I had to bike through the hood yesterday to meet a client. Cruising the bike, the hood creeps up on you slowely. It’s a very gradual thing that takes over all your senses. The smell is the worst. Especially as you bike into it from the river. Like a hurricane you can almost pinpoint exactly when you’ve reached the epicenter of the hood just by the foul smell that almost knocks you off your bike. Almost as obvious is the ever increasing number of obstacles in the street that you need to negotiate as you get closer to the epicenter, and not until you start to dodge the hunkered broken bodies of last nights all night drink, are you at the center. You’re getting close when you see the half crazed man desperately trying to control and trim his exploding boardwalk grass with a rusty pitching wedge. Comedy. I also noticed a store with a red and yellow hand painted sign above two small frosted glass doors that advertised “start your own internet business”. Having some time and feeling entrepreneurial, I checked out this young guys store. I told him I had some experience with the “internet” and I was looking to start my own business cause I wanted to get P.A.I.D. I think he was on to me though and wouldn’t really reveal what he was trying to sell. I seriously think he was selling AOL CD’s that he had stolen from the post office and other places where you can get all the AOL CD’s you want for free. So I guess I won’t be starting my internet business anytime soon. Bummer. Later, after my meeting and still in the hood, some guy drove painfully close to me in his white pick-up and then squirted me with windshield whipper fluid that he had earlier configured to shoot off to the side of his truck. He was laughing and knee slapping as he drove off. I was covered in a smelly blue fluid. Denver.

Last night I began packing for my big move into Minneapolis. Saint Paul has been good to me. My old corner is a graceful mix of trustfund kids, blacks, chicanos, dirty people, clean people and broken people all coexisting in a mellow little community. Nobody really bothers anybody and that’s just fine by me. My bike commute is going to be drastically shorter now that I’ve gone Uptown. I’m going to have to go buy a lot more black turtlenecks.

My new Favorite logo is fairchild semiconductor