In the basement event space at WORD last night, I read a chapter from A Record Collection Reduced to a Mixtape, my work-in-progress novel about a music nerd with a busted heart. This has been a difficult week in NYC, and I wasn't sure we'd get anyone out for LOCAL ORGANIC: New Works by the Greenpoint Writers Group, a reading which was the culmination of a 12-week intensive with eight writers sharing their stuff with one another, providing feedback and becoming better for it. WORD was packed. We were grateful. Eve, my fiancee, shot video of my reading, and because the sound wasn't terribly good, I figured I ought to just put the chapter I read here in case anyone wanted to try and read along.
A Record Collection Reduced to a Mixtape tells the story of Sam, a playwright recently back in New York and staying with his parents after a tough breakup. Some of the novel goes as far back as his college days at UCLA and the time he spent living in Los Angeles in the years which followed. In this chapter, he's back in New York, trying to get over Renee, and is considering looking for love on the internet.
CHAPTER TBA
The Bees – “I Really Need Love”
Vivian Girls – “Second Date”
Peter Doherty – “New Love Grows on Trees”
A Record Collection Reduced to a Mixtape tells the story of Sam, a playwright recently back in New York and staying with his parents after a tough breakup. Some of the novel goes as far back as his college days at UCLA and the time he spent living in Los Angeles in the years which followed. In this chapter, he's back in New York, trying to get over Renee, and is considering looking for love on the internet.
CHAPTER TBA
The Bees – “I Really Need Love”
Vivian Girls – “Second Date”
Peter Doherty – “New Love Grows on Trees”
I filled out an online dating profile. I don’t know why I
did it, because I guess I did alright when I actively tried to hit on women, and
even when I've had a long dry spell I didn't much care. But my friend Diego
said it was working for him, and why shouldn't I get in on the action?
I checked it out, mostly so I could find something wrong
with it so I wouldn't have to create a profile. But it turns out Diego was
right. My objections were primarily based on the television commercials where
the blandest motherfuckers on the planet seemed perfectly happy now that a
website found their bland ideal. I've come across countless bland chicks
already, and I’m sure plenty of women have found me to be pretty vanilla too.
So I figured, why pay for disappointment and awkwardness when I get that shit
for free?
“Dude, this is different,” Diego said. “It’s like it was
made by a bunch of indie-rock bloggers. It’s called OK Cupid.”
Immediately my hackles were raised. To say I have a
complicated relationship with Radiohead would be a vast understatement. It
would also be wildly inaccurate, of course, because there is no relationship.
The crown princes of dour indie obviously don’t know me at all, and as I’m
unlikely to visit any sullen hyperbaric chambers masquerading as beep-boop-blip
recording studios, it’ll probably remain that way. On my end, I sometimes enjoy
the music of Radiohead, but there’s always the din of fawning praise drowning
everything else out. So what then to think of a dating website named after OK Computer, Radiohead’s 1997
alt-prog-wank opus?
“That sounds fucking terrible, man. Seriously.”
“It’s free.”
So I gave it a shot. And much to my great disappointment, I
actually kind of liked the feel of it. I looked around, and there were plenty
of cool women with cool jobs and cool haircuts and cool ideas. I set up a
profile and began browsing.
NAME
Stereoblab
30/M/Straight/Single
New York, NY
MY SELF SUMMARY
“Music is the weapon of the future” – Fela Kuti
I am: Funk, punk and crunk
WHAT I’M DOING WITH
MY LIFE
(left blank)
I’M REALLY GOOD AT
Identifying the best orange in even the largest of grocery
store bins.
THE FIRST THINGS
PEOPLE NOTICE ABOUT ME
My shoes and my awesomeness
MY FAVORITE BOOKS,
MUSIC, MOVIES AND FOOD
Books - Catcher
in the Rye, Psychotic Reactions & Carburetor Dung, Up in the Old Hotel,
Please Kill Me, Miss Lonelyhearts/Day of the Locust, London Fields, Money, The
Adventures of Augie March
Movies - Annie Hall,
Do the Right Thing, On the Waterfront, The Third Man, My Life as a Dog, Raiders
of the Lost Ark, Touch of Evil, The World of Henry Orient, Dig!, A Hard Days
Night, Double Indemnity, L.A. Confidential, Chinatown, Arsenic and Old Lace,
Star Wars, Philadelphia Story, Midnight Cowboy, Butch Cassidy & the
Sundance Kid, Rushmore, Manhattan, Strangers on a Train, West Side Story, A
Shot in the Dark
Music – Six songs
completely at random on my iPod…
Ty Segall – “Fuzzy Cat”
Black Moth Super Rainbow – “Zodiac Girls”
Tronics – “TV on in Bed”
Belle & Sebastian – “It Could Have Been a Brilliant
Career”
Field Music - “A House is Not a Home”
Jurassic 5 – “Quality Control”
Food – I enjoy
food, especially Indian, Japanese…Really, anything you like, I’m probably gonna
like.
THE SIX THINGS I
COULD NEVER DO WITHOUT
I’m taking the question to mean material things rather than
ideas or emotions. Mostly I just want to be incredibly shallow.
Thus…
iPod (though it is falling apart)
iPad (though it is falling apart)
iPhone (it won’t fall apart until my AppleCare expires)
Signed vinyl copies of Plastic
Beach; Blank Generation; 3 Feet High and Rising; and Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in
Space
Dogeared copy of Psychotic
Reactions and Carburetor Dung
Uniball Micro pens and Moleskine notebooks (because it looks
cooler than entering shit into my iPhone)
I SPEND A LOT OF TIME
THINKING ABOUT
(left blank)
ON A TYPICAL FRIDAY
NIGHT I AM
(left blank)
THE MOST PRIVATE
THING I’M WILLING TO ADMIT
(left blank)
ETHNICITY
White
HEIGHT
6’0”
BODY TYPE
Fit
SMOKES
No
DRINKS
Socially
DRUGS
(left blank)
RELIGION
Agnosticism, but not too serious about it
SIGN
Gemini, but it doesn't matter
EDUCATION
Graduated from college/university
JOB
Artistic/musical/writer
INCOME
Rather not say
CHILDREN
Doesn’t want children
PETS
Likes dogs and dislikes cats
SPEAKS
English, fluently
French, poorly
I’M LOOKING FOR
Girls who like guys
Ages 21-35
Near me
New friends, Short-term dating, Long-term dating,
Long-distance penpals, Activity partners, Casual sex
YOU SHOULD MESSAGE ME
IF
(left blank)
I loaded up a few choice pictures – the one where I’m
coveting the “butcher” cover of the Beatles’ Yesterday and Today behind the counter at the Amoeba Records on
Haight in San Francisco; a black & white shot of me standing in front of
the Brill Building in Manhattan; a pretentious shot of me standing in front of
a far more erudite friend’s bookshelves while wearing my God Bless Brian Wilson
t-shirt – and put the fucker live.
It’s a dating profile, so naturally I fudged it just a bit.
I wasn't actually in New York City, but I was certainly willing to jump on a
commuter train if it meant I might meet someone. Besides, I didn't want my face
to show up if anyone did a search of the area where my parents lived.
I wasn’t “fit” either, though I figured I might actually get
there now that I was home with fuck all to do with my time.
I spent the first hour or so answering questions about
politics and how I’d handle myself in bullshit situations, like if I turned a
corner and found a stack of hundred dollar bills, what would I do? I’d fucking
take it, but even though I knew full well anyone would do the same, there were
four options, and I figured I’d take the sensitive route and pretend I’d donate
it to charity instead of blowing it all on vinyl.
I trolled profiles for the next 30 minutes, ranking women
based on their looks and anything else I was able to scan in roughly three
seconds, and I felt a little shitty and shallow and I kept on doing it anyway.
I saw red flags everywhere, and I saw Renee everywhere too, or rather the
absence of her, because no one on there was Renee.
I was fumbling around, having a little fun but not really
allowing myself to take the next step and say hello to anyone. And that’s when
I realized I was already under the microscope. It’s not like I thought I wouldn't be looked up and down and judged like everyone else, but maybe I didn't think
it would happen so soon. I found the “visitors” link in a drop-down menu on my
homepage and saw every woman who’d looked at my profile. And even though I’d
only been signed up for maybe two hours, there were like 40 of them.
By the next morning, I had seven messages in my profile
inbox. Two informed me that women I’d ranked either 4 or 5 stars had done the
same for me. One was from someone called “ToxyRoxy” who’d added me to her
favorites list, making me instantly suspicious of her motives, even though she
claimed to be bisexual, which I thought was pretty great. Another three were a
mixed bag, and after reading their messages and profiles I determined them to
be somewhere between irritating and borderline psychotic. Using this random
sampling, I’ll leave you to determine which end of the spectrum I put them on.
Slybootz11222: OMG you like Tame Impala too no way I love
them are you going to show at MHOW? Wanna buy me a drink? LOL
GlitterFreezes: …I have three cats and they’re named
Mittens, Mittens II and Mittens IV. Please don’t ask about Mittens III when we
meet…
BarrenToTheBone: …so I got out of the car, made sure no one
was around, and dropped the bag of dogshit into his mailbox…
The seventh message was from a woman called SignedBC, a play
on a song by Love, the seminal ‘60s Los Angeles group which only gained fame
years after half of them were dead or in prison and the other half in and out
of rehab: Street cred forever guaranteed.
Our conversation began with promise…
SignedBC: …My apartment is small, though it’s my own fault
for being a completest record collector. I’ve got an entire shelf dedicated to
post-Big Band, pre-fusion jazz, for crying out loud…
Stereoblab: …I’ve got more Impulse-era Coltrane than almost
anyone except the Beatles…
SignedBC: As well you might.
Predictably, we quickly moved to more intimate realms…
SignedBC: Top Five Best Make-Out Albums Not Featuring Marvin
Gaye…Go!
Stereoblab: What song was playing when you lost your
virginity?
SignedBC: Have you ever gotten off at a live show? Which
band was it?
There was something pure and beautiful and appealingly weird
about our conversation, and we weren't in a hurry to spoil it by moving it into
a different medium. Logging in to OK Cupid, I’d see that I had messages, and if
it was from someone other than her I’d ignore it completely, and if it was from
her I’d read it at least half a dozen times, trying to convince myself she was
for real. We didn't talk on the telephone, and even though it would have been
easy enough to arrange, we didn't try to meet in person. I didn't even know her
name.
SignedBC: What are your Desert Island Discs?
Stereoblab: Have you ever worn a concert t-shirt so long it
fell apart?
SignedBC: I know he’s pushing 70 and collects knives, but I
totally have the dirtiest fantasies about Keith Richards.
…but before long, cracks began to show…
…but before long, cracks began to show…
SignedBC: I think Coldplay are pretty underrated.
Signed BC: Black people just smell different than the rest
of us.
Stereoblab: …
SignedBC: I have three cats and they’re named…
For the next week messages continued to trickle in, and I
became more discouraged every time I clicked one open. They weren't all crazy
or boring or lousy with cats. Some of them were sexy, smart and sarcastic. They
were just the wrong sexy, smart and sarcastic. I didn't even know what I was
looking for, but that didn't stop me from trying, either. I’d scroll through
the recent visitors to my profile, click over to check them out and enjoy the
voyeuristic thrill of knowing they would know that I’d checked them out. But it didn't last. None of it lasted. I was chum in the water, and I didn't know what
to think of that. I thought about deleting my profile before it got out of
hand, and that’s when I heard from Ingrid.
