Out & About With Will

Short Walks on Long Island: ... As for New York classic Spike Lee, I was starstruck to see him step onto the curb right in front of me in the East Village late last month. Wow! (Speaking of which, his joint, SHE'S GOTTA HAVE IT, is streaming only on Netflix. You dig?) ... I am a Bay Area native, and unduly proud to have been, many times, An Apple person. I played 'Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?' often on the IIe, cut my teeth on Web 2.0 content generating at PlanetOut on a Mac, and only recently was deprived of my iPad by members of the Guild of Thieves. This morning, though, when needing wifi, I stood outside the window of the Apple store on 5th Avenue as staff inside were well into beginning their shifts. Unfortunately, the wifi seems not to be offered to the peanut-crunching crowd until later - maybe at opening. Chintzy, Woz - real chintzy, man!

This one is, on two floors, the bigger and badder site (in contrast to the lower Broadway shop.) All the latest from Levi Strauss can be had - there is even the patch and embroidery stand in the back of the first floor: have your new purchases customized and unique-ified. (And oh, how I deserve a distressed, classic jean jacket sporting tabako wo suu onna.)

'Diagnosed: Bipolar II, Schizoaffective, Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, HIV' 'Sup, New York City? I arrived here in October of last year to escape mistreatment in my native California, to access superior services, and to make a better life for myself, a life better than before, in which I might prove myself to be more than a list of diagnoses - greater than some mere case study. So anyway, I'm here, making a go of it, doing my best like so many here, and I have to remark on recent news: ugly violence, particularly in Queens and the Bronx... An older gentleman beaten horribly, two people wounded in a shooting, some asshole opening fire on a school... I wish it would be happier than it is. I come from San Francisco, a city I agree is notorious for ugly behavior and inexcusable violence - muggings, rapes, too many (unsolved, no less) murders. A place many would like to escape. Yes, it's rough all over, I'm finding. Not really wanting to get too deep...