The deciding factor was climate. A few scant days ago, it was unbearably jungle humid in NYC. Clothes sticking to my flesh with sweat, feeling like a candy apple left out on Georgia asphalt. The swelter has a dizzying effect on my senses. Heat confuses this caveboy. Elderly woman raises her hand up to me and asks "excuse me sir, where can I find the laundry sheets?". Teetering on my heels, searching her face for dementia. Racing through thousands of scenarios in my mind of why this battle axe thinks I have the answers to the great laundry sheet mystery. A drop of sweat drips from the tip of my nose "laundry sheets?!?".

Turns out she was looking for Lafayette Street. After she reiterated her original, not tainted with spanky mirage muse voices, direction query, I was baffled on how I came up with "laundry sheets". So baffled, that I violently shook my head, complete with cartoon lip flapping slap noises, and walked away from her without saying another word. Welcome to New York City old lady.

NYC summers often are brutal. Even then, the hell steam usually doesn't vent more than a week or two at a time. In New Orleans the sun beat down triumphs for more than half the year solid, straight through your bitch ass. Volante Biatchi. Could not deal with that kind of simmering extension.

This freak is holding on to Manhattan, tethered to the edge of the island if necessary.

YEAR TWENTY ONE: A gorged US Airforce drab green dufflebag hanging off each shoulder, hoisting a loaded trunk from the leather straps on the sides, I plow out of Laguardia's baggage claim looking to hail what was to be my first cab ride, initiating a long battle with the Taxi and Limousine Commission.

Actually, Otis was a gregarious Black man in his fifties. Completely belying the normal conversational skills of the average NYC taxi driver. Homeboy was a born and bred New Yorker who wasn't spending his off hours going to English as a second language class. I would discover later that made him a taxi archaeological find. Through our conversation, the fact that I was going to NYU came up.

Honestly, still is boggling how I managed to go to NYU. Took my community college classes seriously enough to be awarded a 4.0 grade average. Still, I miserably wandered around St. Louis believing I was doomed to be stuck there, using my associate's degree in graphic arts to wallow in an entry level position at a Midwest ad agency. Was so desperate to escape that when these Marine recruiters pulled up in their K car in front of my bus stop, I stood up from my art case tacklebox seat, and hopped in the backseat. Damn near signed up till Pop unrelentingly convinced me that a hard sell was never a wise offer to accept.

It was a fortunate event regardless, since it convinced my folks that I was literally dying in that town, and was willing to even put my life in harms way to get out. Ma, who worked at Washington University, unleashed her determined research skills. Found that any child of an employee of colleges and universities was given half the amount of the yearly tuition of the school the parents worked at towards the tuition of another school. The news sent shockwaves up my nervous system, and scales fell from my eyes.

Applied to every University with a respectable film department. Sent each of them twenty pages from a dark comedy screenplay I wrote about a drug dealing mailman. One by one, pleased to invite you to join our campus letters poured in. I was accepted to every school I applied to. NYU was always the top dog, and it was all she wrote.

My dorm was on the west side of Union Square Park. Carlyle Court. One of the more desirable hovels NYU set up for it's students. Since I was older and transferring from other programs, I suppose I was deemed to be more senior and worthy of better habitat.

Four students to a one bedroom apartment. Functioning kitchen and our own bathroom, which, compared to what other NYU students had to endure, was as if we were bling blinging it like Master P with gold plated everythang.

First met Mike. Skeleton skinny non consumer from San Antonio. Also a film student. I call him a non consumer because he refused to wear anything that had a logo on it, and would always buy grocery store brand or white label food. This frugal gourmet wouldn't break out a quarter for shit. Fly weight drinker, and wouldn't touch the free flowing herb that arrived in bushels. He had a dry sense of humor, and was a big fan of my deviant thinking. First day we walked around the hood, he looked down the entranceway to the Union Square subway terminal and said "I am looking down the place where I am going to die".

Mike put me in several of his short movies. Including my favorite where we drove around Hot Wheels, close up shots of crashes with The Jeffersons theme song as action music. I became a popular actor with film students. I happily bequeathed my free time to take rolls in everyone's projects.

Next roomie was Eric from Boseman Montana. Fratboy and political junky. He was constantly raving about Democrat this and Democrat that. He jumped around the beds and furniture with a hard-on when Clinton defeated Bush that year. I saw it as; same old milk different cereal. Dude had a quiet proto serial killer vibe. Not that he did anything erratic or strange like giggling maniacally while torching ants with a magnifying glass. Just had that mother's skeleton in the basement odor. Eric, in a drunken warrior's ferver, attacked me in my sleep with a vacuum cleaner and piles of newspapers one night.

Eric also incessantly listened to REM and 10,000 Maniacs. I have been forever rattled by this. I go into ticks and convulsions whenever one of their songs invades my perceptions. I honestly had no ill will towards them or their musical product before knowing Eric. Now, the lyrics slowly induce a berserker mode in me, and I must be restrained from smashing apart the offending stereo until the music abates.

Last was Dan from Denver. I don't know how many of you will remember a song by DJ Quik.....and Denver, you know it's just like Compton.....and St. Louis, you know it's just like Compton. Dan and I had that white boy influenced by his Black surroundings commonality. Compared our hip hop collections upon meeting. He had been in NYC over the summer already, taking classes. He was instantly hip to the dope spots. He flowed with the information. Dude was a pussy electromagnet. We partied constantly.

We came up with this Sesame Street style song, that we would unleash when walking down the streets blunted out of our skulls. What are doing over there guy.....it looks like you're doing something great. Just would walk up to people doing something interesting and sing them that question. Construction workers taking a brief break from jackhammering, wiping their brow with attack dog quizzical looks on their faces.

We used to club down at the meat packing district. I dosed X at Nasa. Which later became Twilo, and then later became something else. Nasa was perfect for psychedelics. I wound up in this room with the walls constructed to look like naturally hewn rockface. Lights pulsing. Found a cushiony spot near a throbbing speaker. I mounted the vibrating rhythmic box like a horny intoxicated goat. Dan and others discovered me molesting stereofonic equipment and could not stop laughing.

One night we wound up at this older chick's apartment in Red Square on Houston. At this time the L.E.S. was no picnic. We felt comfortable in the sketchy areas. Anyway, ate a bowl of shrooms. Had a disturbing time with some Francis Bacon art books. Wound up having a three hour conversation with the older chick's iguana. Lizard dude had some amazing insights.

I must say most of my fondest memories of that first NYU year were when I was off my face. The wake and bake before class was a wonderful thing. Giant mixing bowl filled with Froot Loops and whole milk in my lap, watching Cartoon Network completely spliffed. The insane amounts of drug inspired lust, unlatched pussy at every inch of the campus. Rolling in the cool grass of Central Park after melting two tabs on my tongue. Imagining musical spires and fireworks erupt out the instruments from the free concerts at the band shell. Sweaty primitive dancing to electronica in the dark marijuana hazed clubs. Laughing at each other's jokes till our stomachs hurt, a dozen kids crowded on two dorm beds and passing out on the floor. Shit was good yo.