joestories

[joestories]

[joestories]

[joestories]

[joestories]

When I was a child, my family moved to Georgia and there was a period of time when we were living out of a hotel. Not like in a sad way. Our house was being built. I think.

There was a channel on the hotel TV that played the previews for movies you could order in your room. For some reason, this channel was on a lot. Enough that I probably saw the preview for When Harry Met Sally a hundred times. And I found it infuriating. I had no idea what the movie was about. It seemed to be about nothing. Even the title made a sound like nothing happens. There were other previews. They all made perfect sense and I don't remember any of them.

I hope my younger self wouldn't consider my older self a sellout or feel betrayed that I now really enjoy When Harry Met Sally. I wonder which stuff I'm wrong about now.

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[joestories]

When I heard that Christopher Plummer died, I wasn't too sad, because I had already seen him die in Blade, where he played Blade's mentor. The vampires kill him to send a message to Blade. The same thing happened to Sean Connery in The Untouchables, and that helped to soften the blow of Connery's death.

But then I looked it up, and it turns out I was actually thinking of Kris Kristofferson, who is still alive.

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As a young child, I would frequently change my name. I suppose this was my idea of walking a mile in another man's shoes. That, or I just didn't like the name Joe.

My parents were happy to indulge me, even after the name changes became a daily occurrence. One evening I approached them and explained that today my name would be Jennifer. I recall them sharing a silent glance before saying, "Okay, Jennifer." I knew this was a controversial choice, but I didn't know why.

We moved around a lot when I was growing up, and I've sometimes used that to explain my nomadic approach to the long term commitments of adult life. But when I remember how eager I was to have a new name each day, I think this might just be how I've always been, and the names were a symptom. But I digress.

Eventually the name changes subsided, but when my parents told me I was going to have a younger brother, I was suddenly very interested in naming him. I knew my name changes were just a game; I couldn't actually change my name. But here was a chance to permanently apply a name to someone else.

My parents explained that it was their job to name him, but I felt like as a part of the family, I should have a say. Eventually they caved and let me choose his middle name. I think perhaps they thought that my great deal of experience trying out different names would lend me some sort of insight. But no. I chose Alan, which was the name of the boy character on the TV show Punky Brewster.

[joestories]

The cost of my insurance is much higher this year. It was going to get more expensive anyway, so I decided to shop around. And this is how I discovered that there's an Oscar plan for about $100 more per month that would let me see any therapist in their network for $25.

To get results, I often need to suffer, and $700 a month for insurance is painful. But the effectively "cheap" therapy appealed to my frugal side. So I signed up, and today I decided I would go through the list of Oscar approved therapists and start making appointments with all of them. By 2022, I'm going to be so mentally healthy you'll be able to bounce an egg off me.

I got a list of every mental health professional covered by Oscar and started at the top. The first therapist was a woman with a heavy accent that made her hard to understand. I could also hear several cats in the background. I told her I'd have to think about it.

The next therapist was a guy who was doing in-person only (in a pandemic?) and was located in a basement behind a massage parlor in Brighton Beach. I told him I'd have to think about it.

The next therapist had a picture of my dad as his profile pic on the website. When I called and asked about this, he hung up on me.

The next person sounded friendly and I could understand her, so I had a good feeling. I asked, "Do you take Oscar?"

"Do you think I take Oscar?"

"Well, your website is ambiguous."

"How does that ambiguity make you feel?"

Ah ha, she was using therapy on me. I explained that I was on a pricey insurance plan that deeply discounted therapy, so I had to get my money's worth to stick it to the insurance. I could hear her writing.

She told me she thought it would be good for me to pay her a visit without actually knowing if it would be covered. Because something something. I don't remember. Sounded like a trick and this would cost me more than $25, so I told her I'd have to think about it.

I eventually found someone who would be able to see me in July. He's located by the exotic fish store on Delancey, so at least he's nearby. Before I got off the phone, he pointedly mentioned that "the tip is not included."

At this point I remembered that my insurance also apparently covers chiropractic services. But I was exhausted. Maybe tomorrow.

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The light would spill in through the window and onto my bed. I would tell myself this was it, it was finally time for the UFO to take me away. I hid under my covers. The light was just the headlights of a passing car or the moon coming out from behind a cloud, but I expected it was the beam of a UFO. They would take me away and do experiments on me.

This was a fear that I had brought on myself. I loved to watch Unsolved Mysteries, which presented stories of alien abductions alongside kidnappings and murders. As a child, I assumed that these segments all held the same weight.

I had also happened to see a movie called Fire in the Sky, purported to be based on a true alien abduction story and which featured what I would argue is one of the most terrifying abduction scenes ever committed to film. I don't think my parents would have allowed me to see it, but my Uncle Ed took me one afternoon when I had been left in his care.

I had been seeing a lot more of Uncle Ed in those days. I knew he had been having money trouble. He had started living in an RV and I would sometimes arrive home from school to find it parked in our driveway. On those nights he would join us for dinner.

Fire in the Sky had awakened a natural curiosity in me and I started reading every book about UFOs I could get from the library. I would recite what I had learned over dinner. My parents were dismissive, but Uncle Ed would listen intently. I was thankful for that.

The night I was abducted started like any other. I was in bed and the light came in through my window. I hid under my covers, but this time, I heard my window open. Then I was lifted out of my bed and carried out into a vessel. I was still bundled in my blanket and stayed hidden as I felt us begin to fly away.

"It's okay, you're okay," said the alien. The alien knows English? No, he must have been communicating telepathically and that's why I could understand. I peeked out from the blanket, terrified of what I might see. The interior of the vessel was like nothing I had ever seen. It was a rough approximation of what aliens thought a human environment might look like. The walls were covered in fake wood grain. There was a tiny couch covered in cigarette burns. There was even a small kitchen.

I could see into the cockpit. The alien piloting the vessel had the physique of a middle-aged, overweight man. But he was wearing a crudely constructed mask covered in tin foil. There was something familiar about him.

"Uncle Ed?"

"Uh... no." The alien seemed to be caught off guard. "I have taken the form of a human that you are comfortable with. Uh, so you will be less afraid." I knew from my research that this was a thing aliens would sometimes do.

I asked if it was time for experiments and started to undress. "No, Jesus Christ, keep your clothes on!" said the alien.

The alien took the vessel to what appeared to be a rest stop. "I'm going to communicate with the mother ship now," said the alien. I watched as he exited the vessel and walked over to what appeared to be a pay phone. He had an animated conversation in which the word ransom was used. When he came back, he was out of breath. "Okay, gotta lay low for a while."

The alien piloted us into the woods. The vessel was parked in a clearing and the alien told me to go to sleep. I wasn't sleepy, so he turned on a tiny television. It was late at night, so the only thing to watch was infomercials. One of them was for a miracle hair cream and the alien frantically jotted down the phone number. "We don't have this on my home planet," he explained.

I must have fallen asleep at some point. I remember being jolted awake by a very bright light, seeming to come from all around me. Once again I was being beamed up. The alien thing was getting old. There was another bright flash, and next thing I knew, I was back in my bed.

In the morning, I told my parents about the adventure with the alien and they told me it was best to forget about it. After that, we got a home alarm system and anti-alien bars were placed over my window. And from that day on I was allowed to have unlimited Pop Tarts, so I was happy to move on.

[joestories]

An Index

An exact transcription of a letter found in a suitcase purchased at an estate sale in 2006.

A woman attends a conference in the city where she went to college and makes some mistakes.

A game of Mortal Kombat at a sleepover goes awry.

I attempt to recall the plot of a graphic novel I wrote in 2002.

An unfinished story about creative malaise and brain parasites.

A man becomes obsessed with both a girl in an ad and a mysterious novel he finds on the street.

A play about the horrible urge to create when you have absolutely nothing to say.

An innocent fantasy about a barista gets too real.

A former friend gets famous on a stolen idea.

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I was listening to Band on the Run, the Wings song, and remembering that I really liked this song as a kid. Maybe it's finally time to scrutinize my taste as a seven year old.

Band on the Run is still a banger. I loved it then and I love it now. Not much else to say about that. I don't recall listening to the rest of the album, even as an adult. I guess I should check it out.

Kodachrome by Paul Simon also got a lot of plays in my early days. The part near the end where the the beat really picks up would make me dance around like a maniac. I liked other stuff on this album; Loves Me Like a Rock comes to mind. I remember staring at the weird collage-like album cover, which subsequently lodged itself in my brain and has subtley influenced my design sensibility for decades.

My first cassette was Bad by Michael Jackson. I would stare at that album cover where he's wearing all the leather with the straps and think this was probably the most masculine person I had ever seen. It was also a great album, and I would listen to it straight through. I liked every song. Even the, uh, deep cuts, like Speed Demon. Mostly because the sound effects made me think it might be about a Transformer. Knowing what I now know about Michael Jackson, I may have been on to something.

The ultimate musical coup of my childhood came when I became convinced that there was a cassette out there that included both the songs Kokomo and Don't Worry Be Happy. My parents tried to explain to me that these were from two different artists, but I was certain that there was a way to have them both on the same cassette, because the gym teacher would play both songs without changing the tape. I have no memory of the context in which we were listening to these songs in gym class.

To appease me, my mom asked a person in the record store at the mall if they had a tape with both songs. To her shock, they did: the soundtrack to a movie called Cocktail. I didn't know what a cocktail was, but the cover featured another very masculine-looking man, so I was pretty excited about it. It did indeed have both Kokomo and Don't Worry Be Happy, two songs that I loved then, but did not stand the test of time. I ended up liking the rest of the album, mostly because I didn't have a lot of other choices. The rest of the soundtrack had a vibe one might describe as "dirtbag rock" and I really could have turned into a different person if I had gone further down that road.

I've still never seen Cocktail, but someday I finally will, and it will be weird, because the entire soundtrack is burned into my brain. There's a few other movies like this, where I know the soundtrack so well, but I've never seen the actual film. The Draughtsman's Contract and The Harder They Come are both in this category.

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I wrote the dating profile that landed her a husband, so I was given a 2% stake in the relationship. I always wanted points on the back end.

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In a bit of local activism, someone has been putting up stickers around Nostrand Ave that say “John Van Nostrand was a slave owner.” I pointed this out to a friend as we walked by, and she said, “They should rename it.” And my initial reaction was, oh man, it’s so hard on everyone to rename streets.

And I started wondering how often streets have been renamed in New York. There’s the honorary street names, but I don’t think one of those has ever overtaken its original name. Like, you wouldn’t tell a cab driver, “Take me to People with AIDS Plaza.”

Right off, there’s one renamed street I know about: Malbone Street. It was renamed after the Malbone Street wreck in 1918. It was a subway wreck where a wooden subway took a curve too fast and derailed, killing 93 people. This happened on what’s now the S line, where the train goes into a tunnel under Empire Boulevard. Only, it wasn’t called Empire Boulevard back then. It was Malbone Street. But the accident had created a bad connotation for Malbone Street, so it was renamed.

And I remember Orange Street, because I used to live on Baxter Street, and it was renamed that from Orange Street. This was part of a coordinated effort on the part of the city to break up the five points. You know, the Gangs of New York stuff. A park was installed where the streets used to meet, and the streets were realigned and in some cases, renamed.

I discovered a site called oldstreets.com which lists now defunct NYC streets. There’s a lot of them. Here’s some of the more interesting ones.

Alphabet City’s Avenue A and B used to continue up the east side of Manhattan. Sutton Place and York Avenue both used to be called Avenue A. They would appear and disappear as the curvature of the island required. They both existed in sections all the way up to the Harlem River.

There was a Bache Street named for a person with that weird last name. Over time, it was simplified to Beach Street, even though it’s in Tribeca and nowhere near a beach.

There was a place called “Bible House” that occupied an entire city block and was considered an address. It even had its own unique address system. In the 50s, it was demolished after the people running Bible House disappeared mysteriously. It was replaced by the Cooper Union engineering building.

There was a place called “Bone Alley” which was home to a colony of junk merchants. In 1896 it was turned into Hamilton Fish Park.

I should have remembered Clermont Street, because it’s mentioned in Hamilton (renamed for old General Mercer).

"Dirty Lane" was an anglicization of "Slyck Steegh” and eventually became the much more boring-sounding South William Street.

At this point I realized an hour had passed and I was only through four letters and immediately I lost interest in this project.

[joestories]

The sound of the buzzer was unpleasant, but it had turned into something much worse recently. She lived on the top floor of the brownstone, and one night she was jolted awake by the piercing squeal of the buzzer. Immediately, her heart was racing. Her window offered an unobstructed view of the front stoop. Peering out from behind her curtain, she looked down. There was no one.

It took her a while to get to sleep the next night. The incident of the night prior had faded like a bad dream. But she immediately remembered when it happened again. Again she looked. And again, there was no one. It was 4 AM and she couldn't get back to sleep.

She had moved into the building a month ago. She wondered if there was some sort of problem with the wiring. She told herself she would ask the landlord about it tomorrow.

But the next day came, and she managed to come up with excuses not to call the landlord. The landlord was hard to understand on the phone. He was short tempered. He probably wouldn't do anything about it. Maybe this problem with the buzzer would go away on its own.

That night, she had a dream about her father. But it was more of a memory. The dream was about the day he came home in a sports car. She was very young. This sports car would lead to a fight with her mother, and eventually her father would disappear along with the car. But in this moment, he had been all smiles. She didn't know anything about cars, but he knew something that would impress her. He stood next to the car and reached his hand inside. "You'll like this," he said, as he pressed the button for the horn. The sound that came from the car was horribly familiar.

She was awake instantly. She ran to the window. No one was there.

The next day, she called the landlord. He was dismissive, as she had expected. He said it was probably neighborhood kids playing a prank. She suggested that there might be a problem with the wiring. He said that was impossible.

But she felt bold now. She went down a flight of stairs and introduced herself to the neighbor who lived beneath her. This neighbor hadn't encountered any weird middle-of-the-night buzzer incidents, but mentioned that the girl that had lived in the upstairs apartment before was weird and left in a hurry.

She continued down another flight of stairs and knocked on the door of the ground floor apartment. The man who answered introduced himself as Sam. He was around the same age as her. He hadn't experienced anything weird, but said he was willing to help her out if the buzzing happened again.

"But it happened in the middle of the night," she said.

"That's okay, you can wake me up. I don't mind," he said.

She was suspicious of his motives, but thanked him and said she hoped it wouldn't come to that.

She started back upstairs, then paused. She remembered that she had never removed the old name from her mailbox.

The name she found there was fairly unique and when she searched for it online, she found a Facebook page immediately. There were a lot of concerned comments from well-meaning friends hoping she was okay. Further searching revealed an article from a month ago. Authorities seek information on missing woman.

She called the landlord again and asked about the previous tenant. He called her a deadbeat. She left without paying the rent. "She left all her stuff behind?"

"No, the apartment was empty, like she never moved in."

She decided she would stay awake all night watching the window. But this was not very exciting. She got tired of standing and pulled up a chair. She didn't realize she had fallen asleep until she was sitting bolt upright at the sound of the buzzer.

It's time for this to end, she thought. Before she could think twice, she was out the door and running downstairs.

Descending to the ground floor, she looked out into the lobby. She wasn't sure what she expected to see through the glass. What she saw was nothing. Not just no one at the door, but outside the building, where there should have been streetlights and other buildings, there was nothing but more darkness. And the darkness seemed to be moving. It seemed to be coming into the building. The outer doors dimmed and faded.

Sam was half awake. He thought he'd heard something. Then it came again, someone was pounding on his door. He hurriedly got out of bed and threw on some clothes. The pounding continued and grew frantic. He raced for his door and threw it open.

No one was there. He stuck his head out and looked around. No sign of anyone. He closed his door. This was very odd. He'd have to mention it to the weird girl upstairs.

[joestories]

I don’t think I can actually remember the plot of a single James Bond movie. I’ve seen lots of them. And I’ve seen lots of pieces of them on TV over the years. But what actually goes on in a James Bond film?

Are these bad movies? When I think of what constitutes a James Bond film, I realize I’m mostly remembering Austin Powers, then working backwards to determine the serious version of every aspect of it. Why is Austin Powers more memorable? Maybe because when I saw Austin Powers as a teenager, at least I could identify with him as an outsider.

But! You know what was great? The music in the James Bond films. Remember Live and Let Die? Again, I’ve seen the movie, I don’t remember a thing. I think James Bond actually dies at the beginning. Which is a weird choice, sort of a Janet Leigh/Psycho thing, I guess. But it doesn’t matter, because then that McCartney song comes on, and it’s so theatric. Is there a name for that genre of music? Whatever it was, there should have been more of it.

Anyway, I figured out how to play the main part of that song on clarinet and I would play it for my friends in 7th grade band class. This was definitely not something James Bond would have done.

Here’s all the facts I know about James Bond:

The author of the books picked the name James Bond because he thought it sounded boring.

Sean Connery was the first James Bond and most people consider him the best.

In one of the movies, he flies around with a Union Jack parachute. As a child, I thought this was the same thing as the Confederate Army flag in our neighbors’ yard and I was confused.

Somewhere in the first few decades of Bond films, there was a guy who played Bond for a single movie, and people seem to have strong opinions about him. I get the impression that there’s more to the story. I should probably figure out what’s going on there.

Goldfinger turns people into gold by touching them. If your whole body is covered in gold paint, you would die because your skin couldn’t breathe. There’s a ska band called Goldfinger.

James Bond has access to lots of cool gadgets. I guess if I was going to latch onto any part of the franchise, it would have been that.

My uncle once showed me a picture of him sitting with Richard Kiel, who played Jaws in a couple of Bond movies. This picture is regarded as a sacred family artifact.

There’s a movie called Goldeneye that I’ve probably seen. It was adapted into a video game which was a lot more memorable.

Pussy Galore.

Octopussy.

[joestories]

Remember American History X? Today I was trying to remember if it was a good movie, having not seen it since I was a teenager, so I watched it again. It's mostly okay.

It's about white supremacists, you probably remember that much. There's a scene early in the movie where they have a confrontation with some African American dudes at a public basketball court, and they decide they're going to play them and whoever loses also loses the court. They can never play there again. And what follows is a tense sports scene where I think the movie might have temporarily tricked me into rooting for the white supremacists.

Also, pretty much all of the rhetoric of the white supremacists in the film (mostly about illegal immigrants) has become regular Republican talking points, so I guess it was ahead of its time.

But! The woman playing the sister was super cute and looked familiar. I looked her up: Jennifer Lien. Also famous for playing Kes on Star Trek Voyager. Definitely a teenage celebrity crush of mine. I paused the movie to see what she was up to these days.

The years have been rough on her. She was last in the news after she was arrested for exposing herself to schoolchildren. This was quite shocking and learning about it has made this one of the more exciting days in recent memory. Slim pickings in this time of lockdown.

I went back to the movie; the extra-narrative info made it even more traumatic.