117 Posts
Prior Iterations of Ftrain, created in blind ignorance but with great hopes, and information on the site itself. My advice, which you should feel free to ignore considering the source, is to start from the very end - to read the new stuff first, when I’d actually learned a little bit about writing, and then if you can stomach it, move backwards.
An urgent memorial.
This is the third spam I’ve received for “Viagra On-Line,” but what I want is saltpeter. How can you be “sex-positive?
The Borough of Kings
02/99-10/99: Stories about work and faltering relationships. A new, revised version of my life, with more words and more deep needy sadness. Ah. Alas.
Hell is not other people. Hell is sitting in your room writing existentialist plays about how hell is other people.
All the money is here.
In the earlier part of this century, the Bronx Zoo exhibited a Pygmy behind bars.
I woke up without a hangover at 8am, after four hours of sleep. A few years ago, I used to think, with cosmic import, that I rose so early after drinking binges because I had gotten in touch with some deeper feeling the night before, via the mental state brought on by the lowered inhibitions of the alcohol .
Alone and loveless, go seeking. This is a very small collection of places in New York that resonate with the author.
THE STREET IS TO THE LEFT AND THIS IS THE SIDEWALK. THE CURB IS IN THE MIDDLE.
10/97-08/98: Urban fool wanders New York City, records observations. Selections from the Subway Diary, the author’s first, struggling attempt at creating a narrative on the Web. Failed efforts, aborted attempts, self-importance in abundance.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am hungry, and I’m selling socks, I’m selling these socks, because I need the money, because I am broken, because I am not your color--but aren’t we all down here together. I am without skill or hope, with no promise for better things.
01/00-05/00: Perhaps it can be done correctly this time. Selections from Ftrain.com’s second round, the author’s third, slightly-less-struggling (and suddenly database-driven) attempt at creating a narrative on the Web.
The proud man defends his pride in a bar, at work, and among friends; when he is slandered, when the boss tells him his work is not good, when he is disrespected by others, at every injury, every poke, jab, failed promotion, or slanderous calumny, his chest swells in anger; something unreleasable agitates inside him, throbbing like an infected finger, until he cannot repress it any more, and if he can not strike someone else, some stranger, perhaps he strikes his wife, or at the least he is suddenly cruel to her; and in doing this he reclaims some power from the world. She, the wife of the proud man, has no barrier against his hands, but she has other domains of authority, and so may scream at the children, who listen and mull on her words in quiet fear.
I have to come clean--my name is not Paul Ford. It’s Kat.
Just in case you read Ftrain and you don’t understand, as a legal and voting adult, I take full responsibility for my actions. I’ve been out of the house since I was 15.
I am listening to Anita Ward’s song “Ring My Bell. ” This song makes me want to get a bottle of lotion and rub a woman’s back, pressing against the muscles of the shoulders with these large, strong hands, plying the warm flesh of every tender spot with gentle caress, releasing tension slowly, over the course of an hour, and letting my hands slip where they will, until she is riveted in comfort, afloat on my touch.
A goofy fiction.
All the things in my head all at once.
If Molly Bloom was I, and I was Molly Bloom, and we were trying to write for the Web, maybe this would be what we’d write. Maybe not.
I can drink beer quickly.
The online journaler, a strange creature of odd habits.
Sex, it’s all about sex.
He helps extraterrestrials get their shit together.
Beating my head against a wall.
Drug abuse and how it screws up your writing style.
I got drunk and went into a park.
Filthy, filthy, filthy things in NYC
Getting stones thrown at me in Red Hook.
Meeting a woman and talking about getting taken from behind, and so on.
What he said.
A fiction which of course many readers wrote in about thinking I was a sick, crazy fuck, because people don’t get it, no
The crank from Queens grabbed me on the train. Here’s what he said.
Writing on writing about writing. Kill me.
How do I start?
Feeling all nervous like, trying to calm down, chest and heart and so on.
Loving myself, loving you.
The truth, finally.
Some haiku, you.
A terrible first date. A catastrophe.
People thought this was the dumbest thing I’d ever written, but I love it.
Reality falters, splinters, death.
Chat with dad.
What’s wrong with the world? An attempt at a non-answer in a few short words. Reading over these archives, I want often to say shut up, fellow. Why didn’t I?
I used to live in New York. No more. I moved to LA, where the post-nuclear plague is even worse, in some ways
Love lost, boring goals.
An experimental play.
Archy comes back for a moment to talk to Don, but doesn’t realize that Don is dead.
Recipient of the highly coveted Journal Something Award!
This will be an entry about watching Tights , a musical adaptation of Mel Brook’s “Robin Hood: Men In Tights” performed by developmentally disabled children at a special school in Manhattan. No, on second thought, it won’t.
Punk rock love. It sucks.
A few thoughts on alcohol, the ambrosia of the terrified romantic
Going on the road.
A series of little narratives, all glued together
Going out and coming unglued.
Going out and burning out.
Death in the family (again)
A dumb little story with one or two good lines, based on a completely predictable joke.
I broke up with a girl and had to write for the sympathetic Internet audience about my deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep feelings.
Talking, talking back, and so on. Taking it all too seriously.
Ah well. Sometimes the writing turned to squalorous sloppiness. Here’s a good example.
An essay on the arts scene and what it meant to me in 1999. Of course, when I’m writing these summaries (mid-2000) I care not at all.
Trashing the new Star Wars movie. It deserved trashing.
Why the desire to network? Why the desire to shake hands and make connections?
Celebrity! Who cares about it?
Trying to sort things out; an essay with archival value if little merit.
How many can you spot? And when is a cliche a characteristic?
An old man, some music, and lots of e-mo-tion.
The only point of this piece is to demonstrate what a jackass I am.
Oh, I am a didactic bastard. What was I trying to accomplish with my mini-lecture on automotive environmentalism?
Hating Life and hating people!
The day after the Columbine murders
Hours after Columbine, I wrote this
My mother was a puppeteer. It was surprisingly un-scarring.
Sea Lions in the park. What do my words mean here? I use the word pinnepedal. Why? Oh, God.
The sad boy’s sweet sad love and lust.
A little lecture from the author of such fine works as “Off the Sofa”
What they cook at the Wu-Tang bakery.
Dorks is angry
An odd little lecture from a man with symbols on his skin.
A sad whine about work, written in the “high amateur” style that so much of my prose favors.
A terrible thing happened in the bathroom.
Around now in the project I was grasping for ideas. It was a painful process. I was not just out of ideas; I was out of life
Closure on the Internet
A fiction about older women
An attempt at an elegaic tone, trapped at work at night feeling worn and bored
A poem about a stinky dog.
A play about Kosovo.
Another wee story
I’m bored as hell, and I can’t take it anymore!
A strange experiment about cars and New Jersey.
A little fiction with a high “yeah, whatever” quotient
An argument with the moms, circa 1980something.
So now, I decided to become autobiographical. I thought I’d write my whole life’s story in about 3 hours, but I didn’t get far. Here’s the first piece.
A little apology to a woman who’s long, long gone.
He tinks, he winks
The funeral of my grandfather.
Another on the death of my grandfather. He was a good fellow. I miss him.
A few absolutely shitty literary thoughts.
The first in a series about my dying grandfather. Death; it’s something no writer can leave be.
A new job, with attendant hopes and feelings (I quit 6 months later). Rock, Paper, Scissors is a made-up name, by the way.
A visit to the concert hall.
A moment of waiting for the emotions to settle.
I met Sally Field, and found that she was mortal, and could not shoot laser beams from her eyes.
Geeking out.
Narrator says: I’m just a gigolo
A little story and a little sign, neither one of much note.
Dreams and what dreams are and aren’t and oh God, I’m so deep, I’m the deepest man you’ll ever meet, won’t you please get in touch and tell me how deep I am. God help my poor readers.
A wee stylistic experiment without much bearing on any larger reality.
Trying to get your life together when your life is not together
A discussion with a stranger about her family.
When friends lecture, friends get annoyed.
Working and what it’s like to work and whatever.
Sick of writing, I write about being sick of writing. Result? The audience is sick of me.
A New York moment of no note.