Waiting to Get There. Usually on the A/C/E in Chelsea, New York City.

I take a shine to rock that rolls, spins, and shimmies across the floor mostly in a diagonal fashion. I covet a groove that comes at you fast and darts sideways at the last second. I like music circular as a sea anemone swinging on a pendulum. So despite how much I enjoy the company, and restaurant recommendations, of certain astrophysicists living in Boston who are credited with installing MacBarf on my Star Apple clone circa 1987, I know I don't belong in this city. It vibrates at a frequency that strikes me as straight up vertical, staccato with locked knees and a ruler. (In striking contrast to Boston's roads, which are a hot scalding mess.) Some towns I walk into and I feel my shadow blur and blend into the streets. New York. In Beantown, it's like I got dropped in from a different altitude and teeter on the brink of the bends. Except in Boston, there would be no actual bends. They'd be ramrod straight up and down.

In a move which hindsight would label really ill-advised, I decided to film a poster of "The Boys from Israel" hanging in the entrance to the Blue Store on 8th Avenue. At the time I thought it would really spice up my Lip Syncho de Mayo video because, although Jewish, these boys had some holy Jesus six-pack abs. Unfortunately, the moment I hit "record" and started to roll film, two buff Chelsea boys blocked my shot when they stepped through the doorway. Their biceps bulged under all their tattoos. I was hit with twin full-on laser death stares. I popped on my lens cap and sprinted two blocks down the street. Luckily, they weren't following me, but if they had been, my plan was to vanish into the Payless Shoe Store, because no self-respecting Chelsea playa would ever be caught dead in there. * * * A couple weeks ago, at 8 o'clock in the morning, a stringy fellow in purple pants loitering out front The Blue Store asked Tom if he knew where he could find an all...