties because of moments like those. I don't miss those days of desperation, because - when you're young and in love - everything has got to be perfect. New York seems to have become a caricature of itself in that respect. Every young person thinks they'll meet perfection because that's what movies have told them, or blogs, or text messages, or whatever. Then, when it begins to fall through, we do everything in hopes of a save; we've got to get back to square one. But it's probably better that we just let one dating freak show end. Because another will inevitably begin: out of fear, out of desire, out of need. All that it is - I've found - are people figuring out what will drive them to the brink before they can simply say "I'm not having fun anymore."

I won't be surprised if I see that kid again in another week, now alone on the platform. Or, if I bump into that girl at a place like Great Lakes and then sleep with her the same night. That is what being single is this city. Atoms bumping together, looking to form a cell.

I think many people take that for granted. And they will themselves to being miserable. Thank God, I'm 26.

Feeling Kinda Dylan

I recently bought a pair of Frye boots for myself, as a birthday present. Turning 26 makes a guy begin to consider where his life is - one year removed from a quarterlife crisis - and I decided the best emblem of change would be an upgrade in the footwear department.

I've never owned boots.

I've never really worn boots.

Yet, I decided, "I wanted to get a pair of boots."

These boots go very well with my wardrobe of slim leg jeans. They also accessorize any fashion combination and immediately make me look 26. My sneakers - a pair of blue Chuck Taylor high tops - also make me look twenty-six. But those are also the same shoes worn by Robot Madonna, the cybernetic sentient that replaced the real Madonna in 1996. She is pre-programed to make us believe she will always be 26, even when sheer logic says otherwise.

These boots also have one brilliant quality that I, until today, did not realize: they make me feel like Bob Dylan.

And feeling like Bob Dylan immediately makes me feel invincible.

Let me clarify that I do not feel the need to find religion or ignore Joan Baez. Nor am I now endowed with any real musical talent. They just make me feel as if I could be, not unlike my hero, Bob Dylan.

How can a piece of clothing do such a thing? This is a material possession, after all. A pair of boots somehow erases years of psychological doubt, and elevates my self-confidence all because they make me feel like a musical genius? The simple answer is "Like a rolling stone, yes."

This seems silly to me. Clothes make the man, but this is entirely superficial. You're talking about embodying an ideal rather than simply being that ideal. Life isn't supposed to be that way. All human beings are entitled to being who they want to be, and that is entirely in their power. So why - why?!? - am I putting such importance on two pieces of leather that fit around my feet. The only answer I can seem to find is this: because I want to, dammit. I want to feel like Bob Dylan, walking around The Village in 1962. Because it's not about being him; I become something else in these boots. I become everything I could have ever imagined - as a person, as a man, as a decent Dylan impersonator living in Minnesota.

The ideal may have Dylan's face, but it's deeper than that. The ideal is me, but a me that doesn't really exist. Because he is what I could be versus what I am. And all too often, it seems like more and more people in New York drop thousands of dollars on clothes just for the sake of looking like something they can never be. But, at the end of the day, who is it really harming? Eventually 1962 ended. Bob Dylan grew old, got jaded, and then had several career resurgences. The ideal itself even fades, too. But I guess - if a pair of boots ultimately makes me feel better about myself, though I know it fleeting - then there can be no real harm done. Only because we all eventually agree: no one can ever be Bob Dylan.

Besides, he was kind of a dick back then, anyway.

My Penis Is A Banjo - A Love Poem

My penis is a banjo.
Not a mandolin, or flute,
instruments not of the common man.
No.
A banjo.

Singing a song that everyone relates to.
A song that makes women swoon.
A song that makes children dance.
My penis is a banjo.

Is that silly to say?
Or,
do you just not understand?
My penis is a banjo.

The music of the mountain people.
Folksmen of the Dust Bowl.
They play banjos. My penis is one.

Critics can scowl.
Cynics can laugh.
My penis is still a banjo.

Music of men that makes the world go 'round.
'round.
'round.
'round.

Until, it one day stops. And on that day, a new penis, a new banjo, a new song.

For what is enjoyment if only fleeting? So, play on.

On and on. Into the night.

My penis is a banjo.

Damn You, Better Judgement

Who the hell do I think I am? How is it that I manage - without fail - to lie to myself about buying new music? Here this country is: in the midst of a recession, I'm flat broke, and yet I find myself unquestionably forking cash over to build a music collection that can survive, as is, for a few years of fiscal crisis. The new additions are as follows:

Why buy these new records? What motivates me to spend money I need to save? I think it's because deep down inside I tell myself I need them. Consumer addiction is a very hard thing to break. Especially when you make the mistake at the age of fourteen of letting it identify you. I would like to pretend that every piece of music I own is somehow a piece of who I am, because it speaks to my soul. Or, it helps me "rock out". Or, I simple bought it because I like it. That's not the case. At least twenty percent of my collection is made up of impulse buys; records I thought would make me look interesting to other people. Eighty percent of what I own, I own because I thought it would make me a part of something bigger. A scene. A community. At the very least, I would finally get all those Bright Eyes references I read about on Pitchfork.

These issues didn't use to bother me until I was on my own and buying stuff with my own money. Funny how, when we are completely independent, we - as human beings - are faced with self-evaluation, or just ignoring our motives. You could say I'm wasting money, but the truth is, I like buying new music, even if it does put me in the hole. I admit, I buy the new music for partially shallow reasons. But, if it's not my local record shop and MGMT, then it's my local book store and Eckert Tolle.

Frankly, I already have a shrink to tell me I'm crazy. So I ask the world to only give me this...