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.