Wire 004
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.
1999
117 Posts
Ftrain 1
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.
Manhattan
All the money is here.
Brooklyn
The Borough of Kings
sign
THE STREET IS TO THE LEFT AND THIS IS THE SIDEWALK. THE CURB IS IN THE MIDDLE.
request
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.
Archive
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.
Wire 009: Pride
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.
Wire 005
Hell is not other people. Hell is sitting in your room writing existentialist plays about how hell is other people.
NYC
Alone and loveless, go seeking. This is a very small collection of places in New York that resonate with the author.
Basic Elegy
An urgent memorial.
Wire 001
The Subway Diary
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.
Ftrain 2
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.
Wire 010: Hangover Cure
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 .
Wire 008: Backrub
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.
Wire 007: A Particularly Unbelievable Moment in the Heinous History of American Race Relations
In the earlier part of this century, the Bronx Zoo exhibited a Pygmy behind bars.
Wire 006
I have to come clean--my name is not Paul Ford. It’s Kat.
Wire 002
This is the third spam I’ve received for “Viagra On-Line,” but what I want is saltpeter. How can you be “sex-positive?
Rein, carnation
A goofy fiction.
Sampler
All the things in my head all at once.
Considerations
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.
Mirror Only Slightly Angled
The online journaler, a strange creature of odd habits.
Stopwatch
I can drink beer quickly.
Heat
Sex, it’s all about sex.
Tom Baylor, Space Therapist
He helps extraterrestrials get their shit together.
Mortar & Expounded Cliche
Beating my head against a wall.
Undisaster
Drug abuse and how it screws up your writing style.
Rats Eat Vomit
Filthy, filthy, filthy things in NYC
Weekend: Avenue A
I got drunk and went into a park.
Weekend: Court Street
Getting stones thrown at me in Red Hook.
Weekend: Avenue B
Meeting a woman and talking about getting taken from behind, and so on.
Shut Up, Paul
What he said.
A Defense of Sexual Loneliness
A fiction which of course many readers wrote in about thinking I was a sick, crazy fuck, because people don’t get it, no
Discussion
The crank from Queens grabbed me on the train. Here’s what he said.
Monologue
Writing on writing about writing. Kill me.
Possible Beginnings to Science Fiction Novels
How do I start?
Peak of the Cycle
Feeling all nervous like, trying to calm down, chest and heart and so on.
Ftrain Winter Haiku
Some haiku, you.
The Thing I Do
Loving myself, loving you.
Hitler’s Brain
The truth, finally.
First Date After the Breakup
A terrible first date. A catastrophe.
Let’s Make Fun of Dirty Thnirts!
People thought this was the dumbest thing I’d ever written, but I love it.
Daily Entry Written on Powerful Prescribed Drugs
Reality falters, splinters, death.
Speaking
Chat with dad.
Created
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?
The Inevitable Essay
I used to live in New York. No more. I moved to LA, where the post-nuclear plague is even worse, in some ways
Blanket
Love lost, boring goals.
MISTAKE
Archy comes back for a moment to talk to Don, but doesn’t realize that Don is dead.
Hmm
An experimental play.
Who’s Reading? An Annotated Selection from Yesterday’s Access.Log
Recipient of the highly coveted Journal Something Award!
Tights
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.
Love Ditty
Punk rock love. It sucks.
Mr. Social’s Night on the Town: Prelude
Going out and coming unglued.
Outbound
Going on the road.
In the Ancient Bottle
A few thoughts on alcohol, the ambrosia of the terrified romantic
Mr. Social’s Night on the Town: A Burnt-Out Case
Going out and burning out.
Wires
A series of little narratives, all glued together
Fantasy
A dumb little story with one or two good lines, based on a completely predictable joke.
Reunion
Death in the family (again)
Here We Go Again
I broke up with a girl and had to write for the sympathetic Internet audience about my deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep feelings.
The Voice in the Ear
Talking, talking back, and so on. Taking it all too seriously.
Commercial
Ah well. Sometimes the writing turned to squalorous sloppiness. Here’s a good example.
Art
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.
Citizen Darth
Trashing the new Star Wars movie. It deserved trashing.
Reticulation
Why the desire to network? Why the desire to shake hands and make connections?
Notice
Celebrity! Who cares about it?
Trip Home
Trying to sort things out; an essay with archival value if little merit.
Cliches, some with Examples
How many can you spot? And when is a cliche a characteristic?
80
An old man, some music, and lots of e-mo-tion.
Prediction
The only point of this piece is to demonstrate what a jackass I am.
Carpoint
Oh, I am a didactic bastard. What was I trying to accomplish with my mini-lecture on automotive environmentalism?
‘Thropic
Hating Life and hating people!
Still in Clement Park
The day after the Columbine murders
Clement Park
Hours after Columbine, I wrote this
Horsetails
My mother was a puppeteer. It was surprisingly un-scarring.
Solo in Gray
Sea Lions in the park. What do my words mean here? I use the word pinnepedal. Why? Oh, God.
Romance
The sad boy’s sweet sad love and lust.
Inner-city Geek Trash Talk
Dorks is angry
Off the Sofa
A little lecture from the author of such fine works as “Off the Sofa”
Wu-Tang Bakery
What they cook at the Wu-Tang bakery.
Litany
A sad whine about work, written in the “high amateur” style that so much of my prose favors.
Tattoo
An odd little lecture from a man with symbols on his skin.
Shame
A terrible thing happened in the bathroom.
An Ending of Sorts
Closure on the Internet
Montclair
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
Fall and Winter 1992 (First Draft)
A fiction about older women
Late Night, 5th Ave
An attempt at an elegaic tone, trapped at work at night feeling worn and bored
Satya’s Dog
A poem about a stinky dog.
Rationales: A Spontaneous, Topical Play for Voices
A play about Kosovo.
On My Way to Meet You
A strange experiment about cars and New Jersey.
At 10 (Quick Sketch)
Another wee story
I Fucked Everything Up and Now I Must Die
I’m bored as hell, and I can’t take it anymore!
I Believe (a comic gothic, first draft)
A little fiction with a high “yeah, whatever” quotient
Arrival
An argument with the moms, circa 1980something.
First Day
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.
Overdue
A little apology to a woman who’s long, long gone.
His First Screen Appearance
He tinks, he winks
Apnea
Another on the death of my grandfather. He was a good fellow. I miss him.
Death Trip
The funeral of my grandfather.
Tracking My Changes
A few absolutely shitty literary thoughts.
After
The first in a series about my dying grandfather. Death; it’s something no writer can leave be.
Big Day
A new job, with attendant hopes and feelings (I quit 6 months later). Rock, Paper, Scissors is a made-up name, by the way.
My Pals Sonic Youth
A visit to the concert hall.
Before
A moment of waiting for the emotions to settle.
Meeting Sally Field
I met Sally Field, and found that she was mortal, and could not shoot laser beams from her eyes.
My Favorite Variable
Geeking out.
Address (First Draft)
Narrator says: I’m just a gigolo
Sign/Request
A little story and a little sign, neither one of much note.
Meandering Entry
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.
Taste for Today
A wee stylistic experiment without much bearing on any larger reality.
Morning
Trying to get your life together when your life is not together
Brief Interview
A discussion with a stranger about her family.
Tourist
When friends lecture, friends get annoyed.
Study Hall
Working and what it’s like to work and whatever.
Burden
Sick of writing, I write about being sick of writing. Result? The audience is sick of me.
Small
A New York moment of no note.