January. Alphabet City. 2:30 AM

I’m sitting alone in my apartment in my boxers and a t-shirt, smoking Capri menthols, drinking luke-warm Coca-Cola, eating Cheetos, sweating in 95 degrees due to my over-achieving radiator, struggling over my half-finished manuscript about the polemics of Good vs. Evil vs. Reality, when I noticed my front door was ajar. What the fuck?! Really? I got up to shut the door when I realized I haven’t seen my cat in awhile. I race back into my one room apt. and search and call out to her. I can’t find her anywhere. I run out onto the landing and she’s not there. I don’t see her on the stairs. So I ran back in, put on my pants and shoes, grab my coat and I’m out the door. I run down the stairs, I push through the doors, and I’m outside.

It’s snowing softly and everything is iridescent from the fallen snow. It’s 3” deep. I call out “Emily” frantically up and down the avenue – my eyes racing from one hiding spot to another. After an hour of desperation and perspiration, I realize I’m cold and my head and feet are wet. Dispirited, I turn home and the snow hits my face putting a finer point on my predicament. I slip into a little cafe for some relief and a cup of coffee. The place is empty. I pick a booth, take off my coat, and reach down to restore some circulation to my toes, when 3 young red headed women (maybe not all naturally) crowd into the other side of the booth. They smile. I awkwardly look around and see that the place is still empty and they could have sat anywhere.

“Hi?” They told me their names were “Michelle” qualifying that they each spelled it differently. Really? Ok. They sat down because I looked sad and lonely and that I needed the company. I told them I lost my cat. They were heartbroken. They wanted to help me find her and I told them it was impossible for she was black and white.

They persisted. They paid for my coffee and we searched for about a half-hour. As such was the case, we found ourselves in front of their building. They asked me if I wanted to come up and spend the night. When 3 beautiful women ask you to spend the night, the answer is obvious. We went into the building and climbed the stairs. Perhaps, my luck was changing? As a Michelle was unlocking their door, I had a sick surge of panic overwhelm me with the dreadful notion that I never locked my apt. Fuck. Did I lock the door? I had a choice: I could spend the night with Michelle x 3 or I could race home to see if I was cleaned out. I didn’t have a lot, but when you don’t have much, what you have you can’t afford to lose. I would hate to lose my books and music, and my work. Fuck! I locked the door! Didn’t I?

So, like an idiot I left them and ran home in a panic. Heart-racing. Out-of-breath. I flew up the stairs. Sure enough my door was wide open! I ran inside and found my apt. was just as I left it. Relieved but feeling foolish that I had just passed up a once-in-a-lifetime, I fell onto my bed. Asleep instantly. I woke up a few hours later in a pool of sweat. I shuffled toward the bathroom, but first, I wanted to find out how the damn door opened in the first place, when I heard the muffled urgent lonely cries of my cat on the other side.

Years ago I decided that it was a fantastic idea to work two jobs, the only problem was that one of them was a night shift. So I would work during the day at one job and a lot of times head right over to the next job after grabbing a bite to eat. One night my body decided that it was not going to put up with this any more so about half way into my night shift after I had gotten most the daily tasks out of the way and I was waiting at the counter for any customers that might need to stop in, I fell asleep. The store caught the whole thing on camera, the cleaning, the assisting of the customers, me nodding off, and me jerking awake when my head hit the cash register. Gave everyone a good laugh. I decided to quit not too long after that.

Also I absolutely agree, that colour way came out bloody gorgeous. Like a warlock’s Catherine wheel.

(Un?)fortunately I’ve never been so sleep deprived that I’ve hallucinated, but the last proper all-nighter I did was heading across the country after my 9-5 for an overnight Lord of the Rings Extended Edition marathon at the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square, London. It was a fantastic evening (obviously, it’s one of the greatest cinematic trilogies ever) – but man, lettuce tell ya, I never experienced a better and fresher feeling than when the 12 hour marathon was over and we all got to step out into the cold breezy 8am London street. Truly how it feels to chew 5 gum.

I stayed up so late trying to write a good story for this that I hallucinated that I actually won the test press. When in actuality, I am not great at writing stories and that the closest I’ll ever get to winning this will be if I stay up late every night thinking this is a part of my collection.

A couple years ago, I drove four states away to snag some sweet used vinyl. I answered a guys ad on Craigslist; he had about 300 lp’s he said. We agreed on a day, a Saturday. I worked all day Friday, starting at 7:00am, then hit the road heading north from Nebraska after getting off work at 4:00pm. Drove through Iowa, then Minnesota, and then headed east across northern Wisconsin. Spotting “ghost” deer on the dark backroads, somewhere near the border of the U.P. of Michigan told me I needed to find someplace to crash for a couple hours. About 4:00am, I found a spot to pull off and rest. Sunshine breaking through the snow covered pine trees woke me up and, still in a slight hallucinogenic state, I continue towards my goal. I finally find their little place in the woods a couple hours later. I meet “Captain Jim”. First thing that runs through my foggy, sleep deprived brain is, “Captain Jim!? I don’t see any fucking boat!” Nope, no boat here. They are selling their house and moving back to Florida and don’t want to move the vinyl. Must have a boat there I think to myself. He shows me the vinyl and I start flipping through – Zeppelin, Hendrix, Doors, Scorpions, Fleetwood Mac, Beatles. Suddenly, the fog clears as I’m hit with the jolt of new/old vinyl Adrenalin rush! “You want how much? Done!” I don’t even negotiate..great stuff and I’ve still gotta drive 13 hours back home. I put three crates in the back seat of my VW, and one in the passenger seat. I strap that one in with the seat belt – not because that damn “Fasten You Seatbelt” chime was going off with the weight on the seat, but because I wanted to protect my precious cargo. Drove home and any time I felt like I might be getting tired again, I’d reach over to my “passenger”, and flip through the crate, feeling that wakening Adrenaline jolt once more.

One time I stayed awake partaking in the darker arts all night only to wake up all scratched up in a wet thorn bush in the Appalachian northeast with two unopened bottles of Bartles & James in my back pockets. They were fuzzy navel too…

No sleep `till Night Owl test press is mine…

Right now. Can’t sleep. Rewatching the video for Night Owl. When my eyes go fuzzy, it looks like there’s three of Olivia Jean. But one is Elvira and one is Wanda Jackson. I’d definitely go to that show.

Driving from Minnesota to Eugene Oregon with friend headed back to college, well sort of it was a community college and basically majored in hacky sack and smoking weed. We switched driving responsibilities around 4PM somewhere in Montana. I sped along the road at a rate of speed that the compact Saturn station wagon should not have been traveling at, and we crossed over into the mountainous roads in Idaho. It began to occur to me how dark the roads were, it was as if there were no lights on the side of the highway and now not only was I exhausted and felt myself occasionally doing that head bobbing panic where the muscles in my neck would just release, my head would fall forward and for a brief moment I would open my eyes in sheer panic expecting to see a couple oncoming headlights, but on top of that I couldn’t see the goddamn road. Over and over two of my tires would run off into the gravel or the rumble strips on the side of the highway and I would swerve back onto the road. I found myself, straightening up, smacking my face, opening the window all while leaning forward over the steering wheel squinting my eyes trying to make out the upcoming curves on the mountain road causing me to swerve back onto the road. All the while my passenger slumbered, his head tucked up against the window a wadded up hoodie sweatshirt catching the translucent slobber that dripped from the corner of his mouth, never knowing that at any second we could potentially be shooting off the road into a ditch or oncoming traffic. Now you might be asking yourself, didn’t it occur to you to just pull over, park on the side of the road and pass out for a bit? Yes, yes it did, but remember I am in a Saturn station wagon with no trunk and oh right did I mention a couple pounds of mushrooms I was bringing back to sell at the Oregon Country fair! So a couple of dirtbags passed out on the side of the interstate wasn’t in our plans. But I can’t emphasize the fact that it is so fucking dark, I can’t even see my own headlights, I am thinking to myself “Jesus, this is incredibly treacherous, how does anyone even drive this section of the highway, this is insane” Again, two tires cross the rumble strips on the side of the road again this time the rear end of the car shittie’s out before I crank the wheel to try to correct it, the front tires catch and we shoot across both lanes and into the oncoming lanes, luckily nothing is coming at us. My buddie who’s head did a hard clunk on the window finally wakes up. He straightens up, rubs his eyes and looks around, before looking over at me. “Dude, what the fuck?” He says. And that just irritates the shit out of me, I mean here I am driving while he sleeps, and he’s gonna, come at me with shit. I look over at him, “Dude, it’s so fucking dark, it’s impossible to even see the fucking road, I can’t see anything, it’s like the headlights don’t even work. .” Before I can finish, he reaches over and pulls my sunglasses off my face. “dumbass” I hear him say before he adjusts the sweatshirt and goes back to sleep.