Regardless of this election cycle’s outcome, it is safe to say that we have avoided the worst of all possible fates– the dreams of a Rudy Presidency have been dashed like the brains of Babylon’s children.

My first stint in the city coincided almost exactly with his tenure as Mayor, and like all New Yorkers from the hey-hey pre-9/11 day-days, Rudy was a constant fixture of my personal landscape– an unhinged, sociopathic and gruesomely racist bully capable of saying everything and doing anything.

Jimmy Breslin summed it up best: “A small man in search of a balcony.”

Even so, I have a tinge of sadness that Rudy went out with a whisper, begging for votes through broken microphones. I wanted his campaign to fall apart, but I didn’t want the implosion of a lazy candidate surrounding himself with inexperienced yes-men. I wanted a red faced freak out, a screaming monster of a debate answer, or R.G. pushing a pie-faced kid in the mud amidst the laughter of Bronx goons.

Who could have imagined that Nosferatu would trade in his fangs for the mannerisms of a party hack, lisping out limp answers on economic policy and disaster relief?

Not me, anyway, and it seems like a strategic mistake. Somewhere in frenzy of post-9/11 adulation, the Mayor bought into his own hype. He began to believe that people liked him. The problem with this theory is that no one likes him.

His appeal as a candidate for any office had never been that of the amiable fellow. He had always been the jerk who’d show the sissies what needed doing; not so much George Bush as George Wallace.

What might’ve been if only he had embraced his fundamental repugnance of character and turned it into a campaign virtue? This year’s contest was too crowded with bland non-entities afraid of making mistakes. The new Rudy never had a chance of gaining traction, not while he was continually forced to address his personal life and past record.

But there’s always room in the circus for a firebrand.

Of course, he still would’ve lost– but he could have gone down a Lion rather than a lamb.

(And Florida? What vampire goes to the Sunshine State?)

There was no way in Hell that I was paying $25 to go to MacWorld, but elly had a Solution. She scummed a badge off someone not in need & thus, for an hour, my name was Nicole.

Not counting bathroom breaks and crying jags, the amount of time I spent inside MacWorld proper was about 15 minutes. This was enough to see what was necessary: a weird, religious pillar of MacBook Air cases strung together and hanging from the ceiling. The faithful flocked like man-apes in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and touched the plastic in the hopes that it would confer powers. (In a cruel twist of fate, it was later pointed out that the man-apes had a primitive, barter-based economy allowing an amount of social and individual mobility, while the attendees of MacWorld were all landlocked booshwah-z incapable of change. Dang. )

Anyway:

These pictures reminded me of the… third to last convention that I attended, Erotica LA 2007, for a gig that never panned out, way back in July. Something about the cameras and the creepy grabbing. Contrast & compare, amigos:

(That’s Tia Sweets in the role of a lifetime: the MacBook Air pillar!)

What the Christ, I’m in San Francisco listening to Mechanical Animals.

Fritz Donnelly (on the right.) Filmmaker, writer & apparent Gollum impersonator.

Williamsburg bridge rising up behind. Mix-n-match mojo master. Man, that dude’s a mystery. Just go here.

Age: somewhere between 25 and ?

December something, 2007.

–

Previous Donnelly Action.

The Mysterious Dr. Tallon. Boy poet, filmmaker & apparent dweller in the opium parlors of 19th Century Limehouse.

Child of the same backwoods that inspired H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Whisperer in The Darkness” & now transplanted to New York City. Straight up 11211, the hippest palindromic zipcode of these United States.

Having found his mad Rimbaud book on the consignment rack of the St. Mark’s Bookshop– first, second & third impressions: “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”– I deciphered the various clues and codes and maps included therein and hunted down our man. We’ve been pals of the bossom ever since. Let me sleep in his bed. Was very concerned about the number of pillows.

Had borrowed a magick lantern & through it projected his magnum opus. A film that he’s been laboring on either 6 or 2 years, or his whole life, depending on your system of mathematics. As the lights went dark, I had a pang of worry– like, what if it sucked?– but that was only The Adversary giving ugly thoughts. I need not have worried. It’s a massive achievement.

Does a mean impersonation of Jim Carroll & demanded a rewrite on 2/3rds of this content.

At the ripest age of them all: 28.

December 18-19th, 2007.

King Diamond Looking Latino Band, Glasslands, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY, December 19th, 2007, 11pm:

George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal, Washington Heights, Manhattan, NY, December
21, 2007, 10:57PM: