After much toiling, bleeding and quiet, nervous talks with the cracks in the ceiling, I have finally vacated that black hole from Hell that I’ve had the unfortunate karma to call home for the past year and a half.

On Saturday, tired, hung-over and bleary after passing out fully clothed and with shoes on after getting a shade more than slightly pasted at a bar, I dragged my aged ass out of bed and started shuffling boxes down the street. It was absolutely fucking horrible, but worth it just to be rid of the place.

By Sunday, I was able to wrap things up and lock the doors for the very last time by around noon. Turning that key for the final time, I should have at least hired a mariachi band and some confetti throwers to mark the occasion but whatever. It’s over and done with. Some other Caucasian twenty-something who makes too much money and is willing to live in a pit will move in and the cycle will continue. Such is the power of New York real estate gentrification.

I for one am slowly and surely becoming fully fucking sick of the New York renting game. For years now, I’ve opted to live in the ghetto in exchange for square-footage and proximity to things that are “cool”. I spent one year in Queens, in a quiet little residential neighborhood where nothing ever happened, far away from anything that mattered and that experience taught me one thing–that I moved to NYC to be near and to do things that I consider to be “cool”. I want to walk out of my door and within minutes be frolicking in various states of lucidity amongst the things that I find “neato”, “keen” and “boss”. Possibly along with things that are “peachy” as well.

This desire has seen me live in some fucked up situations, this last being particularly trying upon my withered and trodden-upon soul. Two robberies and one mugging with a healthy slice of beat-down is just not worth it to me. Fuck cheaping it out, the next time I move, I’m hiring some guys to do the work for me and I’m going to relocate someplace nice so when I’m mugged, stabbed and left to die, slowly bleeding out onto the pavement as my neighbors dispassionately watch, I can go to the great beyond with some lovely Brooklyn scenery about my body and the knowledge that I leave behind a decent apartment.

I’m in a mad dash to get out of my old apartment. I haven’t lived there in almost a month and a half. During that time, I’ve been using up my security deposit and half-assedly moving my shit around the block to my new digs. Since it’s so fucking hot, things haven’t progressed that smoothly.

This inside of my apartment is hot. When I say hot I don’t mean uncomfortably sweaty… I’m talking tar and feathering hot. Napalm to the testicles hot. Crack torch to the armpit hot. Searing! What with this insanely humid bullshit I’ve been slogging through, the most I can stand to be in the place is about an hour. After that, I need to sit naked on a block of dry ice and have a little cry because the temperature in that black hole of doom is just not okay. While my recent trip to Vermont was necessary and extremely welcome, it didn’t help the situation, taking one extra weekend of pathetic labor away from me. I now have essentially two days to get the fuck out. Things are tight.

I should be able to pull it off. I really don’t have that much shit left in that god-forsaken crack den. Most everything went to the trash pile, thereby ending up all over the street after the homeless and the junkies picked through it all. Nasty. I just need to get what’s left from point A to point B then I can give up the keys and give a big, fat fuck you to that pestilential shithole from hell.

My landlord aka slumlord called me this afternoon trying to nudge me out sooner. Even though this month is paid in full, he’d like me out now, so the realtor that first got me the place can start showing it and hustle another sucker in. I have no doubt that she and the landlord will neglect to mention that the apartment has been robbed six times in two years, just like they failed to tell me it was four times in one year. I’d really like see that my landlord and that bitch realtor don’t get away with it again, but more than anything, I just want to be done with the place and never have to go back or ever walk down that street again.

I’m packing my shit up to move. Well, actually, I’m procrastinating most of the time, chained to my computer, lost in Tron 2.0, but sooner or later I’m going to have to crack down and deal with my Apartment of Doom because I have to be out of here by August 1st or earlier. My landlord’s been pretty decent about letting me out of my lease and even let me use my deposit to cover my last month, which is unusual because he’s quite a slumlord. I guess it pays to play the victim card.

Since I’ve moved every year that I’ve been in New York City, shuffling around the boroughs, I’ve slowly winnowed away the rat’s nest of crap I’ve accumulated over the past 30 years or so. I came here with a huge truckload of shit. Chairs, tables, dressers, fish, a cat, antique shit I don’t even like and boxes upon boxes of crap I never use, will never use and don’t really want, yet cannot bring myself to throw away. The pack rat syndrome has long been a curse under which I have suffered and with each year and each move to yet another ghetto, I have endeavored to shave away the layers of junk I don’t need and mold myself into a kinder, gentler, simpler man who is able organize and move his possessions in a couple of hours with a cab ride rather than needing a month and a half and the rental of a truck. It’s hard, my people, but I try.

It’s fair to say that since my arrival in the city about four years ago I’ve removed well over half of the stuff I brought with me from my life in Vermont. The fish, the cat, the gym, the dresser, almost all the furniture - all gone and each year I’ve subtracted more and more. Now I’ve decided that this move will be the big one, where I purge myself of all unnecessary crap and assume the life of a true austere, compact and self-sufficient man-of-the-city. It may be just a relocation to around the corner from where I am now, but to this human magpie, it shall be a triumph to end all triumphs! I will not be one of those weird old people who leave behind a maze-like rat’s nest of an apartment, full of old newspapers and bits of string. I will die penniless and without home or possessions like I’m supposed to, god-dammit!

I figure that all I really need is my clothes, a TV for those rare moments I watch it (Law & Fucking Order!!!), some books I just can’t part with and all my computers and assorted gadgets. Actually, all I need are the computers and gadgets but public nudity is not my thing so I’ll make some allowances for pants and other hippie shit like that. Everything else goes to the trash or in a few rare cases, into storage. It’s a good thing. It needs to be done.

Unfortunately having all this crap and trying to sort it all and get rid of it is looking to be more daunting than I thought. But, it must be done as there simply is not enough room where I’m going to and I’ll be damned if all this shit ends up in storage. I must purge this home! Quick, the gasoline! We must cleanse!

Hi kids! davebgimp.com is currently hosted by a crappy-ass company whose servers have crashed one too fucking many times. Their customer support is farmed out of Croatia (not that I have anything against Croatia at all) and they just all around suck big donkey balls. I am in the process of switching to what I hope will be a more reliable host. The process should be seamless and finished at some point over the course of the next two days. Please bear with me while this is happening and please drop me a line if you notice any errors or problems. Hopefully all will go well. By the way, if you’re shopping around for a web host, you’d do well to stay away from aplus.net. They really suck and have some sketchy ass business practices. If you want to know more about just how shady this company is, don’t take my word for it, just do a Google search or do a search at webhostingtalk.com for more disturbing information about this company.