Years

This should be the last entry in this blog but it won’t be. I almost have the new one ready to go. For the most part, this year sucked. I reluctantly came back here and ended up staying, Three people I know died and the girl I signed letters to with “I love you” at the end is gone. I got a job and got to spend more time with my friends so so there’s that but I wish the shitty things didn’t happen. Anyway, hopefully 2011 will be better.


I’m beginning to think people have the wrong idea about me. I spend a good amount of time making fun of people and things and music and whatnot, but at the end of the day, none of this stuff really bothers me at all. I tend to not think about it more than for a passing minute or so, to make some sort of joke. The people one is the big one. Most people I know seem to have daily issues with people and stupid people and whatever else burns their ass that day. At one point I told myself unless someone was directly harming me, I don’t care what they do. I don’t care how stupid they are or anything. I can’t imagine ever even being like that..letting people get to me. Once you do that, then they all win. Get to a point where you don’t care what people are like and don’t care what anyone thinks about you and you can say anything you want and at the end of the day have way less stress in life. As Robert Hunter said "ain't no time to hate". I guess Massachusetts is rubbing off on me.

North Dakota

The hopeless gray and white and ice cold chill everywhere grabs you usually around January. I don’t live near the ocean anymore so I don’t get to see it as much. You end up feeling even colder there. Icy fingers of bare trees reaching down and grabbing all the energy out of you. This year though, I don’t think I’ll have that. I already gave up on thinking I’d have some sort of good holiday or whatever, but as usual no gifts bought and I’m “just not feelin’ it”. It’s worse when everyone around you is full on in the mode.   Regardless though, I’ve been to the shopping malls and stores more than ever this season. I think since I recently started having money on me.

Weekends come and go now, a brief break in the routine
You can sit home and dwell on history
You can go out and dwell on history
You can sit it out completely and move ahead
I can never do this completely
A trillion different people buried deep inside your brain
No faces on any of them
Every girl you ever want to fuck
Every girl you fucked
They are out getting fucked tonight
Every empty experience you can possibly have
Every empty experience can bring you a smile for five minutes
Drives home
Saxophones and invisible cigarettes for days
Conversations that have nothing in common with you
“More and more nowadays I feel further away,
I feel misunderstood”
It’s not like anyone is listening
All they do is talk and talk
Every last one of them worried about other people
I spend less time thinking about people now
A cliche long forgotten
I’d rather the dwelling at home
Warm books and saxophones
Invisible cigarettes and white chicks
All of them are ghosts to me now

gazebo

Upon arriving here every evening I am out of things to say. Around people all day making jokes and talking and then I run out of things to say by the time the sun has been long asleep. I feel like this year and last year were these hopeful great years. I remember getting all excited to leave here and start something/somewhere new. Leave this town and that girl for another town and another girl. Eventually I’ll learn my lesson. Nobody is really worth moving anywhere for. Nobody can convince me I am wrong all the time. I do that myself quite enough. I can only be made to feel guilty and like shit before I am pushed into angry guy mode. I’m not an angry person, but you know.

Love Songs

“These Foolish Things”

Trying to maintain every day now is hard enough, but doing it seemingly alone is even harder. I miss having an end of the day ear to talk to. I miss a lot of things, regardless of how things happen or why, I feel like I’ve been had over and over. I try and convince myself I must have made some sort of mistake somewhere along the line, but I can’t find any proof.

“I Gotta Right To Sing the Blues”
She made fun of the way I ate soup, and how I had dirt under my fingernails. I should have taken this as a clue to run away. I think she resented me for some odd reason all those years. I think she thought I thought I was better because I was older. I would have crossed the Atlantic Ocean on a hockey stick for her, she knew this, but it was evidently not enough.

“I Fall in Love too Easily”
Lying on the ground a complete fucking mess. The ground is spinning far too fast for me to feel insecure and embarrassed. I want to fuck someone tonight. I wanted to fuck. Well, I wanted to go home with a bigger ego. All I got was this lousy headache.

“Just One of Those Things”
I remember she cried while we fucked in my car one night.

“I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm”
We smoked a little bit of marijuana and talked about your parents. Why did we always have to talk about your mother? It was always about your mother. John Lennon warned of old Flattop, and it shut you up for at least 45 minutes. I could always keep you quiet with good music. The more stories you told, or complaints about your mother, the longer the record. “Shit, her mother yelled at her about her job, I better break out the White Album instead of Sgt Peppers.”

“I Loves You Porgy”
I’m a pushover, even though I think I’m not. Go ahead, punch me in the face, and now ask me to make you a mesquite grilled chicken sandwich with mango salsa, on a multigrain bulkie roll, and some red bliss fried potatoes on the side. Go ahead, ask me to take out the garbage, and to scrub under my fingers before I eat.

“They Can’t Take That Away from Me”
Even though my head is pounding a million miles an hour AGAIN tonight, I drink this glass of wine, and I think of inside jokes that have already been created. I think of the wonderful way the wind blows in the car at night in the summertime. My fondest memories are driving back from the Heroin capitol of the Northeast with the radio blaring the Descendents, and watching her pleated skirt billow as she slept with a smirk on her face. I should have thrown her out of the car that night.

“The Nearness of You”
I would go visit her after work. Nobody at work knew about us. She was a disgusting person and I didn’t like anything about her personality or voice. I told her if anyone at work ever found out I would deny it to the end of time.

“I’m Just a Lucky So and So”
Fate always works in my favor. Some of us don’t believe in fate. I think you do control it, yeah you’re right. I like to think of some romantic notion that the one I will spend a lot of time with will be one I “accidentally” stumble upon. The one I run into that I met briefly in passing, but never knew. She’ll arrive at my doorstep with a list of demands, and I’ll search her for drugs and microphones before she can come in.

“They All Laughed”
Taking advice from anyone about relationships or friendships is a big no no. I ask for it from time to time. I give it from time to time, at the end of the day though, every relationship I know of seems doomed. Deep down, looking into eyes people seem exhausted with each other whether they know it or not. Trying to live on and on with someone else to me is horrifying. I think after the last one I shouldn’t kid myself again and think I could ever make someone happy and vice versa.

“Let’s Fall in Love”
It was violent the way it happened. It was violence in my eyes that I never knew I had. I didn’t think I was capable of such actions, yet I made it happen. Long live the morally bankrupt.

“You Go to My Head”
I love that song Sleepwalk, that old instrumental by Sancho and Johnnie or something like that. That song will be the soundtrack of my next night out on the town. I will listen to that song over and over and over and over and still not tire of it. Everyone knows that song, they just don’t know what it’s called I bet. I slow danced with a short girl with dark hair I was in love with at the time to that song. It was hot, and I think we fell asleep like that.

“It Ain’t Necessarily So”
I drove so fast that night. I was a bit scared. I was overwhelmed, confused, and wondered how much bigger the puzzle could get. I was to arrive at the fireworks display early. We weren’t dressed for dinner, yet I made a joke that it was like a scene out of the Great Gatsby. We were in New Jersey for a weekend, yet I was in Hawaii. We talked of weddings and comedians, I thought about how amazing it was that someone could take over my head and make me forget you were there.

“My Funny Valentine”
The first thing I remember is getting a little sick. The next thing I remember is not wanting to ever try it again. I wasn’t “trying it” though. I think he was making me try it. How could you do these things? How can one still look in the mirror every morning, while I write stupid songs about girls in their twenties who won’t love me for whatever reason.

“You Stepped Out of a Dream”
For months I dreamt of her. Good times and bad, high above bright blue oceans I wouldn’t dare step foot in. Now I can’t sleep at night because of her.

“You Don’t Know What Love Is”
The present is the only thing I remember right now. This is good. Presently, it goes like this: Wake up and smile, go to work and relax, come home and laugh my ass off. Fuck the world, twice, I say.

I have way too much anger happening. Fuck (?)

Last Week

So far enjoying this new job and routine I have going right now. As soon as I figure out which gym to join and figure out that schedule everything will feel a little better. Three weeks into it and they bumped me up to full time from part time before the three month trial period so I must be doing something right. I know one thing, when it comes to this kind of thing I will just do it. Anyway, it’s where I go to do boring stuff that people give me money to do, no reason to really talk about it beyond that really.

Making it through every day feeling completely different than I did say two months ago. I feel like the last three years were kind of a blur for me. So much packed into a relatively small time period. Moving, deaths, relationships and now feeling a little bit stable (this cunt of a woman yesterday. I went in to get some coffee and sit there and write and this woman was sitting with the back of her chair against the front of another chair. I ask if she can move a little and she grumbles a little bit and then says I can’t sit there because “I can’t have you looking at my laptop”. I say “I’m not going to look at your laptop”. She grumbles a little more and I then add “I’m not going to look at your fucking laptop lady”. Some woman at a nearby table who bears a slight resemblance to Julia Childs says “I am leaving sir, you can have my table” and then gives me a smile like “can you believe that woman?” I sat there kind of pissed for a while thinking about this woman, a girl came and sat in the same seat a little while later and she didn’t say a thing. I imagined how liberating and intense it would have been to just go over and punch this woman in the face as hard as possible. Like a 120 pound woman in her 50’s getting punched in the face by me and then just taking her laptop and beating her face in with it until she just looks like a smashed piece of steak. I can’t stand entitled cunts like that and I hope she has a bunch of shitty things happen to her. She had a wedding ring on which means some weak ass dude probably has to listen to her ugly 57 year old face whine and complain about shit. Oof.). Most days just coming home and reading, going out to the coffee shop for a few and then in bed by 1:00. I’ve managed to leave at the exact same time every morning.

Near the end of winter I am going to fly out west and get all of my shit I left there and drive it back here. Work is okay with this plan. I can do the drive in six days, so around two weekends I could have nine days off to do it all. I don’t really have any desire to stay there more than a day at this point. Fly there on a Friday night hopefully, leave Sunday morning or whatever. I want to do it in the winter because it will be nice driving that time in the west, and then it could be a challenge in the midwest/Northeast. I was trying to get someone to come with me, but at the end of the day, that’s probably a bad idea. I honestly can’t think of a single person I would want to spend more than say six hours at a time with right now.

I can’t make eye contact with pictures anymore. There are a number of them I accidentally see because they are there in front of me. Memories of awesome and sunshine and a life I thought I knew more about. I truly suck at not being alone. I truly suck at quite a few things. I wallow in them from time to time but what’s the point. This newer thing feels pretty okay.

Mark

What a different week from last week and the last what seem eight trillion or so. Started a new job and it’s been good so far. I’ve been there all week, and it’s been interesting, hard, easy, strange, and everything else in between. It’s a small place and it’s basically physical labor. The last two days I spent on my feet the whole time. It’s been an odd adjustment going from sitting around doing nothing to doing actual work, but I enjoy the challenge. Even though I got laid off a while back and then spend most days just sitting at a computer at home, or out and about with the laptop, the last few years of my job were spent pretty much doing nothing as well. In fact, I am starting a new blog kind of about this very thing. My time doing nothing at my last job, getting laid off and then the long ass time between then and now and some of the stuff that happened in between. I hope to make that one humorous for the most part since this place has gotten kind of out of hand.

A few thoughts since I started. I post too much shit on Facebook all the time, which I don’t really care or think about that much. I sometimes put some “personal” normal stuff up there when I am not joking around. I try not to complain or put anything passive aggressive up, but maybe every 29th post may be something like that, whatever. Other times, I’ll put something personal like I quit smoking for however many days. I put something up when I started work this week and then a couple of subsequent posts referring to work and a few people asked where I was working. I think I decided since this job is mainly to earn money I don’t really need to tell people about it, it’s nothing exciting, it’s warehouse work and it is supposed to turn into a more important warehouse position, but I certainly don’t want to be defined by the job. I always am bored to death when people want to talk about work. In Los Angeles, every person you meet asks you what you do for a living, which basically means they want to see how you might be able to help them out, or what they can sell you. Anyway, I’d rather talk about other shit “I’m up to” unless of course I start making lots of money doing interesting things.

The people I work with all seem pretty okay, it’s a warehouse environment, and there are only about five or six people in there at a time so it’s pretty quiet aside from the music which may or may not become a problem at some point. The first day was mostly your basic rock and roll station on FM for most of the day and eventually that got turned into modern hip hop complete with vocoder songs, etc. I honestly can’t stand this shit at all. I’m pretty open minded about most music, but I can’t really handle that stuff at all. There is quite a bit of ball busting going on in there, the crew is three young men in their early 20’s I guess who are typical teenagers (I guess), talking about Call of Duty (I shouldn’t have mentioned I play) and smoking Newports on break, and liking that horrible music, a seemingly bitter guy in his late 30’s who is helping out there until they move him into another position, the boss who is cool, and then a guy in his 30’s (I think) who is also really cool, likes good music and seems to get annoyed to all hell with the younger guys and their antics. I’ve tried to keep to myself for the most part until I figure out what my role is there. I haven’t really gotten that friendly with anyone aside from small talk. Oh yeah, and a young man working part time that started the day after I did, after some talking he goes to the Jesus college I talk about on here sometimes and his girlfriend works at the coffee shop I go in daily. Small world. He’s a nice guy and I can’t imagine what is going through his head listening to some of the conversations going on in there.

As shitty as I’ve felt the last few months, I don’t feel that much different really. I guess my mind is elsewhere all day, but on the other hand, interacting with people all day is making me almost not want to do anything at the end of the day. I may just be feeling tired right now though. I feel generally better off though. I enjoy the physical labor more than sitting there at a desk, and as soon as I get a little money together I am going to join a gym and start working out again since I am so disgustingly out of shape now. I am clean of everything at this point, but look and feel horrible and fifty-eight years old. I almost don’t even want to go out right now because of it. I feel a little disconnected from everyone and everything as well. For a while I thought I wanted to do music again for an outlet but now I don’t even think I want to. I guess the way I know this is, when the band played their last show last August I never took the guitar out of the case after that show. Playing that show in October with that other band I used to be in was fun, but I haven’t even thought of picking it up again. Usually if I even think about playing the guitar it’s because I hear a song and think “ooh, I’d like to learn that” and then realize I could just listen to the song and have a better time. I think I’ve managed to tell twenty six different people I want to start a band with them yet have no desire to really. Perhaps in thirty minutes I’ll feel different about this.

Looks like shit is still the same I guess.

Feelin' (like a ) Demon

Most nights for however many years now I barely sleep, or I think I barely sleep. Lately I barely sleep though for real. I feel fine throughout the day. I don’t smoke anymore and am slowly going to try and just stop doing anything. I already don’t really drink aside from maybe a sip or a shot here and there, and that’s usually because someone offers me something. I would never in a million years order a beer or a “drink”, especially at this point. Even weed at this point, it’s kind of a useless thing. I don’t really do it as I never have it anyway, so if I can get rid of all of it and be free of everything aside from caffeine I’ll feel even better every day. I can’t imagine walking around with any sort of leftover feelings from a night of too much of anything. even something as insignificant as cigarettes, there were nights I just smoked so fucking many of them, the next day I really felt like shit. I want to get back to one of the original reasons I hated doing all that stuff for years...because I didn’t want to miss anything.  Every girl I’ve ever dated, I’ve never been drunk around any of them. I was always drunk in times when I was single. I wanted to be able to remember all the times I spent with them, so being wasted or buzzed or whatever didn’t even sound like an option. To me, spending time with people and being high or drunk around them basically means you are bored with them and need to escape. No? I’m not that bored with people I spend time with that I need to be there I guess. Who knows. I think this makes sense to me. I never really go back and read this stuff, but I think I made sense.

I’ve failed at being able to create anything in a long time now. Without a comfortable place to work it is growing increasingly harder to think of anything worth sharing. I know they say you can’t write too much. I kind of think I do right now though. In writing about nothing I am not creating anything aside from just channeling every thought I have down. Either here or on my own machine. Trying to decide what to put here is easy, if it’s vague it goes here. If it says “That dude Carl is a shithead” or whatever, it doesn’t.  I need to travel more, have some more experiences that afford me the luxury of something to talk about. I enjoy talking to people who have a million stories to tell, or have been to a million different places or had a million different experiences. Everyone else is boring.

I don’t and probably won’t trust anyone ever again, and don’t really give anyone reasons to trust me at this point. every single person is full of shit and selfish. I guess once you figure this out, you’ll just have an unfulfilled life full of failed relationships and never really have the ability to tell anyone the whole truth, nothing but the truth and so help you god whatever else you’re feeling. nobody else does anyway. I watch all these other relationships and can easily see right through them and find all the faults and whatever is wrong with them. Nobody is happy regardless of what they try to think themselves to sleep with at night. I’m kind of an empty cold person and then realize at the end of the day everyone is kind of the same, shallow and does their own thing for themselves. How this will ever change is beyond me, but really, I can’t take thinking or talking about it anymore. I may/should just go back to talking about traveling or being funny in here and destroy any vague references to anything remotely about people, etc. It’s tired maybe?

Esc

Now it’s starting to close in here, the winter. I hate this time of year here. Cold and painful weather every day of your life for however many months. Meaningless holidays. People driving like shit. I feel like I do things a little different than most people, and not better or worse, but just have different ideas of what makes me happy. I think there are a few things I need to do to get back to there.

I rather enjoy a shadow falling on me
Being a stranger for 26 hours a day
Inventing personalities
Inventing ideas
If I can hold my breath for a week at a time
I can keep my mouth shut for a week at a time
I can avoid clocks and newspapers and looking at the sun

I spend way too much time in these songs reliving some long lost feeling from twenty or so years ago. None of this music means much to me now, there are no connections. I try not to be one of these people that needs to relive my youth. I hated my youth for the most part I don’t want to go back there. These folks they want to remain children and not get old. It means nothing right now to me since I have done some things, and want to do some more things and I do some things.

I could go for a week of the unknown
Strangers and even stranger roads and places
I need this one more time before I stop
Before I slow down

My moods start to become more abrasive this time of year. Looking for an outlet or five I can spit venom out of. Looking for ears and eyes to listen to read what crap I have to say. In time this will all be an embarrassing blemish of eighty seven thousand words written and spoken at the same time to people who really don’t want to listen. I apologize in advance I guess? Growing more tiresome I guess are the ones trying to get me to join their party. Or trying to get into mine.

Texas

Like a ten thousand foot tidal wave coming over me, here it is again. I’m never able to stop it though. I can’t really control any of it and then everything turns to shit. I am trying to stay away from anything and anyone when this happens as I just end up saying the wrong thing. It’s easier this way in the long run. I think?

In the meantime. Had a dream I was trapped in some gray colored city, buildings as high as the eyes could see, temperatures as low and uncomfortable as you wouldn’t want them to be. Not a person or sound anywhere. Like one of those apocalypse scenes in a film. You spend so much time listening to other people as well as yourself going “boo-hoo I want to be left alone” until you experience having a nightmare about it. Sort of frightening and peaceful at the same time aside from the lack of nice colors.

So this place I hang at, this national coffee place. I guess I come in here almost every day. There are a couple of colleges nearby. One of them, is a big Christian college. A good amount of the people hanging out in here on a daily basis are students from there. At this point I just assume everyone in here is a Jesus person. Whatever the opposite of one of these people is, I guess I am the opposite. I don’t believe in anything I can’t see or that hasn’t been proven by science. Generally though, I just don’t even think about this stuff at all, and the fact that people study it seriously is beyond me. Perhaps someday something will click with me and I will get it. Regardless, there are thousands of books written about all of this stuff by people far more intelligent than I am so maybe there is something about it. It just doesn’t really interest me I guess.

I come in here during the week and write and umm, “work”. I have gotten to know all the people who work here, some of them are also students from that college. Recently a couple of people have chatted me up and asked what I do while in here. Seems a little odd to ask someone what they are doing. What if I worked for the government (maybe I do!)? What if I was some kind of a fucking asshole who didn’t look like I liked being talked to? I kind of look like that, so it always surprises me when this does happen. Usually when I am by myself I tend to put on some sort of “mean” face so I don’t get strangers talking to me. When I am traveling, sure. But if I am a regular somewhere, I sometimes don’t want to make regular friends with anyone beyond a “hey” You run the risk of conversation starters that are uninteresting or some sort of running joke. This phenomenon has recently happened on Facebook with a line I use quite a bit over there. Some people will comment randomly using the same joke and while some people usually are pretty funny, others are just beating it into the ground and making it harder for me to continue using it. I guess everyone can’t be as funny as I can be.

A few weeks ago a young man came up to me. I always see him in here with a group of friends, male and female studying. A friendly looking kid, good looking, outgoing and generally someone you would want in the kind of situation where I don’t know...if you just got shot in the neck, this might be the kind of dude you want cradling you on the ground telling you everything will be okay. Also the kid you’d want helping to rake leaves in your grandmother’s yard. So I told him I “write...and am also looking for a job” The latter part of this is true to an extent, but I hardly do that while I am in here. Sometimes though. I asked him what he does and he mentioned he is a student and is studying, etc. Exactly what I imagined. Nice enough guy, and now every time I see him he asks me how the job hunt is going and I ask him how school is going and that’s that.

I love heavy metal music. Selected stuff though...I think if I was to label myself as something it would be a metal/punk rock guy which obviously could mean hundreds of things. As much as I love metal and wear heavy metal shirts all the time I don’t listen to it as much as I used to. One thing newer bands have been doing is doing spinoffs of other logos or fonts and adapting their band’s name to them. I’ve now seen two bands use the Boston first album cover (two great bands: Unearth and Torche). Torche are one of my favorite bands, and although they get thrown into the metal realm I think of them as something beyond metal. I can’t explain it. Last year they were selling t-shirts that were a take off of the one of the bands responsible for inventing death metal, the Bay Area band Possessed.

I of course had to have one of these. Aside from loving both bands, the thought of having a shirt with an upside down cross on it seemed like an awesome idea at the time. I even wore this shirt when I drove across country a while back. I literally stopped before I got to the Texas border and put it on. My original plan to wear an Eyehategod shirt the entire time in Texas but it didn’t work out as I couldn’t find it, so this was the next best thing. (now that I am remembering that stop, hmmm...I stopped for three things: to change a windshield wiper [obviously wasn’t rain, but to clean bugs], put that shirt on, and get high on medical marijuana I had taken back from California. In the fifteen or so minutes I was there I literally saw a tumbleweed, a guy in a cowboy hat and a cactus. The following picture is from that very stop

I got all my shit together and drove on)

So I stopped by this coffee place the other night, not to stay though, just a quick stop. I was wearing this upside down cross shirt under my jacket, but you can still kind of tell what is going on. I saw my buddy in here, and waved to him as he was across the place. He got up and came over and started talking to me. Asking about my job hunt, I asked him about Halloween and then briefly wondered to myself if these students even celebrated Halloween, or is it not allowed? Apparently it is allowed. At the end of the conversation as he was walking away he told me he would pray for me for an upcoming job interview and then winked at me. During that whole conversation which was all of maybe seven minutes I kept trying to keep my jacket closed. In a way I can’t imagine anyone would care. I guess if I was a Satanist (which in a way seems even more ridiculous to me than being a Christian/Catholic or part of any organized religion) I wouldn’t be talking to this young man in the first place. I did feel slightly guilty though when he mentioned he would pray for me. Not as guilty as walking into a temple with a shirt with swastikas on it, but I was self conscious about it. The end.

Oh, here I am with the shirt on a few hours later...

Iowa

To spend every night of your life drowning your sorrows in spring water and chewing gum
Drowned in an ocean of ideas that never came to fruition
Spiraling out of control only happens if you knew how to drive in the first place
I was that guy for years I think
Now I’m like twelve of those dudes
I can try to make you laugh
I can try to make all sorts of things happen
I have no patience for these strangers though
People who’ve been in my fucking way the whole time
Kept a secret
How many more times can I forget to write songs
I used to be able to spit them out
A dozen anthems an hour
Two dozen choruses, all catchy
Now just writing things on a piece of paper
Crumbled into a tight ball and thrown far across the room
Balls of them strewn about the floor around the barrel
Three hundred ideas I foolishly told people about
I need to keep everything to myself now
Well, at least these things that make no sense

Massachusetts

Last night went out alone to downtown Salem to see some friends play music. I went down early and found a parking spot immediately so I took a walk around to see the people walking around doing their Halloween shit. At this point I don’t really care about Halloween either way, people seem to love it though. I like this time of year, and obviously being here for it is great, but I could really care less about the dressing up and partying and all of that stuff. It just really seems like a child’s holiday to me. I always come up with an idea for a costume but never have any actual plan to follow through with it. I had an idea for one this year, but I am obviously not going to do it. The last time I dressed up was in 2000 and I think I just wore a long haired wig and a Motorhead shirt or something like that.

I walked around for a little while and it was surprisingly not that crowded for a Friday evening at that early time. Halloween in Salem basically amounts to people walking around, some dressed up in a costume, some half assed costumes that as account of the weather are covered with a New England Patriots jacket. I saw a couple people I know walking and turned around and kind of went a different route to avoid having a conversation. I figured I’d see plenty of people at the show. One thing I enjoy about being back here is running into people I know all the time. On the other hand, I have nothing good happening to talk about so I have to try to avoid anything like that which is why last night I didn’t feel like talking to anyone on this walk.

The show was great, all three bands. The venue, this Thai restaurant was interesting, but sounded great. Ran into a number of guys from the area and beyond. Amazing musician friends that are still into it, always great to see still out there. It made me want to play music again real bad. It’s a low priority on my list right now really. Went out at one point with a friend I’ve known since probably 1984 or so. Always love seeing him, everyone knows him, he’s a great guy, amazing player and it’s always a trip talking music and life with him. We went and “got lit” around the corner with some other guy I kind of know, not that well. Afterwards he offered us some cocaine. No thanks! I’ve never done that shit and never would at this point, and my friend I was with is certainly not into that either. Only reason I’ve mentioned this is I don’t think I’ve ever been offered cocaine in my life.

I am enjoying being here in New England right now. This time of year is nice, perfect temperatures blasting you in the face at night. Walking last night for an hour or whatever it ended up being, crunchy leaves and yelling children and Massachusetts accents following closely behind them, cold air on your face makes everything more clear, at least voices and faces. Trying to avoid eye contact with people though as I get slow nowadays and sometimes it takes a few to realize I recognize someone, and next thing you know you’re being introduced to children and wives and husbands and hearing about jobs and all that kind of shit you don’t have. I feel like the beginning of eighty seven horrible songs.

Well Done

There were lesbians and there were men talking about different drugs there were dudes with their cocks out on chopping blocks waiting to be cut in half or something like that there were dudes there were all sorts of clowns and men with masks there were images of people with their arms being ripped off and their were all sorts of different melodies and images of musical notes and different instruments and there were people staring at me and I didn’t know how to approach it I knew on the next day I would be killing myself or so I thought there were people asking me questions are you alright are you from around here you feel like a foreigner from a different country when you are around these people you feel like you are not going to be able to control yourself there were men who thought their scripts were written better than this man there were girls who thought they couldn’t spend another dime on revlon there were men caressing their sweaty heineken bottles with not a glimmer of honesty in their eyes there were all sorts of wallets and lights they talked in this language I’d never heard before they even had all the fingers on their hands the sounds in there were always all over the place you hear the singing you hear the voices you hear the echo chamber hello is anyone there you wonder if you are actually the only one with blood inside their heads you wonder if with all of the noise and everything people are just there to entertain my fiendish thoughts from time to time I wonder how long it would actually take me to finally break and do things I would regret the next day how capable am I of being a piece of shit I’m pretty fucking capable of it I just need to have gasoline thrown on me first and then it’s all over I wonder how long it would take to make it into the newspaper I wonder if with all of the secret information I have I could bury politicians and rock singers just the same I wonder how many souls I could break in a week I bet I could piss more people off than you that must mean I’m doing something horribly wrong I don’t really know why I end up there and there are people that tell stories and then stab everyone else that is running faster than them and then there’s the folks back home I remember the folks back home always looking for a handout always trying to get something that ain't theirs I feel like I will throw up all the secret rumors and microfilm information if given the chance I better watch out they better watch out I hold strings and I hold on to them tightly I don’t break that easy I will break others though I have no problem stepping on anyone I have no problems I have no problems I have no problems I have no issues I have no issues I have no issues I have some problems but it’s none of your business just because I don’t have the right medications to deal with this shit don’t mean now look you-

Some days I realize I’m not into anything anyone here is saying. I don’t want them to chime in with jokes or comments as it usually is just some empty meaningless set of words looking to elicit some sort of approval or “let me get in on that” invitation request. At the end of the day though I just end up wanting to be left alone. I long for endless drives in the middle of the country or in some new corner I’ve never seen. Reporting back to whoever gives a shit what I ever have to say. Reading back to anything I’ve ever written I think that’s what and where I like the most. This idea that I need to be stationary in one place for long periods of time, it’s a shit idea. Actually, everything right now is a shit idea. Maybe next week will work.

Brightly Moved

In the summer we would be stuffed into the car and drive up to the summer place on the lake. Hot and sticking to the seats with some horrible sounding AM radio baseball game he’d make us listen to. Going on rusty old rides and eating grease all weekend, that’s all I really can remember about those weekends. Coming home was always kind of a drag. Back to whatever shitty things were happening at home.

I’m probably lying when I say I don’t like being here. I think it’s more how grey everything is and the memory of this time of year isn’t fond. People love fall around here because of ridiculous things like pumpkin flavored shit is out or apple cider is around a bit more. I like it because the trees look like they’re trying to stab the white sky and the ground is messy and disgusting. Crushed up wet leaves everywhere, dark and dreary around dinner time. Outside on days when it’s not a bright blue and orange day here it constantly looks like what it looks like when you give someone bad news. That’s why I like the fall. I’m not going home to share moments with someone under a blanket and watch movies and drink exotic teas. I find inspiration in this crappy looking place. It inspires me to want to escape and leave before it gets worse here. When the icy cold fingers of New England weather strangle every last bit of desire to be outside from you. Less people around sounds like a good time to someone I’m sure, but at the end of the day everyone goes to bed wishing they were somewhere else.

The short days post Christmas here come back to haunt me. Thinking about crunchy pants after a long day sledding and coming home to TV and warmth and cinnamon and all of that. I hate winter though. I really can’t find a single thing good about it at this point. Being completely uncomfortable, freezing and having nowhere to go for months, no thanks. The last few years pretty much stopped celebrating Christmas, never get a tree, never want a tree or any of that empty symbolic crap in my life. A couple of dinners with family and that’s enough. All of it means absolutely nothing to me at all at this point. This is the bright spot in winter for some I guess. I can’t think it’s worth it. The only thing I can imagine being awesome in the winter is being 3000 miles west of here.

Every time I come home at night here there has been this ball in the driveway. Looks like a tennis ball with all of the color drained out of it. There are no dogs on our street just cats so it’s not from a cat. I briefly thought it might belong to some ghost and then I remembered I don’t really believe in anything like that at all. It was briefly frightening to imagine some ghost of a young boy looking for his ball in my yard in the middle of the night. We have all of these creepy woods behind the house that, if you believed in that crap, would hold all sorts of spirits and ghosts and creatures of the night. They do contain some nice inspiration though.

Some of the people I have had the displeasure of talking to lately, I can’t understand. Well, I think of myself being a complete failure every few hours...and then I think of this one particular dude I have had to talk to online a few times in the past couple of months and shit, I feel so much better. I feel myself get weaker by the day and then I remember this guy exists and I can feel like a much stronger person. I kind of look forward to experiencing more of this guy so I can be inspired to be better.

Regardless of all this inspiration coming from everywhere, most of this is an exercise. Feelings that last for three minutes and go away. I never get angry for more than a few minutes. This place is great for exercising and exorcising. Fiction seems harder to come up with without a little reality though.

100 Best White People I've Ever Met

A mans best friend is not a man or a dog.

Telling me that you care is just one of a million things.

She tells me stories that Mother Goose would kill for.

We speed down the highway, and I still can’t get a commitment.

Wish I was taking a vacation in a month. Don’t ask don’t tell.

We spent weeks at a time together.

Will it stop being the latest issue of the newspaper?

My favorite night this year was in May.

I expected to forget what I went for, and then I found her.

The reasoning behind all of this is grounded in bad punk records.

She is short.  She just waves at me.

Her favorite song was my favorite song 10 years ago.

I hate to think that I am not clear all the time 24 hours a day.

We smoke heroin because we don’t talk to each other anymore.

She is short as well. Real smart. I can’t believe I was in awe of her at one point. “She’s one of us” we say.

There was a small pile of dirt left at my door, methodically placed there to get to me. I hear them out there.

She made me think back to six years ago and go over all sorts of letters and notes.

I have a series of things I need to always do. Never walk down stairs in front of anyone.

My guitar sits there now rusty and out of tune, waiting to be completely retired at any minute.

She sends me messages I never delete

We talk and talk and when it gets down to waking up in the morning, I still have the book open.

I lose touch with people for a day and I feel like an exhaust pipe.

The best thing I remember was looking over and realizing the mountain would not tell me I had a call.

She looked best in the morning. Once a girl can look that good, that early, an inch away, she has me.

We make out and never talk about anything. Nobody knows, and nobody ever will.

She is on my mind more than she’s in my mind.

The other thing I need to do is always flush the toilet when I leave a bathroom, no matter what I did.

Long letters from her are rare but truthful.

It always feels like this when I get around to talking about it. Clear and concise.

I watch them smoke many attractive cigarettes in fifteen minutes.

I acted like I was one of them. I acted like I meant it. I asked for paper.

They complain and complain, wonder if they’ve ever smiled

Once they break in though, they have me. I never let them break in.

I swear I never want anyone to get hurt. I’m always good hearted in the long run.

She wears this shirt that makes me just want to watch television with her.

We had a good time, and then I went on my way. Two more tornadoes, and a brush with the police.

Every morning I need to look out the window for two minutes before shower.

The key is to flip it when you can see that it’s not stuck to the pan.

They are out there, arranging more piles of sand to fuck with me. I hear them.

Disgusting dudes with no cocks.

I take these days in stride now, you can tell me if I am “too much for your mirror”.

I was almost attacked by Stevie Nicks riding a Unicorn last night.

Blues music is my only outlet now. It sucks when you’re not allowed to spit in private.

The night he died.

I wonder how many have tried to forget they even met me

She was scared as a bunny rabbit on crystal meth.

Phil Collins.

Right now, I feel like I could jump out this window and fly.

She, the song by Kiss.

I wish I could run on back to Virginia Beach right now. The only place I’ve ever felt so shitty and so good.

I’m perplexed at how they operate. It’s almost like trying to teach a duck to write poetry.

I never got to cook tons of meals like I wanted to.

There are more than one ways over the moat.

I would piss people off at work, and then ignore them until I face them at the copy machine. Three nails at a time.

I opened up my eyes today. More than they’ve ever been open before.

She made her way in, and looked around, and realized she couldn’t redecorate.

I only lied seventeen times today

The last time I was at an amusement park I fell of the merry-go-round. Now I see stars over everyone.

I knew it was wrong.

We talk about what it will be like to walk around Heaven on Quaaludes.

She has a funny way about her. Even when she is angry with me.

Some day I will stop looking at the hand obsessively.

We walk and argue about who fucked less people.

I knew she was bad news when she asked me if I liked “The Fucking Doors”

Massachusetts has a funny way about making you feel like a goddamn loser.

We play phone tag, and I play connect the dots.

Wait, I think we just killed each other.

I hate them, and when they look at you like they do.

I need to open doors at the bottom of staircases after they have been properly closed.

Wait until I show them all

He comes home, checks his messages, and checks his arms. Everything is there, he sleeps.

That faggot Mark

We drink and I make pretend I’m interested. This is how we get along.

She takes her pretty time while I look at old scratch marks on my left arm.

Finally I find her, and she ignores my eye contact.

Once you have them down, you need to start again. It’s so tedious now.

In your spare time, you should not do what you do in your spare time. You are losing.

Married and never happier, yeah okay.

It’s funny how many times I doubted what was happening to me. Now I write instructions.

The way it goes is this: you work for me, I work for you, and the money goes to the house.

I should probably be worried about this.

Gifts I never gave or received, how sad it that?

He tells me I should go for it. I ask him what he has invested in this. “----- -- ----- --- --------“.

Rain came and I shit my pants.

Not sure if I want to die on cement, or a bed.

I met her and immediately made phone calls the next morning.

My one and only way to catch on is to just move on. Look, I know what you’re doing.

We spent time on the rocks, frozen.

We pretend we don’t see each other, and then I fuck it up.

So exhausted I have to be awake when I sleep.

My one last hope for survival, hmm

We walk on red bricks.

Taking time off from time.

She looked at me once.

It’s lonely out here.

Massachusetts.

Evenings.

Lonely.

Never.

Done.

Out.

New York

Fucked up skills on the microphone. Words coming out twisted like licorice. This big head full of ideas and words to pass around and share. It's none of anyones business really. I guess I make it theirs by typing it here. Nobody should know a fucking thing though really. Hence the occasional fabrication. Hence the backspace key being used more than the space bar. Sometimes though,  I want to say what I need to say, and get the fuck out of Dodge for a couple of days. Nobody seems to understand me. Ha. What a fucking joke of a thing to say. What a cliche' “oh poor me and my loneliness”, “Poor me and my...whatever.”I guess that's why I started doing this in the first place. I meet and greet and walk down the street and smile and frown and get turned upside down. I wanted to come here and make this a place to showcase events and memories posing as photographs and words. This is all I really have. This is all I always have. Not just this place. But words. I have plenty of them too. The same ones I write here, or anywhere else would come out of my mouth no problem. I just never get the five seconds to. I think about them here and then just write them down. I tell others the same things. I tell everyone in the world. Bragger. I tell myself I won't completely cover myself with these words. I can't help feelings and emotions though. I just can't wear a halloween mask. I can't think of other options right now. The telephone doesn't really ring much. I'd love to have 8 messages on the phone when I come home. I'd love to talk to her before I go to sleep at night and tell her about the ridiculous whatevers that happened on a given day. I have ancient history that I want to talk about and words full of sugar and spice and everything nice. I have words and all of that, fuck yeah. Nobody has it like I do for her. As far as I know. I can't get into it all here though. It's not like it's swallowed completely. Maybe it is, and I just don't know it. Maybe it's all too clear. Maybe everything in here from the last few weeks makes sense to somebody. Maybe it scares. Maybe it helps things out. Either way, they're just words that I want to put across. I did it again. I do it every time. I wrap up in this and that is all. Go with the flow. I sure go with the flow. I go the way I'm supposed to go. I make sure I dot the i's and cross the t's. It’s the end of the summer and I'm in a different place then I was at the beginning of the summer...I just have no idea how to drive or walk or read or listen or anything anymore.

I think the state I’ve spent the most time in besides Massachusetts and California is New York. I fucking hate New York though. I hate New York City. I’d go there and do it proper some time and like it as a back drop in books and film, but I can’t imagine ever spending more than say...two days there. All those buildings and people with sneers on their faces and worse accents than the dreaded Massachusetts accent. Upstate New York though, it’s different there. Like a bigger Massachusetts with less shitty people everywhere. If there’s one thing that sucks about New England in general it’s the awful people everywhere you go. Way up north though, upstate way west of Albany things get dark and grey like it is here. Sprawled for miles and miles small towns along Interstate 90 that you’ll never go to ever. Prisons what seems like every fifty yards. Farms and orange cities at night telling you you’re really tired and should probably stop. Anytime you wake up in the morning in upstate New York your main objective is pretty much “Leave upstate New York”. What a glorious big sky it is in the morning though! It’s kind of flat there I guess. There is nowhere really to go but east or west and it’s the same in both directions. Do you want to go back to the ugly state of Massachusetts or to the gateway to somewhere kind of okay and have to be in Ohio for a day?

Having different people through the years come in and out of your life, or what I call “peripheral friends” is painful for the most part. Learning about the habits and retarded ideas they have that presumably lead to them being just that, peripheral. I have no patience anymore for anything like this at this point. Either you’re here or you’re not. I don’t want to give an update to anyone ever, not one I mean. Just remain in your boring ass life and stay there. Leave me alone and be weird somewhere else. I’m not into anything you think I am into. I am not interested in anything you think I’m interested in. I never lied or lead you to believe this, you are just those people who never listen you just talk and talk. A bad ear with a bigger mouth. What makes anyone think they get to just show up and jump right into anything that is already established? The expression “they mean well” is full of shit. Nobody means well, they all have some motive. I don’t believe anything now. I have to be as rude and mean and removed as possible now so I don’t give anything else away. Fuck them.

Relentlessly plowing through my dreams in the middle of the night. In the backyard of every nightmare house that shows up at the tail end of a bad dream. They stand there and try to scare me with whatever they can. It’s always some big house with lots of windows so you don’t have time to check them all to see who is watching you from behind the yellowed drapes. The whole story though, the whole nightmare though. I seem to dream it every night lately. Death, endings, rain, whatever other cliches my subconscious feels I need to be subjected to.

Fuck

Fuck

Ohio

Trying to fall asleep and I think every night I should be reading because my head spends the whole time staring at the floor, my arm, whatever reading thoughts and images going in and out of my brain. Do I really want to forget green yellow and blue for a life of grey and the sound of a trillion people complaining about anything they can. How miserable can they all be? I need some sort of entertaining distraction, fall TV, a thousand books, a million songs I am supposed to learn on guitar and offers to join bands that don’t ever need to exist. Drugs, film and money I could be spending on better things than just coffee and fuel. Watching everyone around me remain a member of some odd fraternity of who knows what. Invitations to parties I wouldn’t have gone to even when I was a winner. I can’t even muster up the energy to reply to emails and phone calls. Unless you’re offering me money or a way to make money, why?

Clouds of poison air hang over me everywhere I go. They end up raining on me and there I am again, not able to breathe or move. Paralyzed and sick. Done for the evening and that kind of thing.  I wish there was a way to just remain in the sun for more than fifteen minutes but I don’t think there is. I’ll never take any kind of drug for this. I’ll never talk to any kind of professional person for this, this is just how it is now. Great. I’ll someday learn to not complain about it so much though.

In the midst of late night games of tag and hide and seek I like to sit back and watch the kids ring around the rosey. It’s a bit sad how people regress in mobs. Mobs, large groups. They get together and all of a sudden muscles are flexed and cocks are pulled out for size comparison. It bothers me that I know some of these people. It bothers me yes; to a point of wrapping my arms around the cool white toilet and vomiting out any memories I might have of any of these people saying things like “Yeah, I’m sensitive”, or “No I’m not a slut”, or “No, I don’t tease men”, or “I care about you, I want you”. No I haven’t taken anyone serious in years. I’ve no need to. Actions speak louder than words. Doesn’t anyone know this? Doesn’t anyone know tales of debauchery have been told to my deaf ear for a million years now? I don’t think so. I don’t tell people how I feel if it’s something I don’t agree with. First off, it’s none of my business. Secondly, I do what I do, they do what they do. There’s no in between anymore. There’s no overlap. The things I want to do are nothing like what anyone wants. I’m a boring guy. I want to stay in, or go out with a couple of people and joke around here and there. I don’t have the fancy guitar work down yet, and I don’t have the lip history. I don’t have many references around here. There is a family of shared saliva that I would rather not have anyfuckingthing to do with at this point. It has gone so far now that it’s become a ridiculous parody of itself. I like to sit back and watch people spiral downwards though. Sometimes it’s the only way to get through to people who are “friends”. You don’t get a word in edgewise, why not just watch them smash into the wall? Then you can walk over with that big shit-eating grin on your face and a glass of iced water with your hand out “I told you so” When they go to grab you hand you pull it away. “I’m off to see the wizard” Girls do their hair up in blue and green and guys do their best Billy Idol impressions, I laugh my head off at them. Sounds like fun honey. Thirdly, No one wants to hear me talk. I have too many opinions. I’d rather leave them in my head or on here where a small number of people I know and don’t know read them. I don’t want to get into telling people what to do more than I want to tell people what not to do. I am no ones father here. Hugs just don’t feel the same when the same arms are wrapped around every warrior around the corner. There’s no personal feeling there. That feels good because it’s strong I guess. What’s happening upstairs though? Air and oxygen. Or lack of oxygen maybe? I don’t feel like falling down anymore. I haven’t fallen down in years, since this past few months. I feel wasted. I feel untouchable. I feel stronger. I feel weaker. Everyday is a new emotion. I like the cool iced water going down my throat. I like being myself. I like to always be myself. I don’t want to act anymore. I’m going to be the guy who plays a bad guitar. I’m going to stay in front of this mirror and beg and plead and pray, but I’m not going to go to the movie shoot this week. I’m not going to go to the scene where the guy walks in and wraps his arms around the girl and says “honey I’m home”. I have no home with anyone. I have no place to rest my head except right behind me with the pillow and the blanket and the dinosaur. I light candles for me, and I fill the room with Nag Champa, but I go at it alone. Sure the door is open for visitors, I just don’t know if the visitors are coming any time soon. I always chase them away with my eyes.

Despite all of this though, I feel like I see the end of the tunnel down there. I mean I think I do, if not. Hrm.

Washington

I feel like I am on fire.

Kansas

Kansas. I was remembering it here and well, it’s flat and yeah I guess pretty boring in the traditional sense. Flat. Truck stop. Flat. Truck stop. Cool looking dead barn. Flat. Truck stop. Repeat forever and eventually reach Colorado which coincidentally is also pretty flat for a long period of time. I assumed I would cross the border into Colorado and all of a sudden be surrounded by snow capped mountains and ski lodges and just wall to wall white people everywhere you look. No, it’s flat for the first two and half to three hours traveling west on Interstate 70. Eventually they start showing up miles away and the next thing you know you’re in Denver which is kind of a boring place to be. Well, I’m sure it’s perfectly fine but I ignored it and flew through it for the most part.

I was in Kansas three or four times in my life. This last time driving through it and I drove through just about 50% of it moving west. After that, the whole state of Colorado. All of this in one day. 720 miles or so. Good times.

A truck stop in Kansas is the kind of place where all the men look like big lesbians and all the women look like big lesbians as well. This last trip through Kansas, a well needed stop that included a Starbucks, a couple of different disgusting fast food choices and lots of travelers as usual, most from the area though. American flag stickers and football fans and whatever else you assume these salt of the earth folk are all about. It is clearly on display in things as simple as how they talk. Not the accents per se, but the way they talk to you, like they don’t trust you with your plates from the North East part of the country. Sometimes this presumed ignorance of people out there is kind of endearing but most of the time it’s sad and you just leave the area not worrying that people in different parts of the country and world have different ideas and opinions than you.

This past weekend ended up being good for the most part. Spent most of Saturday outside with friends enjoying the last remnants of summer in a bright and crispy day outside in a “New Englandy” setting right near where I live. It was a “beer festival”, but didn’t feel like one. I’d have to say if I made a list of things I care about beer would be like # 780. Going back to reality after having good days though, no fun. Sunday played some music which was also refreshing even if it wasn’t music I wrote. I’m kind of rusty on the guitar as I quickly found out. I kind of want to start playing original music again but really, there are at least eleven things I need to do first before I can even think about it. 

The last time I really kind of embraced New England was this past May. Giving a tour of different areas of the three different states we visited here was great and made me appreciate things more out here. Slowly though, they are getting back to the “ugh this place sucks”. I enjoyed having mountains around me. Surrounded by valleys and hills and a bluer ocean than this one we have here. When I picture the ocean here I think of gray and cold and uninviting smells and rocky shores with some tiny beaches snuggled in between them. And then I think of dudes in Patriots jackets walking around.

A year ago yesterday was nerve wracking and amazing and whatever other thirty five adjectives I can’t think of right now. High above the valley with a longtime dream fulfilled and realized. Adventures I’ll remember forever. I don’t really know what’s happened since then. My head brings me to places I never need to be. People I don’t know and people I do know bring me to even worse places. Every two hours I have reminders I see in my peripheral vision or right in front of me taunting me. Every night going to sleep with nothing. Unfulfilling nights staring at the floor wondering what she is up to thousands of miles away. I don’t tell anyone a thing and I certainly wouldn’t listen to a thing at this point. I feel like I have to do it all myself now. I miss her terribly. I miss the California version of her and the Massachusetts version of me.

I have no idea of what I can do or what I should do now. I’m still emptied of ideas and not completely feeling like I am where I need to be. Should I go or should I stay? Everything is kind of flat right now, how I speak and think. One of these nights or days maybe not so much anymore, right now though, it’s flat. Bored days and nights with entertainment from good friends here and there to fill the valleys and turn them into peaks. I imagine if I tried to sing it would be flat as well. As long as above this flat life there are bright dark blue skies and all that goes along with that.