My day started off something like this: I called out my roommate's name from my loft bed, so he could hold the wooden stairs from falling apart so I could climb down without cracking my skull open. That's always nice, you know. We live in a studio apartment in Chinatown that caters to your standard yuppie (singular), just starting off. But we've managed to cram here three twenty-something kids with middle-of-the-road careers, art supplies and bottles of fountain pen inks--we've even put together two Amazon boxes we found on the curb and turned them into a desk. Safe to say, we've converted it to a heroin den. A heroin den, without heroin, of course. There's no way we could afford another bad habit.

Anyway, my red Heather Chandler tights ripped, getting caught in my PC's CD drive. I checked my bank balance only to confirm my summer job's never actually going to process my payment from August. I shrug it off, because that's the best I can do, and walk down to the coffee shop this ex-con started back in 1976 and break my rainy-day $20 bill for 75 cent coffee. There's an Asian Man talking about how "70 years of prison isn't too long". The ex con shakes his head bemusedly while Asian Man justifies himself by saying that's 70 years of free rent and food. I still don't know what the ex-con went to prison for, but here's hoping it was for something worthwhile. I mean, I have to root for him, he's got my name down after all, though I can tell he's spelling it wrong just by his pronunciation. But hey, no one cares about the details when good, fresh, cheap coffee is concerned.

I walk down Bowery, past my ex's apartment--the ex who pretended to be a film director for the entirety of the two months we went out (I later found out he wrote for the New York Times). What was that about, John? Were you trying to "fit in", relive your early twenties? Were you trying to play undercover journalist to understand the female "psyche"? Was I material for the daily three-thousand-word stream-of-consciousness exercise prescribed by your therapist? Or were you just fucking around because you could? Guess I'll never know, but you could refer to my girl Taylor's "Dear John" for elaboration on the subject.

My friend later points out this truck on the side of the road, which has a stuffed Pink Panther, among other animals, strapped to its front grill. We spent a good five minutes analyzing their predicaments and offering our condolences. It must be sad spending your destiny witnessing gnarly New York City pedestrians and parking meters (thank you, Ariel, for all your insightful observations and studies. I don't know what I'd do without you). I walk her to class, and on my way home, it starts to rain. I am thankful for this, because it interrupts my chain-smoking, and they are only a couple of packs left from my 2 for 1 Duty Free splurge on Pall Mall cartons. I play fun.'s Some Nights. Despite being routinely ridiculed by my "indie rock" friends and contemporaries, I really like this album. It reminds me of the time I moved to New York in 2012, and I'm not embarrassed to say I love Jeff Bhasker and fun., and some nights I really do live in the horror of Twitter and people on the radio and the fear of being forgotten. I love going to shows where anything could happen (I've seen firecrackers in bass drums exploding over the past year), but sometimes you fucking need well-produced pop to get you out of bed put your big boy pants on!

Anyway, I get back home and refresh my inbox on my shattered iPhone--that's shattered from being mugged (but luckily retrieved) by some dude who probably belongs to the Flying Dragons gang (hey, we see you punching those cardboard boxes on Hester, we know you're still there)--to see that Pitchfork and Pop Matters never got back to me. I guess I'll never be a "real" music journalist. But I can live that, Mark Richardson. I still have Kentucky's finest Bourbon. And for all of you misguided souls, that's Bird Dog, and no, that's most certainly not hyphenated.

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