Scorpionic33

Logan Airport

2011-05-30T12:08:00.000-07:00

Trying to lull myself to sleep with melodies that don’t exist yet – with a headache playing the part of the bassist, drummer and annoying guy in the audience it’s a bit hard – every night around 2:30 I need to sort through my list of favorite and least favorite people and situations – about three hours later I am up for the day and they are all still there – I don’t trust them for nothing at this point – I learned in the 7^th grade about all of them – here I am three hundred thousand full of shits later in the same place – I wonder if there is a secret network – they meet weekly and talk about the different ways they can tell stories – they discuss the different lies they tell – they have initiation ceremonies where they have to tell a certain amount of lies – they have badges they wear – around here though – they’re all the same – empty and full of stories about each other – all the women they talk about each other – I can gather stories to write later – empty sexual experiences in an attempt to escape – none of it fulfilling in the least bit – I don’t trust or believe a thing any of them say – they truly are all crazy – every last one of them – even the ones I like – soon enough though – a group of more of them – strangers to me now – I just want to be far away from here – never come back ever – this whole place and everything about it pinches my last nerves – every morning – every evening – they give me more reason to push on - my next plan is kind of shitty of me – at the end of the day though – who really cares they’ll all disappear in an instant – the minute I turn the key.

For however many days now they tease you with brightness – behind a wall of fake old fishing towns and cute looking beaches – inspiration is coming from nowhere aside from bad places – I’ll sit here for hours and stare at nothing – getting nothing done here – going nowhere here – feel like exploding though – with not a real soul to prove they have a soul it’s hard to trust or care about anyone at this point – the future is brighter though – for now though spending every other frustrating moment sighing through the afternoon and evening like a pussy – surrounding myself with shit everyday is not helping – I just want to destroy them all – getting involved in anyone’s business – getting attention from all the wrong places – from the wrong people – spending quality time – remember that – they give me the wrong advice – tell me to get over it – telling me things I need to do and say – escape comes in twenty different ways – lately though – planting bombs around – ticking bombs that will explode long after I hang the out of business sign up

A little bit over a year now – I felt deep down it would be a final goodbye in person – airports they always screw me over somehow – nothing good ever comes of airports – don’t tell me to get over it and get over her – it’s not like that – with nothing to care about here anymore it seemed like an idea at the time – now going back even further – high up on some building overlooking a small section of a city I’d never be able to find again anyway– I should have stayed there – there was no way though – every time I think back to any of those moments they are all highlights of the last however many romances and courtships – never again though – that kind of thing only happens a few times a life – I had my few – I have no time or space in my head for any of this noise – distant memories – what did her voice sound like again – what did her eyes do when we sat across from each other – all of it useless now – none of it does any good for anyone.

Nevada

2011-05-22T23:24:00.000-07:00

They’re all the same to me now – running in one long distant memory of how I thought I wanted things to be – all of it empty now – even as recent as this year – I waited in this old haunted house – high above the ocean – this house painted a grim dusty white – who knows what lives in here or what lived in here – memories of parties and outdoor barbecues – pieces of it falling off down into the ocean every winter evening – the wind blows chips of paint all over the driveway and forms a pile of pale white and orange leaves every fall – and here I sit waiting for the mail to arrive – waiting for letters that were never sent in the first place – waiting for something to break in a good way or a bad way – waiting out storms huddles in a dark corner – there is no furniture anywhere in this house and it almost feels like there never has been – ghosts and spiders lurk in the empty closets ready to haunt my brain if I even attempt to go to sleep – I can’t sleep and never have been able to sleep here – at night a light outside keeps me awake – high on a mountain a tower with lights on it – this mysterious tower that sits there proud in the day – at night it becomes a nightmare – a giant steel gargoyle that forces my eyes open – they come and haunt me though – every last one of them and their tired conversations and gossip – do they all know each other – it would appear so – they have all learned from the same playbook – none of them loyal to one another – when I am far from here I’ll forget about it all – the same and the same - sometimes I catch myself trying to remember who told me something – days spent absorbing teenaged philosophies and twenty-something ideas about how shit is – they have no idea – some nights I just want to say ‘go fuck yourself’ to all of it and – oh well.

Virginia

2011-05-16T10:27:00.000-07:00

Creepy late night dreams can only keep me up so long – there are no ghosts or devils walking around in here – only made up stories to keep me awake – to give myself excuses to scare myself – I need a white room – a black room – nothing on the walls – no internet access – no toys – cacophonous music with no melody – no memories of “oh man her eyes kill me” to keep me from the task at hand – no running arguments in my head – wherever I can pry focus from under the foot of my horribly designed brain I’ll take it – half of the time it only shows up for an hour at a time and then disguises itself as rage and anger and bad prose designed to confuse women from twenty seven years ago – (they’re not reading anyway) – when I get myself set on a goal though – a specific big goal – I can make all of this disappear – focus can easily become something else – fueled by conversations with weaklings and people I’m not going to end up caring about in a year anyway – humoring my way through a million shallow conversations - this task – leaving this awful place and never returning – has given me enough to do for five people – I feel liberated and ready this time though – without anything else in the way I could make it happen before the days turn grey and cold again – right now though – nothing is happening here – feeling like a ghost with no home right now – no real connection to anyone or anything here – no ongoing dialog or close knit gathering of ideas – weekends blending into each other like they always have – playing this never ending waiting game – coming up from the depths of a however many months long whine festival – I feel like a pussy – I’ll go like one as well – sneak out the back door – hide for the rest of whenever – remove my rear view mirror - drive as fast as I possibly can

Colorado

2011-05-08T23:17:00.000-07:00

(5/?/11 – Trying to maintain without the luxury of closure is making things more and more difficult)

Spending random weekend nights walking around book stores and coming home and coming up with ideas in my head of how things should be – I don’t have to be doing this here – it’s cold and people are colder here – if I put things into action without anyone knowing – I can slip out the back door easy – I can make it by the next sunset - this place and everything I know about it is tired and hundreds of years old – yet again though – I don’t belong to anything or anyone here – there is no sort of inspiration here – there is nothing but sadness desperation and a longing to just be left alone – I walk around on edge now – snapping at every third person who asks me a stupid question – I think back though – fucking in hotels and relishing in mountains and bright blue oceans – sure it will be different this time

I’m not bitter when they tell me of the restaurants and Radiohead concerts these dudes take them to - I’m not worried about what I need to do - it all sounds like a nightmare - courtships and checking your phone and inbox every fifteen minutes - at this point I’ll never get out of this blue without some sort of permanent damage though - these long days and longer routines I have myself involved in are eternal – I get this fire burning inside me – a hatred – a leave me alone please everything you talk about is incorrect – they try to impress or make a better joke and it falls flat – I try not to worry too much about it – trying to imagine a point in time when I can be covered in sunlight all day and covering pages and pages with words that make sense – this tries to keep me going – it’s the same tired old five hundred words I don’t even need to say though – surrounded by nothing all day – the rope is slowly becoming shorter and shorter – I feel myself ready to jump

(9/15/2000 -You put me here, I swear to fucking god you put me here. Listen, let’s try and start from the beginning. Well, no let’s not, you won’t allow that. In fact you won’t allow a word in edge wise here. You won’t let me get you a drink of water to clean your dirty soul out. You won’t allow me to do anything to you at this point. So long to the days of cheerios and stares out the car window. It’s been turned around now. It’s not the same, it’s never going to be the same. I stop. I stop everything, and now I go from town to town checking the mailboxes of housewives and thieves. These girls come up to me with a little display case that has a bunch of wedding rings in it, they tell me to pick one out for them. I pick out the ring, the best one I can see in that little leather case. I hand it to one of the girls and she says to me “this isn’t good enough for me, neither are you” and walks away. Ha! Sound familiar? Not really true but. I can’t picture what the hell you look like. When I see you from time to time you are someone else, regardless of what’s happened on the street and in the swimming pool, you are someone else. Forget your hair, forget your body, forget your clothes, you look at me differently. You don’t look at anyone like you used to. You certainly won’t give me a dime to call a taxi home that’s for sure. I bet at some point I will kick myself for not being more persistent with you. For not writing a book about you, for not taking drives off of canyons for you. I’ll regret that I didn’t take you to the edge of my head with me. I’ll regret that I ever kissed you. I’ll tell you that. I’ll tell you it was the worst night of my life. I am going to tell you that the next time I see you. I’m going to just tell you straight up that kissing you was not on my agenda. I woke up and next thing I know I’m thrown into this world of parties and bad rockabilly music and dumb drinks and even dumber shoes. I still remember where everything in that room is. I still remember where my feet landed on the floor the first time I got up. I looked at my feet to see if I could stand up. I looked to see if I would fall over. Little boys and cocaine addicts tremble, but you sort of made me tremble. Just a little bit. I get up, I get down and I turn back around again, and poof your gone. Just like that. In a cloud of perfume and menthol cigarette smoke, in a cloud of rum oxygen and conversations I get lifted certain times of the day. This fact makes me not really regret that I ever kissed you, it does however make me want to strangle Mick Jagger some nights. It makes me want to throw ashtrays against the wall. It makes me look at guys with pierced tongues and eyebrows and all of that and want to throw a hammer at them.I put these new girls to sleep at midnight. I put you to sleep when I go to sleep. You stay up with me, you out stay me every night. You don't come up for air. Relentlessly plowing through my dreams at night. Fuck that I can’t listen to your rules anymore. You fill me up from time to time, yeah. Not all the time. It’s a short and sweet time of the year right now. It’s none of what you thought it was. All along I played with that yo-yo, hoping you would follow it with your eyes enough to become a target. A target for me to throw my issues at. Like the paperboy in the morning. I’ll whip something at your screen door baby. I’ll whip my issues at your door, and you can send whoever is your pet dog at the time to go and get it for you)

(?/?/?? - Funny how time flies and they all fly away from me. They take off like pigeons. Rats with wings. They show up for a minute or two, think they got to know me, and fly away into the wind. No looking back or anything. There are no apologies. They come by the house now and again, and make believe they care, I make believe I care, and we go our separate ways. It bothers me that I put effort into things and they just sort of linger around collecting dust. It bothers me that I am not happy with all of this. There really is no reason to be happy about it. You were had honey bunch. Sipping coffee late at night waiting for the efforts to be rewarded with at least a phone call, or some sort of poem on a napkin. Any sign of anything would help out big time here with me. I don’t want to go backwards. There are people I want to hurt now. There are people from last week I want to hurt. There are people from the movie that I want to hurt. I have a few allies in this war I’m waging right now. We have secret meetings disguised as dinner dates. We look like the couple of the moment, while we plot revenge and fun things like that. She meets me for a drink and we make it back to my house. I lend her books, tell her a quick story about “this one night in Chicago a while back”, give her a peck on the cheek, and the phone doesn’t ring for fifteen weeks. The phone rings with people selling sneakers disguised as literature and shiny photography. We meet again, she never read the books I leant her, and we go our separate ways again. The next meeting of the secret ninja society will be on October 11th 2011, at the parking lot of the restaurant we always meet at. The same parking space and everything. We shall meet there, and there we will finally get to the bottom of this. The plan will be under way, and we can sit back and watch it happen. You and I, we’ll go back to the beach one more time and talk about old families, and sports and cheerleaders, and vegetarians, and Reagan. Why it always bothers me that you come around like Halley’s Comet is beyond me. You rarely have many words to say, and when you do, it’s sugar and fire all wrapped into one big kiss. You bring out the kid in me, I swear to god you do. But you ain’t going to fully understand what I have for a plan. You’re not going to help me whatsoever. It makes it weak when you add your two cents. I’ll do all the work, you watch. I got involved with this girl Diane a long time ago. The most beautiful girl you could ever imagine to see in your whole entire life. We became fast friends, and I eventually developed the biggest crush in the world on her. She was completely crazy. Her mother had died, and she lived in the attic of her aunt's house. No boys allowed. I found letters from her a while back. All sorts of shit about birds flying around her room in the middle of the night, and her mother coming in the room after she had died. I remember every once in a while she would just disappear. Weeks at a time. She would just not answer the phone. I want to see her now. I was so into her. Yikes. I’d pay one hundred dollars just to see her once and hang out. Dreadlocks and babies are all I know about her as of 8 years ago. I would be able to make more apologies if I was given the time. I never have time to apologize though. I have plenty of time to dwell on things though. I have plenty of time to hang out and watch the river flow by me for a few hours. I have no time to sit down over a cup of tea, and discuss wrongdoings. I created a clone recently that I want to show people. I created a secret ninja out of thin air. I wanted him to be just like me. Bored, lonely, misunderstood, and all of that fun stuff. I hang out with the clone all the time and he tells his friends about me, I don’t mention a word of it to anyone though. Nobody believes you when you talk that kind of game. They don’t believe in magic like that. You can make anything. You can do all sorts of things when you keep your mind to it. Pin the mind to the wheel. Pin your tail on the honkey. I enjoy my new friend. If nobody else does, well, fuck them. There’s no way I can think back to the summer. Nights of high doubt. Nights of guilt. No I just can’t stay here tonight. Nights of feeling like a stranger. Feeling like a loser. A husband and a friend. Honest, and to the point, but a complete liar as well. Drive and use gasoline to get something you think you really need. Try it some time. Know exactly what it is you’re doing without regard to other peoples’ feelings. See how it makes you feel. Be the one who hurts others for self gain and doesn’t think about the consequences, or karma. A fake and a liar for five hours a night. I can’t get on the floor. I need to crawl across the floor. Let’s take a ride to the beach you and I. You never won my attention. But I won your's somehow. I look back and punch myself in the face for all of that. This is really what I look like, but this isn’t what I feel like. I swear to god I didn’t want to get it out of me with you. I miss you now. I kicked myself in the head last week thinking about you. Thanks for sending the karma back to me though. I deserve the games played with me now. I deserve whatever happens now. Do I really deserve this over and over though? I mean it wasn’t that long. You always initiated it. You always started it. Not saying a word to me. I knew the minute I met you that I was going to hell. I knew the minute I met you exactly what you would say to me. I knew all about you and your life. You told me in vague sentences about boys and girls and kisses and roses. I gave you ten minutes, you gave me hours, and what did I do? I took advantage of that, and now look at me. I haven’t had enough yet. I haven’t felt alive like this in a long time. Dear, I will never lie again.)

This Beach

2011-05-02T23:15:00.000-07:00

Halfway through every tired conversation and I’m out - on the beach - at the top of a hill looking over the water - sitting on some bench - escapism every fifteen minutes - I make jokes about how uncomfortable it all really is here - really though - I am somewhere else completely - this existence here - a failure waiting to happen - no fun in the sun to be had - losing inspiration and anything remotely creative as the days tick by -I sleep even less now - in bed by 2:00, awake at 4:30 - back to sleep sporadically for a couple of hours - listen to myself drive myself crazy all morning - driving to a routine - driving home to a routine - no sign of escape in sight - i made a horrible mistake not growing up five months ago - some days and nights I truly need to be left alone though

(10/19/10 - When I think of how angry she has made me it saddens me. Thinking about how happy we were when we met and that general way we talked to each other and talk to each other when we are in “normal” times. To go from that to the way we are now, which is just on the edge, ready to strangle each other and kill each other at any moment is shitty. Not where I wanted to ever get with her. She makes me just angry as hell. I go to sleep angry over and over with her. There were nights I wasn’t going to bed like that for a little while. At the very least I can try and exhaust myself into sleeping every night now. I can get myself into and out of situations real easy.)

The way the November sun hit her hair was like gold - why are you talking to me - I fuck things up all the time though - I don’t follow through with them - a series of ideas and things to think about - ended - never realized until later- hmm, this would be what I would tell my therapist if I had one - that sounds like a waste of time and energy though doesn’t it?

(10/15/10 - These intense vivid memories of things her and I did, good ones and bad ones. I can remember her face but I can’t remember what it’s like to hold her in my arms. The relationship based on words and photographs. How odd. I wonder how to turn this into a story that isn’t necessarily mean or anything, but how hard I can fall with just that little part of a relationship there. Seeing each other for a year and not making it whole for long enough. I can remember all the hellos and goodbyes in airports and parking lots of hotels. Some of them after intense fights. I never had these kinds of fights with anyone before. )

Feeling suspicious and watching some people - feeling like I know motives and feelings before they happen now - weak - I stand looking clueless around - I see the clues though - disgusted even more now - knowing all of these close people lie and lie to each other - i mean granted I do too - so what’s the big deal really?

(7/31/10 - Turning into a cliche every twelve minutes of my life. Daily angst filled rants swirling around in my head.)

It’s nice to not have to answer the phone - it’s nice to not have to tell anyone about your day - it’s nice all of this - kind of just show up and talk - you get this nice circle of friends - spend some one on time with a few of them here and there - pretty girls - interesting conversations and dark eyes - any other decade and you’d be falling all over yourself - writing ill-advised notes to women who barely want to even hug you - writing horrible journal entries by hand - good God

(4/7/10 - Back in Massachusetts now. Living at home and after three nights I feel like I am ready to explode. I need to get out and soon. She is going to come here in May to visit. The whole thing is getting weirder now, but I am just kind of going with it.)

Yeah right

Hawaii

2011-04-26T22:49:00.000-07:00

These routines and calls out for attention are not just that – Who cares about a clueless party of thieves anyway – at this point everything written out and photographed for me to see – it’s almost like I took some brief trip – now back to whatever level of hell you call this – New England – with baseball games already being played as black skinny fingers longing to be full of green point at the sky still – while the air is still always white and misty – they walk around with fifteen different chips on their shoulders about nothing and everyone – people telling me I am making a mistake – people trying to give me even half a reason to experience slippery roads and chimneys spewing out adorable Christmas smoke one more time – not knowing me – have you ever listened to anything I said – I see groups imploding again – people working against people – doing the same shady business transactions they’ve been doing all along – blind men – blind women – I plant seeds in brains and dump water – I’ll soon be far away and only read about what blossomed out of it – wondering who else will be let down and if I even care at this point – things and stuff and places and people are older now – I have nothing new to offer here and this place has nothing to offer me – I’ve exhausted all the things that can get me high here – I’ve got nothing to lose or win now aside from a severe case of sanity – one more night without a small space to call mine is enough to push me – one more “yeah I’ll give you a call” followed by silence is enough – one more “wait, what?” is enough – really though there is nothing going on here – everything - and nothing all at once

People Magazine's Top 23 Sexiest Women

2011-04-17T23:16:00.000-07:00

23. A million awful blues songs could have been wrapped around her neck like an albatross. She thinks everyone is in love with her, I see right through her though; her eyes have no color.

22. I walk in and look for you across the room. Who knows if you even remember what I look like? Who knows if you have ever seen me? You ignored me again yesterday. You took advantage of your eyes and looked at me for a half a second today though. You took advantage of me. No phone number. No little note stuck on my car windshield. Another day you don’t know I exist goes by. I go home and look forward to you, and you go home and wonder why nobody talks to you.

21. My only real memory of her now is her tongue. Her only memory of me is my saying “no, bad idea” The last time I saw her I was this close to her. “This close” I said to myself. Leaving her in the bushes behind a hamburger joint would have been a good idea. Her friends would have killed me though. I remember her lovely tongue though. How funny the same tongue that spewed so much garbage was responsible for an enjoyable late night meeting such as that one. I sometimes wish I had wings to fly away from girls like that. Quickly fly away.

20. I think she has green eyes. You know what they say about the ones with green eyes.

19. I turned out the lights for the fifth time and opened the drapes an inch. That prostitute was still out there on the balcony. I think she saw me. Beautiful black woman. I waited for her to walk by the room again. She walked by looking around at windows. It looked like she looked right at me, she looked right through me though. I heard her cough walking down the balcony and back towards me. Just as she was about to walk by my room, I opened the door and made believe I was going to get something out of my car. We exchanged hellos and she asked me where I was from. I invited her in to smoke a joint. We put the television on, and lay on my bed while Charles Mingus plucked away in the background. She wasn’t a prostitute. She was a dancer from across the street, she was supposed to meet a friend there, and ended up stoned on my bed, not thinking anything about money. I told her I enjoyed her city, and was surprised there weren’t more cowboy hats around. I was pretty stoned when I told her she could stay in the room for as long as she wanted; I was a night owl. She responded with a kiss on my cheek, and left.

18. The ones I am truly in love with. I never think about them much, they are just sitting there in the back of my head for good.

17. It took him three or four tries, but he finally asked out that girl from accounting. She made him feel like jelly when he caught little glimpses of her. She made him develop a stutter in front of xerox machines. She couldn’t look at him, so he thought she was “probably a bitch”. He finally took her out though. One evening in the fall he took her to dinner, and for a ride in his car. They talked about music and boyfriends and girlfriends. He realized one thing. She was better off a ghost. She was better off as a mystery. Shrouded in manilla folders and paperwork, and paper clips and water coolers. The best thing about his date was that walk of hers. She had this walk about her that was one of the main selling points about her. Some sort of perfect balance of confidence and insecurity wrapped up in some mysterious costume of short skirts and dark eye liner. Walking to his car he realized he was in love with how she walked. She did this cute little strut. That was all he wanted. He didn’t want to kiss her. He didn’t want to see her naked. He didn’t want to know about her experience living in the city with roommates from hell. He didn’t want to take off his clothes in front of her. He wanted to watch her walk.

16. So I guess I was fooled then. I guess I was fooled, but in a fun polite kind of way. You sort of knew what you were doing. Holding this fresh orange carrot in front of my face, only to reveal a yam. Holding a stack of hundred dollar bills in front of my face. Holding yourself hostage for me would be the best thing you could do. I think the bus will go by that route. I think we can pick you up when ever you get yourself ready. So before we do get this bus in third gear, what is it exactly that you needed to tell me? Why should I believe you are who you say you are? For all I know, you could be the enemy. Your hair color is incorrect. You’re taking a look to see me and I see you every couple of days. With a quick brush of your hand you could probably knock me over I feel so fucking light around you. You could easily take the steering wheel and drive us to Vegas to put all the money down on one game. One game of chance we would play together. Split the money immediately, so as not to cause any future friction. Take out some sort of insurance policy for my life so you don’t shoot me in the temple. Now that I think about it, there is no need for me to date women who are taller than me.

15. Hey hey mama, gonna make you throw up. Hey hey mama, gonna make you burn gonna make you throw up.

14. She ain’t really the devil, she just talks like that. I look into her eyes, and I see big dark red valleys. Fire and blood, and red and steam and demons and fire and red and blood and valleys full of demons and steam and smoke and fire and red and her eyes and blood and the valley the demons the red blood in the valley the smoke coming out of the demon. She comes to me every night. She comes to me and tells me which of my hands is the “devil hand”. I am to not use this hand until I am instructed to do so. I will obey her and her army of demons.

13. Your favorite Van Halen songs

12. Sloped on the stiff motel bed I flipped through five horrible local television channels and turned the sound off. It took me about ten minutes, but I did it: I dialed her number. I knew it was a bad idea. I knew a big reason why the trip was such a success. I needed to get away, and I needed to be away from her, for her benefit more than mine. I had given her a letter before I left, written in my favorite font and everything. I should have left it alone though, but I called her. The conversation was as lonely as the parking lot of the motel I was in. I looked at the map and checked off when I would be able to call her again. Halfway between Knoxville and Chapel Hill.

11. We drove around in my car all night sometimes. Talking about music, books, film, boys, girls, all that good stuff. I do better around women. I have way more women friends than guy ones. Men are boring. This is what men talk about when they are together with other men: computer equipment/video games, sports, the internet. Her and I though, we would talk all sorts of shit. Divorce, our sex lives, our families, everything. We could open up. I can’t picture ever talking with her about computers or anything like that. It’s like a special event when I hang out with her. Nowadays, it’s rare, and good when I do. Someday I wonder if we’ll talk about our wives and husbands.

10. Big fat Debbie dancing with a Michelob bottle in a garage lip-synching the AC/DC song “You Shook Me All Night Long”

9. Her and I woke up one morning and decided to make breakfast. I hadn’t cooked for her in quite a while. I loved Sunday mornings with her. The winter mornings, looking out at the back yard, and the snow and trees and bare clothesline. She came over to me as I inhaled the steam coming off the hot coffee, and put her arms around my neck. The next Sunday I was in my own bed until three in the afternoon, while she fed the birds with a new pair of shoes.

8. I was a shithead to her husband back when we were young and dumb and teenaged. Years later, in my 40’s his wife is sending me pictures of her body parts and plans to meet up for coffee in the afternoon while he's off at work. Wow they all do lie don’t they?

7. I only hired her so I could look at her all day.

6. She wanted to be like her mother. She told herself that alcoholism, and addictive personality was hereditary. What she failed to realize was that she was just weak. She didn’t learn any lessons from watching mommy crying in the kitchen all night. Remember those nights lying in bed listening to the faint sounds of your mother crying in the kitchen? They would get louder and louder. Your little ten year old sister didn’t know what was wrong with mommy. Your father did the right thing, tried to get her help once. It didn’t work once, so he left. Smart man. You can’t count on the alcoholics. It’s a disease or something like that. If mommy gets it, you get it. You watched what it did to mommy in the kitchen. Now you sit in some dark bar waiting for that one guy to take you home and fill you up like the daddy you never had.

5. She held me down with her arms and kissed me like nobody had ever kissed me before. The worst kiss of my life. The worst lay of my life, she. I can picture her face right now. Way too interested. Please, don’t say my name when I do this to you, I want to get home in time for Letterman, and I don’t need anymore guilt than I already have.

4. I emerge from the lake and walk up the sand and dirt. I walk towards the cabin we rented. They are all in there, the three other couples. Playing cards, smoking cigarettes, and drinking beer. It’s noon on a Sunday. The cabin is filled with crazies. The crazies laugh and joke. My date is sitting on the couch with some sort of exotic drink between her legs. I walk over and tell her that we need to go out to the lake. I found something in the lake. She says she will join me later in the afternoon. I make my way back out to the lake and float around on a raft. I fall asleep and wake up on the other side of the lake. There is a cabin that looks similar to the one I was staying at. There are people inside playing cards, smoking cigarettes, and drinking beer. It’s one in the afternoon on a Sunday. There is a woman sitting on the couch with an exotic drink between her legs. I tell her she should join me in the lake. We go to the lake and I show her what I found. Solitude. I show her this, and tell her to go back to her mediocre life in the cabin.

3. I am not going to entertain any of the ideas she throws at me. She wasted me. Years ago I met her in a subway station. I am not taking her drugs she offers. The drugs she offers are lips and knowledge of Swedish films that ruins any amount of pride I may have in my open mind.

2. The last eleven waitresses I have had

1. Dreams and nightmares are not occupied with her and her amazing hair anymore.

New Mexico

2011-04-11T22:37:00.000-07:00

Maybe I need a woman around to make me less crazy – one that will make me go one way and one way only – instead of going up and down every few hours – a drug for me to ingest – I wonder what those real drugs do to people – I can’t think of ever doing them – seems like you stay on them forever and you’re still crazy anyway – a woman with a nice straight head on her shoulders – one who doesn’t care about shallow things like most women I know – one who doesn’t lie constantly – one who isn’t insecure – I’m just kidding – with good weather comes better moods they say – April showers bring May flowers and all of that – April is almost over it seems – every week now, flying by like so many memories of miles logged – like when you forget where you are and how fast you’re going – Zen and the art of not driving like some asshole in the North East – blurry white and blue and green and all the colors marijuana can bring out for you with a plate of iced cold water and cigarettes – dizzy from loud music - happy you are nowhere to be found – maps hidden in the trunk – internet and phone access your twelfth priority – memories of pussy you ate three years ago now a distant memory – the idea of someone in the passenger seat sounds like the worst idea possible so you keep this all to yourself – talk about it constantly like an old guy talking about different cops he knew back in “my day when a man was a man” – at night though, when you are flat and everything is a straight line and there is nothing but black and warm air flying through your vehicle – the sound of whatever your sixteen favorite songs that day are at top volume playing over and over – how great it would be to share – I can never figure out if I want to share those moments with someone or just experience them myself and then talk about them.

Wisconsin

2011-04-07T23:30:00.000-07:00

No secret messages ever reach me now – I hit myself over the head with a trillion ideas without any kind of focus – all of these dreams, scattered and quite the mess – my communication skills are at an all time low – this happens every – well this happens every few days – I give up and give in to whatever – I can spend time with certain people and be content and eternal – I can spend time and not be able to make any eye contact because it pains me to think of how wrong it is – I can spend time with women and only women I desire – they all see through me – there is a closeness I feel to some people I don’t get with anyone else – I tell them everything – I don’t tell any men anything now – I forget e-mails happen and can’t tell what day it is – late at night though when everyone is sleeping off their headaches and their “fuck that day sucked” – when the women I want to span time with are having some empty experience far away – I sit here and make up stories about the east coast and how horrible it is – it really is – when I leave here for good – sooner than later as planned – I can’t make it back this time – sirens and muses – fuck them all – I can't let them drag me away – I have so many things to do and none can be done here – none of the stations come in here – that sound you hear in between radio stations – men and women speaking some language underneath a blanket of black and white dots – I hear that and it keeps me up all night – I think of her voice and her eyes and her laugh and her smile and it’s fresh in my head as it should be – it’s none of my business though – we’re like family – everyone knows but me – everyone knows but her – a useless batch of ideas inside me that will never happen – why I ever tell anyone anything is beyond me – they all lie and fill each other with worse stories – the men all want to fuck the women and the women all want to make pretend they don’t see a thing – we all know – I watch and listen and read all about it – it’s on the front page of my inbox every three days – more obvious than last time – I see it – whoever doesn’t see it, well they just don’t want to – each time I make less sense the better off I’ll be – I don’t want them knowing anything about me at this point – none of them – watch them as they change into their summer clothes – watch them as they think the winter is over – you can see the ice cold grey winter surrounding every one of them – white, cold and emotionless – good luck with that.

Delaware

2011-04-01T20:35:00.000-07:00

This place is bleak the end of a novel always cold here and there everyone seems to want a piece of your time to talk about empty bottles left on a shelf it’s like a giant vampire as it sucks everything out of me and makes itself even more of an asshole everything and everywhere forcing me to spend weekends hiding out in the cellar coming up for air and food and music and books and film and pussy and caffeine forcing me to reevaluate where and when I want to come out. Black horns help me out on blah blah blah Friday nights like this one and the one before and the one after it. I lost out on all of my old party contacts. Grey hair and a need to just shut up for the night keeping me content and never depressed even though I seem it. I just want to get away. This place, they all need some sort of an escape method; alcohol, drugs, constant television so they don’t have to talk to each other. I want to do the complete opposite of this, sit around and listen to some stupid girl talk about this and that and everything in between. Sit around and listen to some smart chick talk about this and that and everything else. I don’t want to listen to men complain they are fat or men complain they are cold or women complain about potholes in the road or women complain about how so and so from thirty four years ago wronged them. All of them drag me down and make me talk to myself about life and how to live it. I guess I am retiring.

Medicine For a Nightmare

2011-03-28T20:09:00.000-07:00

Without the aid of drugs or making the eyes tired I’m kept awake by constant noise in my brain - like an echo chamber – voices of a million ideas and people from throughout the day still talking to me – memories from six years ago – conversations from last week – lines from movies I hated – women from thirty-six years ago complaining about how cold it is – standing around outside waiting to see something more exciting on the dry pavement – flat worn down cigarette butts – pebbles – plastic bottle caps – pebbles – sand – footprints – everything a cold grey color – they all stare at their feet when they talk to me – warm green eyes – warm hazel eyes – warm blue eyes – dark brown eyes that are truly the only ones I want staring at me – I can’t even look her in the eye without trembling – she is the one I would stop listening to music for – she can crush me in a second with her smile – I can’t ever – I will never know what this is about – drifting further away is going to make it all better maybe – I can make them all laugh – I can piss them off to no end – wide awake late into the night though – wondering who even gives a shit – wondering if any of them ever think of me anymore – I think of them all now – this last time though – I never felt stronger – left to feel weak and guilty like I did wrong – the echoes as I try to sleep – I wonder how drugs might help again – I hear voices and laughter – voices of people I haven’t met yet – voices of the last thirty women I wanted to fuck the shit out of – voices of the ones who are of no consequence anymore – when I am far away from here – sitting on a bench looking over the night peppered with orange freckles – a valley of dreams and where I always wanted to die – long boulevards of strangers and friends and hey look it’s open all night – like a grid – I stood up there in September one night – the beginning of what I thought was the best story I could ever write – medicine for a nightmare – a cure for an ailment that never existed in the first place – back and forth and back and forth and back and forth – whatever the case – anyone who tries to judge me now – the fire and energy from a trillion suns on everyone they’ve ever loved – I spend nights listening to nobody – an empty head full of ideas I can’t hear because of all this other static – when I get to an nice open space though – when high above me a black ceiling with billions of stars confusing me and my eyes – relaxing my eyes and pointing me in the desired direction – when I am there I’ll know I’m finally on my way home – these days silence only happens for five minutes at a time – I can’t spend another grey season in this echo chamber – the sound of a distant signal high upon a mountain lulling me to sleep – remember that?

(shhh)/Peace(ful)

2011-03-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

At the tail end of yet another never ending ice age standing at the edge of a cliff looking towards where the sun falls out of the sky.

People sit and watch it every night.

Here though, nobody pays any attention. This is not where or how I want to spend eternity.

Cold weather and colder people

Long forgotten promises and conversations

Like spending your life waiting for something you want to happen

This time I can make it happen

Every March is like this

Every winter does this

I make better decisions when I am straight

Sober

So whatever decision I just made, it’s the only one I ever need to make

This place and everything about it, no.

She'll Laugh

2011-03-16T22:33:00.000-07:00

It’s perfectly okay to forget about places and people and things you did

I could worry myself to sleep like the best of them

Nowadays I just fall asleep empty with not a care in the world

No wondering if I pissed one or five people off

No wondering when I might get the courage up to leave everything and everyone alone

I really want to do it all again, try it again

Sooner than I think I will

This place

This area of the country

This state

This life right now

There are no rewards

There is contentment

I never “can’t wait to get up tomorrow” anymore

Like a machine here though

I do it every day

Everything I thought was back here isn’t here at all

Everything and everyone is the same

Cold, selfish, uninterested in anything I am interested in

It’s like everything here moved ahead (backwards?) while I was gone

I have no desire to catch up really

This New England place, it’s incorrect

I have nothing in common with it

Lying and saying “I’m a New England person” sounds good

Looks okay on paper I guess

When I think of steel, sunlight and blank skies though

I feel like myself all over again

I guess you can be wrong a few times in a row before you get it right

-------------------

She comes to me every few weeks - I remember how in love with her I can get - I remember how in love with her deep eyes I can be - Her laugh and hands and smile - I can never have that ever really - every few weeks though I return

Golden

2011-03-06T20:10:00.000-08:00

I feel like I am constantly blue because my feelings are all ghosts now

There’s nothing deep happening at all

A guy who goes to work and has some people around from time to time

At this point I’ll never really get that much closer

I don’t need to really

All of the people I talk to regularly are women

Even just being friends with women you see how emotional they are

They all cry constantly

All they ever fucking do is cry

Listening to what is important to them

I ignore and wonder if that one John Coltrane album is in that one box or on that one shelf

At the end of the day though

Listening to a woman talk is easier than listening to men talk

Since I came back here I feel like I write the same sentences over and over. Even though “everything is going great”, at the end of the night it really isn’t. Here I am like so many warm nights under palm trees and whatever the song of the week was at that time. I listen to all of those songs now. Valentine’s Day I spent listening to the soundtrack of a snake of a road trip along the brighter ocean from however many Septembers ago that was. Now at work there is a calendar hung near me with a picture of that rock we stopped at just north of Malibu. To say I miss things is wrong. I’m disappointed in everything, myself included. Some nights, well most nights I realize I’ll never have those feelings for anyone ever again. Not that intense as they were leading up to the first night we spent together. I meet women or talk to them and don’t have anything her and I initially had. Apparently it wasn’t as real to her I guess. Pretty sure she is way far gone now. Pretty much done looking for anything like that and am never going to settle. Telling myself what to do sounds like a better option in the long run anyway, who wants to become one of these dudes attached at the hip to some chick all day every day at this point?

I feel something inside

Like way down deep

Something unsatisfied

Like I want a cigarette

Or to get high

Drunk

I can't take any of that seriously

I barely sleep maybe it could help?

At the end of the night I fall asleep

I rest easy not tossing and turning

Weeping about eyes and hair

It's the waking in the middle of the night

I need to go somewhere

Do something different

15 Lies I've Told

2011-02-15T23:02:00.000-08:00

a) Discordant guitars in place of women complaining in my ear every twelve minutes

b) Going to sleep never – remembering winding through the whatever valley heading west towards the ocean – this keeps me awake still

c) A series of empty sexual experiences in your 20’s, 30’s and 40’s

d ) I’ll only smash them inside my head

e) He carries weapons around with him. In his jacket, in his car, in his closet

f) Pussies and chicks liked The Beatles, dudes who loved eating pussy and knew all women were evil and lied liked the Rolling Stones. I liked both, and The Who.

g) Communication

h) Some nights it’s hard not to walk off into the woods.

i) I secretly hate living in New England and can’t wait to leave again in a couple of years or one

10.

j) ?

11.

k) I think I may be

12.

l) Nobody has ever cared what you ate

13.

m) All the Van Halen albums with David Lee Roth

n) That dude's wife Stacie

o) "I love you"

Alabama

2011-02-13T22:20:00.000-08:00

Coming back here has had its good qualities and bad ones. For one, the weather here makes it awful, but mostly because you have to listen to pussies complaining about it constantly. Another thing I haven’t been able to hide, but also I am able to hide. That overwhelming feeling of loneliness in a city of four million is still the same here where I run into someone I know every other day. I feel like I don’t agree with anyone on anything here anymore. Wait, I think I always felt like that. Lately though, feeling isolated and ready to hit the road and do what I enjoy best: watch time and people go by. Lately this overwhelming gray sky makes it hard to imagine a time sitting on a bench overlooking Morro Bay, or hours and hours of late night orange lights flying by. There’s nothing really here for me, so I am trying to make things here. Music and writing and going out and seeing music as much as possible, being around creative people helps me want to do more. Feeds my desire to do a million things and kill people and their silly ideas that “there isn’t enough time”. Why can’t you do a million things at once? Who wants to sit still and do the same shit every other night? Getting caught up in the routine. Getting involved in a relationship destroys this. I see it in every relationship I spend time around. Two people settling, telling themselves this is what they want. Really though, at the end of the day there is one person running the show. Most women I know are in denial that their significant other pretty much runs the relationship. Weakness. My last relationship, we didn’t have this. Although short lived, she had a lot to do with the every day when we did see each other. I can sit here and judge and worry about other people’s relationships and habits and weaknesses until I am blue in the face and it will still remain the same. I do what I do and always will. I am far too selfish of a person right now to even put in the time needed for a relationship. An endless series of exhausting arguments about nothing and everything so at the end of the day you can tell yourself “at least I have someone”? No thanks. Bitter? Sure I am, but at the end of the day I’m not the one convincing myself I am happy. Go ahead, tell yourself that’s really what you want. Look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself that. Sounds like fun.

So my trip across country is slowly getting planned out, although I haven’t mentioned much of it to anyone, I have a few different people who may or may not come with me. At some point in the next few weeks I should have a better idea of what I am doing and when.

Anyway, fuck this

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog

2011-01-25T22:45:00.000-08:00

This years long feeling of dread that was always in my brain and when I looked out the window at the end of the day, out into the woods, into the eyes of unsuspecting weak women who had no idea who I was. “they’re all weak” I’ll tell myself forever and for the most part I'm correct. I can barely look in mirrors nowadays. That years long feeling of dread. For the most part caused by polluting my body with all types of poisons. It’s gone now. Now I am still just as paranoid and dread it all. I still feel them all behind me ready to take me somewhere I don’t want to go. Listening to them complain, echoes of the same complaints over and over for years now, the same people complaining about the same thing. Weekend nights are hopeless now. Remember a weekend evening was cause for much needed sleep the next day? A quiet night with one or three people works now. A nice night out with a friend, walking around book stores and gossip halls. Most of the week, a ghost in the forest lurking around, attempting to make women all over the world laugh when I can. I have no connections, deep connections with other men nowadays. Maybe for a long time now? In Los Angeles I certainly did not. This afternoon I missed the coast out there. The Pacific ocean, how we drove it up and down, well a couple of trips one ending almost bad and one beginning amazing. Who is the guy two years ago thinking eternity is an actual idea? Whoever I thought I was, I wasn’t even close. Under a spell of bright blue water and deeper eyes, sugar kisses and hair that flowed down like all night long. I miss it and her constantly but never think about it all too much. I hate ever saying “I’ve moved on” as that is such an empty and final thing to say for such a big piece of me in the last decade. Hmm, this blanket of white ice that seems to cover us once a week now is holding something down. Is it holding down my thoughts so they don’t float away into the sky like before and end up all over the clouds? My own thoughts spent months and months turning the clouds and sky dark gray. My own ideas for how to make things better was to move further and further away from the “nice guy” I always am. Yeah, that guy. Bitter and shot down for the last time ever I am a completely different person now and I imagine some other completely different guy out there I’ll never know in my place doing everything right I could never get down. Still not 100% comfortable with this place and this person. As much as I am obviously going to stay here for a long time, my head is always going to be scatterbrain and never be able to sit still. Sometimes I fuck things up for a reason. Sometimes other people fuck things up for a reason. It all happens so slow when you are older that you have the time to fix it, but you get so comfortable you have no idea how to do any repairs. I wonder if I’ll laugh about all this in three years time of if I’ll still be kicking myself in the teeth for it.

Mississippi

2011-01-23T22:04:00.000-08:00

I thought I wouldn’t come back here for a few, and my head has been elsewhere for weeks now. Now that I kind of have a few minutes to breathe, where was I?

We have this awful fucking weather here that I kind of forgot about. Mounds and mounds of snow everywhere just make it look depressing, and then again people walk around still complaining about it as it happens. My main problem with it is it’s made me miss some days of work; that and just the piles of it everywhere makes life ugly for some reason. Reconnecting with a friend from my past has been very nice even if the timing of it has been horrible and awful. It’s been a nice few weeks anyway. Work has been good, and I was offered a new position already. I will be traveling around the US, and it’s not sales. I am beyond excited for this since I really have nothing here happening. I am trying to get a band together here with some friends, and that is the only thing I really would have here that I would want to be around for. I hate sitting still. I feel like everyone and everything around me is sitting still at all times. On a shittier note my last remaining grandparent (grandmother on my mom’s side) died last week. It wasn’t out of the blue, but of course that’s never a good time.

Days go by here like pages in teenage diaries
I try and keep tabs on everything and everywhere I go
I feel like I never need a reason to do anything now
Don’t give me one
I don’t need to tell anyone anything now
In my past, weak people I never met
Thousands of miles away making enemies of rednecks and dykes at the same time
Morally bankrupt couples trying to play it off like everything is okay
I see it in every woman’s eye
The desire to fuck someone new
In every man’s eye
The desire to fuck someone else sometime soon
Tell yourself you’re happy with the word forever
Go ahead

Michigan

2011-01-10T18:23:00.000-08:00

I didn’t look forward to bright white skies and grey sidewalks
I never look forward to this time of year
Icicles wrapped around your face and brain for hours a night
Going to sleep not knowing if I am good enough
Going to sleep with ten thousand sad saxophones swirling around
Why the fuck did I come back here?
Why did I ever think this was the right place?
I connect with nobody here
I don’t have anything in common with New England
I don’t have anything in common with the winter
I’m not a cold person
They all are
Every last one of them
They complain and whine and tell you of headaches and colds and flus on the internet
They compare their hatred of their lives to each other
So and so is not as good as I have it and so and so is better off than I
I spend less and less time worrying about how other people are and feel better for it
I feel better off than everyone
I feel ten thousand times happier than I was say five weeks ago
Four weeks ago
Three weeks ago
Two weeks ago
Everything needs an epilogue and here it is I guess.
It didn’t turn out at all like I thought.
I forgot about 2009 and 2010
I forgot about music I played and songs I sang and stories I wrote and roads I traveled and pictures I took
Everything is gone now
This year is already better ten days in

The 99 People You Meet in Heaven

2011-01-08T22:27:00.000-08:00

1.       We could easily turn this into a fight, hold on, let me get my glasses.
2.       You could wear a thousand different hats and no man is ever going to notice.
3.       White chicks at this point
4.       She would walk home exhausted as a whore.
5.       “I heard you knew a lot about music”
6.       I don’t talk to you because you’re fat, not because I’m some sort of dickhead.
7.       “These fucking Greeks!”
8.       His breath smelled of rotten cabbage and bad poetry but his cock smelled like heaven.
9.       I brought all of the pills with me
10.   “Is your name Dave?”
11.   I honestly do care how awesome you think Pink Floyd is.
12.   One night Rick showed up and everyone cheered.
13.   “No, please enlighten me as to why Leslie is the way she is”
14.   I walked in and made eye contact and immediately walked out. Every time.
15.   He was so scared of her, he asked her best friend to dance to the Bob Seger song instead.
16.   They tried working out their differences with a murder/suicide.
17.   He drove all night to the casino.
18.   “What’s your band up to these days?”
19.   He only cried when white men played the piano. This is how we knew he was gay.
20.   Trying to explain George Gershwin to someone on beer.
21.   I read this thing about this thing and apparently the thing is pretty awesome.
22.   How many cigarettes do I have to give you for you to get cancer right here in front of me and die?
23.   “oh man, that chick has huge tits!”
24.   “I know!”
25.   After a shared bowl of spicy corn chowder she walked home from his dreamy bedroom eyes and was brutally clubbed to death in front of a Starbucks.
26.   “Hey hey mama said the way you move. Gonna make you sweat gonna make you groove”
27.   He ripped apart a whole gorilla with his bare hands.
28.   “I tell you what, wait right here and I’ll go get the policeman myself”
29.   This completely changes how I need to escape.
30.   She got a text message that just read “Sheila needs tht $40 u owe her”
31.   One time I decided not to breathe for a whole night. This prepared me for everything I now know.
32.   “When is your new CD coming out?”
33.   On Friday nights she would cry Mike’s Hard Lemonade flavored tears into her lonely bowl of lentil soup.
34.   Black Sabbath – Technical Ecstasy
35.   “Oh hey man…no, it’s Mike”
36.   You’ve probably told more lies in the last seven minutes than I have in the last two.
37.   “Holy shit, they’re playing an acoustic version of Swarming Vulgar Mass of Infected Virulency! ”
38.   “No, it’s Satellite by the Dave Matthews Band”
39.   “Oh”
40.   1996 called, they want your taste in music back.
41.   I was on drugs.
42.   “Hi, I’d like to report a crime in progress…there is a band performing music live and they are all white”
43.   He would always give her the parsley off his plate. Three years later she jumped out of a window and landed on a white BMW with the license plate “SPOYLED”
44.   Oh man we ate some serious pussy back then. Then of course Craig had to move away.
45.   “Man it’s pretty crowded in there. Is Rick still here?”
46.   “What city please? Wakefield. Name please? Yes, it’s September eleventh”
47.   The guitar solo from “Hold on Loosely” by .38 Special
48.   I’m the guy that plays songs but they are funny.
49.   I’m the guy that plays songs but they are progressive.
50.   Gregory
51.   I’m the guy that plays songs but they are beautiful.
52.   “Wow this beer tastes really good. Wait, am I an idiot?”
53.   “That might have been the best harmonica solo I’ve ever heard in my life, and I’m only twenty”
54.   I can’t think of any books I’ve read to impress this chick’s tits
55.   One night at a party at her place I put on some punk rock music and her new boyfriend shut it off and put Jethro Tull on. This dickhead, literally wearing one of those tuxedo t-shirts did an air-flute solo. She fucked me a week later and cried halfway through.
56.   “Hi, I would like to buy this copy of Draw the Line by Aerosmith and put it on my credit card”
57.   They were then told to enter the room and sit until ‘the black guy’ showed up”
58.   She didn’t realize that her nose was too big.
59.   “Oh shit, that’s the guy from Agnostic Front!”
60.   He was one part Danny Glover, one part Osama Bin Laden and just a little bit Rachel Ray.
61.   “When do you guys start singing?”
62.   “This one goes out to all you crazy motherfuckers high on PCP out there tonight, it’s a little song called One by U2!”
63.   Sometimes he would show up with a suitcase so full of insecurity she would suck his dick just so he’d go home.
64.   “Kim, do you realize what today is?”
65.   He would tell me war stories about how drunk he was this one time, who he fucked, how awesome life was. He never told me if my sister was still alive.
66.   “Oh great, we’re out of cocaine again”
67.   That guy Larry from Three’s Company vs. a teenager with a Fallout Boy shirt on
68.   Debbie could sing. She couldn’t lip sync though. Man if karaoke existed back then she would have been the queen of the town.
69.   “Yeah but I’m not your father”
70.   Incense and tuxedos. You know them. We would go over there and get high and listen to Siouxsie and the Banshees records. Man I would pay a million dollars to see those people again. That one dude never wanted me to know he was gay because he thought I would beat him up. He was kind of cute.
71.   They shared a brief fond memory of their first date at that museum as his car went careening into a tree killing her instantly, him three days later.
72.   “Oh the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful, and since we’ve no place to go let me eat your ass while we watch Jay Leno ”
73.   “Oh great, Sting is here”
74.   That one dude that looks like he has something wrong with his ear.
75.   “Did you used to work at Panera Bread?”
76.   He needed to tell you the same thing over and over. You knew everything he was going to say three weeks in advance.
77.   “What the fuck is wrong with your cousin?”
78.   He bought a drink for her and her friend. When he got home that night he did crossword puzzles into the next morning.
79.   “Hi Candice, did I happen to leave my dignity in your car last night?”
80.   Side three of The Song Remains the Same soundtrack
81.   We talked about Ornette Coleman all night and then I woke up and had to go to work. The following night I dreamt I was on my way to some sort of gala event. I wore a tuxedo. It was odd; I could actually think clear thoughts, unlike in real life where every piece of information going into my head is barely processed before making a quick exit. When I arrived at the event I discovered it was just a group of people standing around drinking beer from countries nobody has ever heard of talking about football scores and what kind of cars they all drove.
82.   I took her to meet three women I had fucked so they could judge her
83.   The guy in the Hawaiian shirt just showed up and apparently is ready to “fuck anything with two legs”
84.   The first time you heard Shoot to Thrill by AC/DC
85.   When I think of her and that state she lives in I hope the whole place is earthquaked into the stone age
86.   Even fat I manage to surprise myself
87.   “She practically invented abortions”
88.   I need to run far away from here. I keep telling myself that and then good things happen.
89.   These men. I watch them with their women and deep down to myself know there is no possible way they know about fucking.
90.   “I’d like to report a rape”
91.   I’m too jaded and burned out to ever fall in love again at this point. I enjoy showing up in other languages. I don’t want them to read me. I don’t want them next to me and rubbing elbows with me and my family and circle.
92.   They try to get in on the fun and make jokes like I do and fail miserably. Every time
93.   “Wow that woman looks like one of my daughter’s friends, but if she was on Xanax”
94.   If I went to Egypt
95.   Currently feeling tall and small and closed in and wide open all at the same time. Better than feeling all alone in a sea of tall trees and wide open spaces. Wait, I guess?
96.   “wait, that’s the dude Taylor is fucking now?”
97.   Denise
98.   “Ladies and gentlemen, orgasms”
99.   I died once.

Years

2010-12-31T13:18:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-20T18:12:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-13T18:04:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-07T17:59:00.000-08:00

“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.

2010-12-06T22:45:00.001-08:00

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

Last Week

2010-12-02T18:47:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-18T18:05:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-12T23:57:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-11T12:58:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-04T13:00:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-25T13:23:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-23T14:41:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-22T13:28:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-06T14:20:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-30T12:49:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-28T13:13:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-27T22:09:00.001-07:00

Fuck

Ohio

2010-09-27T13:28:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-23T13:09:00.000-07:00

I feel like I am on fire.

Kansas

2010-09-21T12:49:00.000-07:00

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.

Illinois

2010-09-17T13:33:00.000-07:00

These creepy salesmen and saleswomen trying sell snake oil and everything else in between
They come in and out of your life like snakes themselves
Slithering around
Why are you here again?
Why were you ever here?
Making me feel normal
Making me feel like I should be the one giving you advice
Gross and unhappy lonely people everywhere I never want to be
Stay there and be in your world

This weekend will suck, I know this already. I can’t come back from anywhere without having to feel like this. Ready to hide out and push things from way far away instead. Just sitting around waiting for shit to happen, waiting for the other ten axes to fall. Last year at this time I was, well.

Ain't It Just Like The Night

2010-09-16T12:34:00.000-07:00

People seen in the waiting room:

She sobs uncontrollably into her can of BBQ Pringles as he yells from upstairs to be quiet. His big hulk of a frame has beat her senseless physically and emotionally enough times now that she has almost had enough. I wish I had married Tommy instead. He looked like Magnum P.I. Too bad he wasn’t the one. Frank knows one day I will kill him in his sleep. His large presence in the house is like the king of all kings. Deep down inside he was too much of a pussy to put the dog to sleep when it suffered. He gets teary eyed when he sees American flags and World War II movies. If he had sons they would have all turned into faggots. She loves him and he won’t fuck her ever again. One day my own Tom Selleck will come.

The only times I feel like I accomplish anything are here. Here with a blank sheet. I never finish things well enough that I can ever experience pride. It’s been a long series of ill advised ideas, failed relationships, and days in the rain hiding from the outside world. Days where I think I have it figured out and have the final idea I needed and then nothing happens, and then nothing again. This will go on and on until the end of time. Change is hard this late in the game. I mean I think it is anyway. For fun and games I can always just continue watch other people prosper and fail.

I haven't been down the road in a long time. I haven't taken this route in so long. I like this route here. I like how this winds around and gets me to where I think I need to be. It's way fucking better than the bus. Dances and hugs and pats on the back are never going to fulfill me for as long as I stay on this route. Karaoke on Friday night gets cancelled for a random trip to the moon. Dinner and a movie ain't helping anyone on this route. John Holmes and Jerry Garcia driving a techno colored station wagon to the ocean for conversation about ecstasy and Mick Jagger lips. Rug burn from sitting on the floor statuesque for far too long through scary movies and rock videos. Park the car by the side of the road, park it across the street so no one sees us. They all start rumors, they all fill themselves with lies about the moon and lies about the way my car runs. The motor runs great, it needs a tune up, it needs to take different drives, silently through beaches and neon lit strips of Elvis Presley videos. Like a man not even with himself anymore. Like a ninja. Like someone in the deep blue sea swimming. I don't know, sort of like if you took one part confusion and one part total shit you would sort of feel this like this.

Connecticut

2010-09-16T00:17:00.000-07:00

I hate just having words to say and type and read and hear. I always needed more and now there are no words. I don’t want to ever talk about anything life related now. As if just writing anything like this is not obnoxious enough. Even the job interview yesterday. “It went well” I keep saying. What does that even mean? Now though, pages and pages of empty nothing, feeling like an exhaust pipe spitting out nothing but the same old shit every fifteen minutes. No one will be the same, nobody can replace or substitute. What a shit place to be for probably all winter like this.

New Hampshire

2010-09-15T13:04:00.000-07:00

Thirty seven days in a row and she wakes up feeling like the disgusting person she is. Her children at school and the afternoon is spent with rum and various phone calls to slightly less disgusting people. There you are with a camera and a microphone outside the window to watch it all go down. Spy on whores and weak people like this. Watch them and how they interact with each other. It’s really enough to make you never feel surprised about anything people do. I can’t ever judge these weak, dumb people. I’m one of them too, I don’t have anything to offer. A few jokes here and there. In the afternoons I go down to the bar and complain into whoever wants to listen. I was just lazy enough for enough years to get by like this. I can make pretend hundreds of emotions and ideas and opinions. I can make pretend I live here or there or anywhere really. I always keep the front door, the back door and of course all the windows closed. I can make pretend I have all sorts of things in common with them. I can lie to strangers in the bar, that’s my number one thing I can do. Great.

He is an old guy I can’t relate to at all. His life spent complaining about others and anyone else that never does anything that directly causes any adversity in his life. I’ve never not known him as this person. I wonder if as a child he was ever happy. The nonstop commentary and bitching about everything even slightly negative. Spending long amounts of time around people like this always does something to me deep down, like someone screaming as loud as possible while handcuffed to my ears for all eternity.

Every night for the last however many years sleeping an hour here an hour there. Wondering when I’ll snap out of this weakness. I was never one of these fools. I sit around and have to listen and read the words of morally offensive people trying to give me advice. Trying to take advice from anyone at this point, well I feel stupid. I never ask for help but I do like to talk. The sound of silence though, sometimes it works so much better. Some nights I can just sit there and not look at anything. Not say anything. Not feel anything. Not hear anything. All of it is noise and crap to make me think too much for that late at night. Every night for the last 800 days I’ve gone to bed like that, it’s time to just not do that and shut up and be quiet. I think it works better in the end. Regardless, I’ve hated going to bed the last month or so. It’s been different and too quiet. Sometimes I feel like the shittiest person in the world. Other times I feel like I am right on point, like I can never be a mean person at all.

When you see them wide eyed and ready to take on whatever ends up coming to them it’s sad. These empty conversations about nothing of any interest really. How fucked up so and so got last weekend. A couple of racist jokes here and there and melted into a couch like spilled ice cubes from a strong mixed drink barely touched. The life, yeah it’s great with nothing to worry about. With what amounts to an inexperienced head filled with really bad ideas and even worse opinions.

So there’s a clown in the woods with cuts all over his face that runs around in peoples backyards laughing and making all sorts of creepy noises. He usually will come out when he hears you pulling in to the driveway or parking space. He has these little cuts all over his face from running through the woods, and his white make up is faded and sweaty. He won’t let you see him for too long, but if you look into the trees when you get home at night, he’s there. Cuts on his face and all. I just walk by him and try not to make eye contact with him at all. He’ll leave you alone if you don’t pay him any mind. When you get home at night there is a clown in the woods with cuts on his face watching you secretly.

I have a document, exactly 26,000 words as of yesterday about the good and the bad of the “last year”. Somedays I feel like shit and want to escape from myself. I can’t swallow enough things to do that though. I can’t drink or smoke anything to make things disappear. It is there at all times in the forefront of my head. There aren’t enough places for me to hide that I won’t just sob myself into infinity over this. I could become angry and mean or depressed and quiet. I don’t want any of this though. Whatever I thought existed in the good parts was good and amazing and will be there forever. Every single second of shit though, I need to destroy it with fire and sleep. I am in such a non-mood right now that I can’t even make sense of anything regarding this.I wonder from hour to hour from minute to minute how I get back to where I was in say...1999. I have no idea who that guy was or how he did anything. I have no idea about anything now. A trillion people could say “everything will be alright”, it does nothing. I appreciate the sentiment and the effort. I don’t appreciate how my head reacts to things now. I act out and am a very angry rotten shitty person. Peripheral friends who come and go like the seasons trying to talk to me about “how it is”. Give me a fucking break. Nothing is worse than an amateur architect trying to teach anything let alone the inner workings of strangers.

New Jersey

2010-07-25T13:28:00.000-07:00

walking on the highway feels much worse than driving down the highway who knows what’s going to hit you
who knows what car is going to splash you speeding through the puddles
walking through gigantic well lit parking lots has a certain allure to it but it’s all over for me now now
I have the comfort of air conditioning and Art Blakey in stereo on CD
even walking along the busy highways you get to at least see every little thing on the ground
you can pick things up that you would otherwise not even see
license plates and beer bottle caps
maybe even some money
maybe an adult magazine or a letter that someone threw out the window
there are all sorts of thing I’ve thrown out of my car window for this exact purpose
I don’t want to litter the earth like that but I want to make that walk down busy highways exciting for someone as the drive now is just boring and doesn’t give me a chance to see what’s all over the ground
remnants of some fight that blasted by at seventy miles an hour
remnants of a love affair gone bad that just got thrown out the window in the form of a cigarette butt and a photo of some sunny resort town with out of towners wandering around like moses
useless artifacts that I got to collect on trains planes or automobiles
useless artifacts that the world never gets to see
speeding people getting their kicks by giving me and the rest of my people little objects and ideas to ponder
in the breakdown lane you at least need a hobby when you walk like that
the big parking lot lights tickling the clouds with obnoxious industrial orange light
it’s intense how bright yet dark and murky somewhere like New Jersey is in the middle of the night
there are all sorts of great places to walk there
there are all sorts of good stretches of highways for you to collect these artifacts
I recommend it to anyone looking for a hobby
I recommend it to anyone who thinks they have seen it all
you haven’t seen anything until you’ve walked five miles down the New Jersey turnpike with a quarter bottle of vodka in you and a wallet full of business cards
people throw these things out not knowing of me and my group of people that collect this stuff
I arrange it
I take it home and spread it all out on the floor of the garage and let it tell me stories
all the objects on the cold cement floor have their own little histories to tell me
all the objects tell me these interesting stories
if they don’t have anything to tell me I put a little yellow tag on it marked “needs story”
I then assign it it’s own history and story
this object belonged to a man with two kids one wife and a job that requires him to be on time every day and make sure people under him get things done so that he can feed his kids and get to throw things out for me and my people to collect
he’s on to me he’s on the take with us he sees us like chain gangs in orange vests on the side of the road collecting the objects to lay out on my cold cement floor out in the garage
sometimes the men and women will put their phone numbers and addresses on the objects so that I can get in touch with them and tell them everything is okay with said object
sometimes when I assign my own stories to the objects I like to track the former owners down and tell them about the stories I gave their artifacts
“no there will be no time capsule Mister Fredericks you won’t see the object again you discarded the object so I could bring it to life on the cold cement floor of my garage”
I like to spend a good long Sunday evening arranging the objects into groups this group was owned by all women from Florida over the age of forty
this group had more than one owner
this group is my favorite group
as you can see it’s arranged elaborately on the cold cement floor of my garage as it’s a special object that has almost mystical powers that normal people would not be able to understand and that is why it is in the special group right there in front it’s like the king group of objects the big pimp daddies all get their own little seat in the house these objects get taken into the house and get the royal treatment they have big long histories that only I know about someday I may tell the stories of the objects
people that are not on to this whole thing would call us pack rats or useless
once this catches on though the stories will all be told
I will have lines around the block waiting to sit there and listen to the stories that the objects tell
I will have all sorts of secrets to tell people that want to be in the know
yeah the highway is more than just a thing that connects places and people
it’s a place that creates histories and stories beyond what I ver thought imaginable
half of my stories I tell that people may think are lies come from these objects
on Sunday evenings when I spread them on the cold cement floor in my garage the objects never collect dust they are shined and treated with the utmost care and love more that what I give to people as the objects are all people
little friends of mine that tell stories and give me reason to wake up every day
I look forward to collecting more of these objects over the years to show people and teach people about
if someone ever wanted to join the group with me I would let them in on all the secrets as the objects are not going to just talk to anyone and start telling stories to just any old person off the street
there is a long long long history with these and one day I will document it I promise
yeah that’s what I will do I will write the best novel and nobody will know about my muses
they will think I am just a great story teller
they will all praise me and want to know where the inspiration comes from
I will never let the secret out as I will write the novel anonymously
I will write it from the point of view of all the objects
the ones in my favorite group
the group that sits in the front row
those objects have the best stories
As I collect more of these the stories will only get bigger and better
for now though I will spend my time developing the skills to write the stories for the blank objects
the ones with no history about who owned them previous to me
you will all see
you will all be jealous that you cannot make things like this happen on the cold cement floor of your garage
if it’s one thing I am passionate about it’s this and I can now make it happen
the word is out the objects are in my possession
hidden somewhere arranged into little groups like I said
little groups that will tell the stories of a million men and women
little groups that tell me the stories that I see as some of the most amazing stories
perhaps I will keep this all to myself from now on
perhaps I will let them just talk to me from here on out
I told the story here now
the story stays on my cold cement floor out in the garage
this winter will bring stories this winter I might change and let it go public
I’m just not sure I trust people to understand anything about this whole thing
I just don’t know if it’s time yet
I guess when it’s time I will let the stories be told

I Think Your Ears Are Ringing?

2010-07-15T13:02:00.000-07:00

Just spent however long deleting old news stories as well as things in my head I no longer need to dwell on or think about. I must have came to a point where, actually forget that. Here’s a story instead:

“the great bake sale of spring ‘82”
With the prospect of winning free tickets to see any Broadway play of your choice, Winnie made her prize winning (in family circles) cupcakes yet again. Winnie worked night and day to perfect the cupcakes. Making phone calls to unknown relatives who have passed the recipe around for years, Winnie was determined to win yet again. Like the New York Yankees, she took the prize again. Winnie immediately called Harold when she heard the news.

“We’re going to New York again Harold!”

“Wonderful Winnie, I can’t believe it! Well, yes I can, those are some cupcakes”

Harold had been eating the “test” cupcakes for the weeks approaching the bake sale, and one would have thought he had his fill already.

“I’ll see you when you get home Harold”

“I love you honey” Harold answered.

“I love you too”

Winnie hung up the phone and approached Mr. Higgins to collect her prize.

On her short drive home Winnie wondered if that Peggy Roberts deserved the prize instead of her, her cheesecake was delicious. Pulling into the driveway she shrugged, shut the headlights off, and got out of the car glowing.

Anyone with half a brain knows what is going on here. The sky is falling and I barely ever have any clue what day of the week it is. I haven’t been able to concentrate on the eighteen things I needed to get done for two or three weeks now. I live in this quiet small area of the world yet is is extremely loud outside. Every person vomiting personal pronouns every fifteen minutes until they stick. You can never see further than a mile away at a time around here can you? You can never have the option of going up and looking over everything. In the middle of the night while they all sleep or jack off on the internet you can sit up there quietly and hope nobody sees you. Once you have this ability to turn spotlights on and microscopes off you can feel a little more in control. You can at least feel like the day to day is different every time.

“My Eight Favorite Marvin Gaye Songs”

“Leave Us Alone We are Working on Blueprints”
Try this we are walking into the bar you and I and I turn to you and tell you I am scared to go in I am scared to be in there with them all I am scared to go outside now I don’t want to feel the aggravation and anger like I felt today I listen to this cd and I have to fucking shut it because I don’t give a fuck who broke this guys fucking heart I don’t give a fuck who broke anyone’s heart for that matter.

“John Travolta’s Facial Hair in the Film ‘Swordfish’”
I pissed out what seemed like a gallon and a half of beer, and then got in my car. The drive home was intense and dangerous. Art Bell telling me that people spontaneously go invisible. I took the barrel of the 9mm and pointed it at the woman and her son driving by me in the mini-van and lit another Kool.

“Oh, I Didn’t Realize Your Parents Molested You”
So when we arrived at the apartment of Timmy and Jenni I initially thought we were going to be surrounded by thieves and men with insurance plans; instead, we were surrounded by good drugs, and good jazz music from the late 70’s. One wants to believe that Timmy would not have good music, but for the remainder of the night we discussed how great the tone of Pat Metheney was in this particular year.

“A Visibly Drunk Liza Minneli Being Eaten by a Giant Orange Scorpion with Wings”
The first time one hears the song “the Magic Power” by “the other famous trio from Canada", Triumph, one is filled with such a feeling of hope, you literally feel like Rik Emmett is going to jump through the speakers and give you a big hug. Hi, my name is Christian, and I am addicted to rock and roll music.

“The Drive Home After You Pay For Sex the First Time”
Facts: I have never seen the movie Top Gun. I have never been to France. I like to drink water.

“I'll Take Adults Who Think Vampire Stuff is Cool For Five Hundred”
I love fucking cole slaw, love it, absolutely love it. All of the cold “pre-made” salads are great too. My wife made this wonderful potato salad last week. I ate it all week at work. Her sister makes a great macaroni salad. I once knew a man from Ohio who made some pretty intense bean salad that was just delicious! Fuck I love it all! Fuck!

“The Ticket to the Jethro Tull Concert in Your Wallet While You Get Arrested”
I remember going to this day camp when I was a little kid. One weekend, they had a sleep over. I didn’t want to sleep over. I don’t like sleeping outside to this fucking day. I was supposed to meet a couple of friends in the middle of the night to get in trouble or whatever. The next day when I showed up, this big kid Kevin, his Kiss belt buckle glimmering in the hot summer of 78’ sun says to me “where were you last night?”. He was going to beat me up for not showing up to do whatever we were going to do. One day I fell on the trampoline and hurt my head crying and yelling, I felt paralyzed and freaked out. I think this is why I have problems in general now.

“Last Friday, When We Quit Smoking Cocaine”
Last night I dreamt that I was swimming in the ocean with a German Shepard, I was worried that my wallet was going to get wet so I asked him what to do, he said we couldn’t do anything, and to worry about it later. Great, talking German Shepards in my dreams now. He was cute. I have no idea what we were doing in the ocean, as I steadfastly refuse to swim as soon as someone suggests it.

Estimated Prophet pt II

2010-06-23T13:27:00.001-07:00

At the same time my ears ring, my eyes burn and my sixth sense is heightened to where an alarm will probably go off fifteen minutes from now. There has to be an alarm going off somewhere fifteen minutes from right now anyway, I’m sure of it. I can’t imagine why, but then I realized as much as I am into letting you know how much I like you or don’t like you via secretly recorded conversations about my third cousin I’ve never met anyway, I still notice this shit. I notice it all though and it’s why I can’t even relate to here anymore.

Sometimes you can have a memory of a scent from when you were a child ,someone’s house, a food you used to eat, whatever. The other night I randomly remembered the scent, and then the lighting and whole atmosphere of where I went to what we called “CCD”. I have no idea what this even stood for, but it had to do with preparing kids for confirmation in the Catholic church. The only thing I really remember about these classes is, they were maybe in the early evening once or twice a week, they were boring as hell and you basically just spent your time memorizing these stupid prayers....Our Father, The Lord’s Prayer and maybe Hail Mary. I couldn’t recite a single word from any of these at this point in my life as I guess because of the timing of it was during a formative time in my life when it was kind of hard to trick me. I was being taught to talk to someone I never met, someone I couldn’t see and someone who lived in “the sky”.

I never received my Communion or Confirmation as a Catholic as at one point or another I complained so much to my parents that I hated it they took me out of it...I went to Penance once to tell a priest of my recent sins which in retrospect seems just wrong to do to a ten year old kid. How many of the Ten Commandments can you even break that young? My parents weren’t church people, and with my dad in the music industry in the 70’s and the nature of what I was involved in during the early and mid-eighties, worshipping someone I could never see or touch seemed more absurd by the second.

With my dad in the industry, we were able to go to quite a few big concerts, often going backstage to meet these rockstars like Styx, Supertramp and later on in life New Order, Robert Plant, and then countless musicians in the punk rock scene. With the ability to meet and see these people as real humans my idea of idol worship and that kind of think was more dull than most people I know. The fact that I spent so many hours with records by bands and musicians that I could someday meet made the notion of worshipping anybody or any entity a ridiculous thing. This isn’t to say I still don’t do this to this day though.

I can have my mood and attitude completely changed within minutes if I hear certain musicians. If I need advice on something I can consult a musician or an author for advice or inspiration. Where I live right now, there are quite a few “Jesus people” as I like to call them. They are some of the most unfriendly, close minded people I have had the pleasure of being surrounded by. Sitting in this coffee shop playing music loud into my ears and watching them is like watching a movie. Starring all white people, they’ve all stepped out of a white picket fenced world of backstabbing and weird ideas of how things should be and well “leave us alone anyway”. Every one of them probably own a Golden Retriever and a minivan, watch Everybody Loves Raymond on a nightly basis and have about two orgasms a presidency.

I have this plan of slipping out the back door without anyone seeing. Without leaving a note, without slamming the door shut. A quiet sneak out the back door with one knapsack full of ironic t-shirts, sneakers and books about dead people with hard to pronounce names. I have the ability to drive a whole day without feeling guilt. I can leave blank pages on the ground, a trail of crumbs that leads nowhere but to me sitting in a hotel room waiting for the sun to come up so I can bore myself to death for nine hours again with deserts and forests and hills and white people with ridiculous accents. Not a single drop of poison needed, not a single piece of anything. If they need to wonder where I am they can, but at the end of the day I don’t owe anyone anything. It’s sunny enough here that people can figure everything out on their own. I don’t think anyone would even want my advice. I hate giving advice, nobody takes it, I never take it either so. Mostly though, if I can never hear another person complain for as long as I live, if I can never read another person complain again as long as I live, and I can slip away to some small place on the Pacific Ocean I’ll be done. Nothing here but noise and noise and that kind of thing, well it’s easy to slip away without anyone even noticing. I hate cakes anyway.

Purgatory

2010-06-18T12:48:00.000-07:00

I Come in here and see all the reasons I don’t want to be here. Unfriendly faces that are supposed to be friendly. Walking around town and seeing people I thought were supposed to be a lot more friendly, these Jesus people they love one another, but no one else. If they don’t know you, forget it, you don’t get anything. I hope they all burn in hell for eternity. I don’t want to be in this shitty place anymore. If it means doing shitty things to make money to get out of here I’ll do it, what do you got? I don’t feel any sort of connection here any more. I don’t feel like I am “turning my back on my home”, this place sucks, every single thing about it. Let me tell you how I really feel though.

At this point it doesn’t matter who will let you down, it’s just a matter of when they will.

I hate that they can’t stop it. Can’t stop the attempts to impress everyone and me with witty remarks and knowledge about shit nobody cares about. I can’t read or hear anymore of it as it makes me disappear for a day or five at a time from all of this. Asking for advice and opinions about things that are happening to nine people away from me, that I haven’t seen in however many years, who knows really. Whatever it is I am talking about here, I have no idea. Oh yeah, I’m not like you and don’t ever agree with anything you say. It never means anything and never will. You’d be better off leaving me alone. Sure I can lie for eternity and keep entertaining your ego a tiny bit every other week, but for the most part if you disappeared from my life completely I wouldn’t care even a little bit.

Whatever and whenever all of this crap washes over me, which is almost every other day I never know how I am going to react. Like someone with anger issues, most likely not. I know when to shut it off, I know what lines I am not supposed to cross over. Sometimes though, I imagine a life without knowing how and when to turn shit off. I imagine how many fights I would have gotten into. How much more shit I would have broken. How many friendships and relationships ruined. At one point though, I learned how to be a pussy about shit I guess? Or just be more of a behind the scenes shithead. At this point though, ignored and left to my own thinking and time wasting I spend way much more time figuring out how all these fucks do things. I sit around and think about who and what I despise and am left with a small handful of people and places and things to do. What a cliche that is though, eh?

"Paintings"
So I wake up because I’m tossing and turning in the bed because you know I have some issues with some issues I have how funny is that I keep myself up late at night like this so I have been reading this book it’s just a non fiction book about ummmm people I guess don’t really need to go into detail but it says a good thing to do is to wake yourself up in the middle of sleep and then write you have the most creativity and your thoughts are actually the most crystal clear they can be so you know I toss and turn in bed keeping myself awake because I have some issues with some issues I have and I wake up and hey here I am again shit what did I write in here earlier hahaha I make myself laugh so not to mention the fact that there was a guy standing at the foot of my bed while sleeping you see when this guy gets in those mean Ihateeverybody moods he needs to throw satchmo on the stereo to sing me to sleep because I have some issues with some issues I have and he helps me out he makes it all better see

Okay, look at me now cool as a cucumber I stay up late and then get up early and turn into the doctor so not to mention that I wake up and there are snakes all over the floor of my room probably from the guy that was standing there watching me sleep it’s cool though satchmo is so much more powerful than the evil doctor that comes into my room and puts snakes on the floor and makes me itch like I do I have itches all over my body all weekend he put fleas in my bed that cocksucker put fleas in my bed bedbugs is the more polite thing to call them I guess flea is a mean thing to say it’s like saying bitch or cocksucker or motherfucker or communist so yeah it’s funny because I don’t fucking dream anymore how fucked up is that that’s not fair perhaps because I watch so many movies that I don’t need to dream who cares anyway dreams mean nothing but a bunch of random images that are useless in the long run like the issues I have with some of these issues I have right now

Imagine me as fireman coming out of the building like superman or yeah forget that imagine me as superhero here to save the world from mean evil people like myself when I have those issues that I have imagine me like totally top ten style with gold rings on my fingers and a handful of cash they pick me up in jaguars and drive me far and take me to exotic places where we can forget about how to make a good cup of coffee and forget about the issues I have with some of the issues I have imagine me like the big time and shit ya know like the big time no guys coming to visit me in the middle of the night that are part of that network of people who fuck with me I talked about them and people just laugh and point and make fun like the little boy who cried wolf or fire in a crowded theatre it’s a bit funny that anyone would think that I’m this big meany who hates and spits venom in real life never takes himself too seriously I mean takes himself too seriously I mean fuck I can spell I can’t form good sentences but fuck I can spell gosh darn it but fuck if anyone ever says that I am a big jerk and I shouldn’t say this and I shouldn’t say that about this person and that person than they don’t know me and they can go sit in a theatre with little boys who yell fire and throw wolves with rabies at girls with pony tails

I once threw a jellyfish at a boy on the beach he cried and threw sand at me and my mother slapped me across the face and told me to apologize I never ended up becoming friends with him or even having a homosexual encounter I think the one thing they teach you is to never have a homosexual encounter with a boy who throws a jellyfish at your face I did all sorts of bad mean things like that when I was a little boy I threw a brick at my brothers friend because he said I sucked at football I showed him how it really was with my dallas cowboy cheerleader looking self and then a kid attacked me at age ten and I stabbed his hand with a rusty pipe

Let me tell you about it and make fun stories out of the absurdity of it all as it stands now though I can’t take people chasing me into the house because they watch me from the woods I can’t take myself too seriously I have a good amount of time left when I think ahead of a living clean lifestyle you watch me I can live like the bathroom sink with bright white and shiny like a new bathroom sink you know I can live like that like a guy that is clean like the bathtub in the convenience store outside of Knoxville Tennessee that I hid from a homeless man with an erect thumb for twenty-three minutes I can make things out of words that don’t need to hurt people or confuse people if I need to watch hello my name is christian I live in Massachusetts I enjoy good film fine food and louis armstrong once a week.

I have a plug sticking out of my head that tells me to keep going and yeah I want to say one more thing, picture me like on fire and shit like the king of the world of whatever I need it to be ya know like picture me big time.

Drive West on Sunset

2010-06-06T13:51:00.000-07:00

There is a way to do business like I want to do business without causing a scene you know. So after a few conversations with “yeah, I know” littered throughout them and witnessing things first hand, I realize I need to move. Not move, but move my head across town. Watching three blonde girls with gross tits and tight pants drink a trio of “colorful drinks” with all sorts of fruits and shit hanging out of them is a funny sight I see from time to time. They all went home to their vibrators and Justin Timberlake posters, while their boyfriends were out with the boys holding up Britney Spears pictures to the light to see if you could see anything underneath her clothes.

I want to hold hands in the desert. Sometimes I feel like I am driving into the desert, and we will spend eternity there, talking and balancing a steady diet of shitty coffee and arguments about strength. The only way for me to completely move is to never show my ID to anyone again. Move into this new place. I want the memories of fishing boats and walks on piers and cooking chicken and rice for two and movies about apes and people with no arms and drives to Maine and even faster drives home and blow jobs in the middle of the night and bags of candy with just the black ones left and carnivals with no rides for me and complete contentment with this that and the other thing. Who wants the glass of whiskey with a phone number sticking out of it? Not I , I have that. Well, I had it. I don’t want anyone to get in the way of this. This is why the fingers never do the walking anymore.

This is why my dream has come true. My dreams always come true after 5 or 6 nightmares in a row. Dreams of tables for one. I like that I can’t taste blood anymore. I like that I don’t have to take acting classes and all of that fun stuff. I like that I can be held down at gunpoint and still have a good time. I know the limit now. I know the way to San Jose. I know where to find the sunlight and easy living. It ain’t about finding it every day though. It’s all about me. It’s about me all the time. Fuck that, I don’t need to sign any papers. I don’t need to move myself into any new homes and shake hands with the devil and all of that. I now know who my friends and enemies are. It can’t be that bad, you just don’t know what you’re talking about, now come over here and pick my teeth out of this tree for me I can’t feel my legs and my dad is going to kill me for what I’ve done to the car. Sick? You are definitely not sick, you want to feel sick. You just don’t use your brain ever. I make apologies and I send greeting cards to you and you still think it’s all okay. You don’t realize it moves on. It all moves along slowly.

Magicians with baseball hats making your trust disappear. I like showing people the same tricks they showed me. I like smashing books and notebooks full of sugar and spice and everything nice. I like when I can get up in the morning, literally roll out of bed and have a million things to say about her. I was thinking about her before bed and I thought good things and nothing bad. Who cares what the neighbors say? Who would care what the folks downstairs would think. I’m not turning this car around and heading home I know that much. I could sit here and wonder and write letters and make phone calls like I did a month ago, but I have no real reason to act like a lollipop anymore. Why be a sucker when you have better neighbors that are more than willing to lend you sugar? Curiosity. Jealousy. They happen for a day at a time with me.

They come out of my room and they kill me with eyes that look right through me. The eyes stop at one place and don’t move from there. I want things from people. I want them to just shut the fuck up most of the time. I want people to give me things now. I gave way too many things for years and then turned into a sucker all the time. I want to go back to mutual decision making, and mutually administered back rubs and phone calls. There isn’t time for the advice of Jack Daniels right now, that’s so two lives ago. That’s so 16 years ago. I swallow things and spit them out when they taste like hair spray and whiskey. I throw them against the wall as hard as I can so I can see the blood splatter all over the place. I have these visions of blood all the time. Vivid, detailed scenarios of what it must be like to be involved in a disastrous car wreck. I had to pull off the road four times last week because I thought a truck was going to hit me head on going 75 miles and hour. I pictured this big metal thing coming through the window and me trying to duck, and just having my head ripped wide open and screaming from passengers and brakes and glass and all of that. No blood, just glass and crying. I’m too confident in that car. Too confident I won’t hit the big truck. The big trucks kill me. The big trucks haunt me anytime I’m on the highway.

This is one main reason Jack Daniels isn’t going to help me. He helps boys gather information about girls they would otherwise not give the time of day to. It helps girls forget they have any pride or respect. It helps nobody really. It helps me turn my love into comedy. It helps me walk down the street and find comedy at every corner as they all swerve and stumble through their little lives. It helps me get to the bottom of things a lot easier.

When I hit my exit I’m gonna get off and drive so fucking far away from here. When I hit my exit, I’m gonna drive to the beach. I love the vast ocean in front of me. It sort of scares me and makes me feel good at the same time. It’s all too big. I don’t want the big things anymore. None of the big issues to deal with. None of the day to day bullshit I seem to get myself involved with all because someone is a loser and I don’t want to shake his or her hand. I want this to end. Well, it has ended at this point. It has started to show it’s face in different ways now. I want this room to be a whole new center of attention for me. I don’t like the outside anymore, there’s far too many dangerous things happening, and far too many people I just don’t want to see ever again. Just those people I meet from time to time that don’t do a thing for me. I don’t mean my friends, maybe the people who know certain people and this and that and the other thing. No substance usually.

You don’t even understand the winter, it makes you weak, it makes you complain and complain and never want to be alone. You can’t even handle what the winter does to people. I like to watch what it does to people like you. Taking your emotions and building them up until February arrives and you have a nervous breakdown and can't handle anything whatsoever. You can’t handle the way it freezes everything you have and puts everyone away for the night. The nights are so lonely and desolate. Your car makes all this noise and only you get to hear it. You get to pull into the frosted driveway late at night depressed yet again, thirty something winters and you still can’t get it right. “I’m gonna move to Texas”, you’re going nowhere. Go up to your bedroom. Don’t lock the car in this weather, the locks may freeze. The night wants you to just shut the fuck up and go to bed. You’ll go to bed and like it. Nobody is out tonight, nobody is calling you tonight. You and the freezing wind and the frustration. Snow comes and you still can’t figure out why the winter does this to people every year. It doesn’t though, it’s just you. You and your weak self can’t handle loneliness. You can’t go at it alone. You can’t sit by the fire by yourself. You can’t go a few days without speaking a word. You need the interaction, you need someone to hold you from time to time, that’s not asking much right? Everyone needs that. Everyone needs the adoration and warmth of another human being. You need it constantly. Some place warm to hold your heart and not squeeze it so tight, especially in this winter. This dead cold winter. The summer is your time of year. Hot nights by the pool, no complaints from you. Everyone is home for vacation. Everyone is always around. You all get to get together and talk about how much the winter sucked. Nobody is hearing you though. You make jokes and comments about this one and that one, and can’t remember the last time someone held you in their arms and looked you in the eye. People, they seem to look away from you all the time. People, they seem to not want you. The summer is your time, and it’s ending quickly. What do you do, do you go for the gold and not turn back, or do you drive the straight and narrow road straight into it. I once drove my car off of a pier because they said I wouldn’t. Jumped out at the last minute and walked home with my new shoes and made sure I didn’t get sick. I don’t get sick often. I drive my car off of piers and don’t get sick. I drive my car into seasons. Slow dead cold seasons. I drive my car into this bullshit all the time. I know how to enjoy the ride now. I realize now that there is one way to approach this, with the car in drive, headlights on, seat belts fastened, clean windshield, and a full tank of gas.

F

2010-06-04T14:06:00.001-07:00

Last night I never went to sleep at all. Woke up 9:00 AM the previous day (Thursday) after going to bed at 8:00 AM. So aside from that brief hour or so of sleep Thursday morning, I haven’t slept at all. It’s boring and nothing happens, who wants to sleep? Truly though, I did eventually go to sleep this morning, and slept for a bit. Before that however I decided to pour some Robitussin in a shotglass and take two shots of that, two shots of rum and smoked half a joint and wrote this:

In the hills of whereversville California
Far above gross strips of orange and grey
Hollywood on one side and an area I should never call home on the other
Trying to locate the first second
The best way to my heart
Looks of frustration
Contentment
And just that look

“every single one down there is a liar”
“stay away from me I’ll only hurt you”
“”these sunglasses and hat will make it easier to deal with”

My first, but really second moment like this
Interrupted over and over
Spilled directly into awkwardsville
“oh well then”
Months from now in the middle of the night
Months from now in the early hours of dawn
Months from now we’ll remember this time and laugh
We’ll look back fondly
Speak of fucking and taking things fast
Speak of how better everything gets
Months after things get worse
Weeks after things get worse
Even days after things get worse
They seem to get better

Her gaze even better in real life
Better than hours of phone calls and letters
letters on a screen that have something
“nothing will ever stand in the way”
Not women you’d never meet
Not men I’ll never meet

Eight months later
Almost to the day though
Light in my eyes that makes it hard to even sleep
Darkness that makes it easy to sleep
Why is it when I feel I’ve done wrong
I can sleep better at night?
I always have more light in my head
The way I pull information though
This gigantic flashlight
A flashlight made of fire, frustration and sixteen other words that begin with the letter F

Master of Puppets

2010-06-02T11:56:00.000-07:00

I can push and be pushed into any situation. I try to make my own decisions here and there and really, I never do. I let situations dictate them. I don’t think I’ve put more than a few minutes into a choice in a long time. I have no fucking patience for sitting around thinking if it involves other people. I can just as easily ignore people forever. I can leave them alone and never pick up the phone again if I need to. Most people can’t do this, they are weak and always cave in. I think because everyone ever has failed me I don’t put any kind of stock into people at this point. Everyone is selfish at the end of the day including me. If I had it my way right now I would disappear into the middle of the country somewhere. Miles away from the ocean and the internet and coffee and listening to people ramble on about things I have no interest in, listening to the same questions over and over. Miles away from every single person invading my privacy, family, friends, strangers, I volunteer information all the time so the invasion doesn’t really exist, but really. Someone thinks I have something interesting to say. They must be blind, or have some other motives. Hmm.

Until I get back to reality and living some sort of new routine, this routine is the one. Staring at a ceiling fan, listening to animals in the back yard, watching people read their bibles, fat housewives sucking on milkshakes disguised as coffee drinks, all whites all the time. I sleep three hours a night, the rest of the time I am waiting for some sort of alarm to go off. The rest of the time its all noise all the time. Nowhere to go to avoid their deafening voices and taunts and uninteresting feelings about life.

Early morning dream 06/02/10:
Was in some sort of pantry area trying to run some sort of device that needed to be hooked up to a tank of gas and it was not working. Tank eventually came disconnected from hose and flew around small area before crashing into a wall.

Looking back now on trips I have taken, people I’ve taken them with, certain areas of the country and which were the best. I’ve never done extensive traveling with another person really. When I did it had a specific function, moving. The whole trips were complete stressful times for the majority, and there was nothing really relaxing about those trips. Trips I’ve taken in New England have been okay. Some have been hard to deal with because of whatever weather we were having, and usually the trips were too short. I know everything that’s here at this point for the most part. I’ve been to the top of Maine and looked across a river at Canada, and to the bottom of my least favorite state, Connecticut. So I feel like I’ve seen almost every inch of New England that I need to see. It’s impossible for me to get lost in Massachusetts.

Maybe because they are more recent, or because of the company I was with, or because I am better at traveling than I was say ten years ago. My trip to Disneyland for my birthday last November with G was great. Great that it was early in our relationship and although still didn’t know each other as well as we do now, it was great to spend my birthday at that place I loved as a kid with someone I love. Our trip to Morro Bay/San Luis Obispo this past March was also great. I didn’t know if it would be the last time I saw her or not since I was moving back to Boston a couple of weeks later. That is a great area of the state and I think I really fell for her there so it was particularly bittersweet to leave that day. I couldn’t write enough shitty songs and poems about that smile and well, other things.

Now that I have been back here, and have listened to all of these songs that remind me of here and then remind me of there, I feel like I really want to go back there. I know what is here and I know what is there. I put these things on a scale the other night. Ups, downs. Pros, cons, you know...It’s noisy and crowded here. If I get to the ocean here, it is rocky and cold and I feel like I am pushed against the sea.

"Hey Charlie"
I landed on the ice with a giant “thud”, and got up immediately. I think I had been running but I’m not sure when I think back to that night. Charlie wanted to catch up with me this night, but I wouldn’t let him. I ran, and ran, and ran. Charlie always had a slew of questions to ask me. Charlie always wanted me to tell him a story “from the old days”. I liked Charlie, but he was just too much sometimes. Charlie always wanted me to lend him a cigarette, although he never gave back the “lent” cigarettes I gave him. Charlie was never in love from what I can tell. He was always telling me of some girl he was with the night before, but I was never interested. In retrospect I guess I should have been a bit nicer to Charlie. Charlie pushed. Charlie outright bugged me most of the time.

I don’t think many people knew of Charlie. I never told my friends about Charlie, or the day I met him in the coffee shop. Charlie was sitting at the stool two over from me, and when the large construction man left, Charlie introduced himself. I had seen Charlie around my building, but had no clue he lived in it. In fact, he lived right below me. I didn’t really pay attention to anyone there, except for the couple next to me, whom I HAD to pay attention to because they were so loud. Arnold and Louise, what a fucking couple they were. So anyway, this particular night, it was raining, which made the ice on the ground even more slick than it was. I was coming home from my friends’ place where we had just watched television for five hours straight. Charlie saw me turn our corner, and started in with the questions. What's up? You staying up? Every once and a while I would let Charlie in and we would hang out and get high. Tonight I wanted to go to bed right away. I’m going to bed Charlie. I’m not doing anything tonight Charlie. I started yelling a little. I’m GOING IN CHARLIE! Charlie kept at it. I started running down the street in fear at this point. After the thud on the ice, I made my way into the apartment building.

Charlie came to the door five minutes after I got in. Can I come in? Just for a minute. Charlie was in love apparently. He had mentioned this one girl a bunch of times, but I had never paid attention. I hadn’t been in love in three years, so I guess I was a bit jealous of Charlie. I all of a sudden felt a little compassion for Charlie, and listened to him. Hey remember the time you told me you fell in love with that girl, and she turned out to be your cousin? Yes I remember that Charlie. Remember you told me that it was much bigger than love, and that every time you were with her you felt like she was a part of you? Yes I remember that Charlie. That’s how I feel right now. Who is she Charlie? Her name is Darlene, and she works at the pizza place up the street. Oh, I think I know who you’re talking about, you’ve mentioned her before right? I offered Charlie a cigarette. He said he was quitting. Your loss I snapped. Darlene obviously doesn’t smoke I take it? Yes, she does. Oh. I’m going to marry her. You are? Yes, I think I am. The horoscope says I probably will. And that’s a good source of information for you Charlie? It never lies to me. How come every time I look at it Charlie, I ignore it if it doesn’t say anything good, and when it does, I ignore it anyway?

The next morning Charlie was on his way to the store when he dropped in the middle of the street. It seems a brain tumor fell him. I guess in retrospect Charlie was a good man, he just bugged me a bit too much. The one night when I finally let him have his night with me he dies the next day. I visited the pizza place after Charlie died to see Darlene. She’s at home with her husband the guy behind the counter told me. It turns out that Charlie was indeed in love with Darlene, but this was news to Darlene. Charlie wanted so bad to have love in his life but was denied it over and over, so he made up stories. I miss Charlie. I have no love either, and Charlie had some love, he seemed to love me, but I had none of it to give him when he was alive. My friends now have all gone on and pursued their dreams of moving out of this city, and into homes with their wives, and girlfriends. Today I went down to the coffee shop and sat at the counter next to this policeman. After he got up, I moved into his seat, and asked the man next to me if he was enjoying the unusually warm weather in January.

"Novembre"
Lets cut out the small talk

We are sitting next to each other and that’s all

I am not an interesting person

I am not an interested person

I have nothing to give you really

I can give you stories

I can follow you home

I am good at that

I can make you think I am someone else

I am good at that

I can let you think you know me

In the middle of the night though

I am pulling strings

I’m plotting revenge on you

You’ve done absolutely nothing to me

I know you’ve done harm to others though

I see through you all the way to Hawaii

I sit up late at night writing letters to your friends

I spend hours devising ways to harm you

I sit around inside my head

I’m no better than you

You are truly better than me, which is why I do this

You win one battle

In the end though, I win ten

You fight three battles

I fight none

And I still come out on top somehow

The second you asked me what my name was

That was the first mistake you made

You wife and kids seem nice

I’m really sorry

Really, I am.

Pussy Eating Contest

2010-05-28T11:30:00.000-07:00

Found some old shit I wrote once in this old hard drive. Title is obviously a reference to the Sabbath song.

09/03/05 - Oriskany, NY
“Lord of this World”
Wow, it’s ironic that I “hate” New York, but over the last few years I’ve grown real fond of upstate, almost to “I could live here” level. There’s a slight Massachusetts attitude here but people seem friendlier. I literally have had no run-ins or situations with people in cars, stores, etc. like I seem to have on a daily basis back home. I’m thinking I’ll come up to Lake George in the Autumn. Anyway, this place is pretty beautiful (there’s nothing here, refreshingly), yet it’s also kind of ugly. I can feel some sort of weird vibe driving through downtown Rome, NY. It’s almost like how you feel when you are in Lawrence, MA but a little safer.

I planned on going to the show earlier today but ended up falling asleep and by the time I got myself motivated to leave the hotel room there was an amazing strawberry dusk situation happening. Reminded me of my first trip to Tennessee in 2000; I drove 13 hours that day, arriving in Knoxville at dusk and it was a similar color. Where this place is more remote and there is no orange glare in the sky from a big city nearby, it’s more intense here. Sure the thought of upstate New York being cooler than anything in Tennessee is kind of farcical given the great times I had both times I’ve spent time there, I am talking about Knoxville, TN which was basically like Saugus, MA with cowboy hats and more black people…and Waffle House.

A couple of our friends were on mushrooms and drunk tonight which was slightly amusing. I did not have any alcohol. I’m trying to remember the last time I drank any alcohol and it may have been as long ago as June. I was losing the taste for it about five years ago, but it quickly involved into having to force myself to enjoy even half a beer that I “liked” in the first place. At this point I can’t imagine ever wanting a beer. It’s been peer pressure for the last five years, really. In my entire life I’ve probably been into a liquor store and bought alcohol to drink thirty times tops. Whatever though.

The music was great tonight; I stayed for just about all of it. We had a good time mocking hippies, as well as our tripping friends while trying to stand up on a ski mountain in the dark.
The drive home was a little more enjoyable tonight. It’s scary as all fuck, but shorter this time around for some reason, perhaps because I was in a better mood. It was great to see the hotel and get to sit around here in the warm room now. Speaking of enjoying myself doing nothing.

Chapter Two of this thing I wrote about a fishing trip gone weird

2.

These winding roads were enticing the first few times we did this trip, by now they had turned into a redundant series of black and white postcards held in front of our tired heads. Don was out of cigarettes and kept taking mine for the last two hours of the 6-hour journey north. I just wanted to get to the cabin and grab a beer and a place to plant my exhausted legs and eyes for the night. The trance like effect of the John Lee Hooker on the stereo, and the postcards made for an even longer drive. By the time we got to the cabin it was near nine in the evening and I was collapsing on the walk in.

“I need some sleep”

“Chuck, you need more than sleep, you need a vacation” Don opened the door, and we both took a whiff of the all too familiar smell of our summer hide out.

“This’ll do for now” I dropped my bag on the dinner table and made my way to the bathroom.

“Chuck, we should see if the old man is out on the lake tomorrow” Don yelled to me from the room, I could hear Robert DeNiro’s familiar voice in the background on the television Don had turned on before dropping his gear down.

“I’m sure he’ll be out tomorrow, it’s supposed to be a beautiful day out. I’m not sure I’m ready for his stories just yet though, he takes a lot of energy out of our day with some of those depressing stories of the war and his dead wife”

I made my way into my room and got undressed and put the boom box on the nightstand on. A talk radio show gushed on about paranormal stuff like Area 51 and jackalopes and that kind of thing. I like falling asleep to this show when I stay up here. The sky is so amazing out side my bedside window I can imagine UFO’s flying by and being able to see every little light and gear on it. Don was falling asleep on the couch, so I got up and shut the light off, but left the television on. He had been watching Analyze This with DeNiro and Billy Crystal. An okay movie for what it is, and surely it would have the same effect on me if I put it on right now. I shut the light out, and lit a cigarette; the radio was discussing a UFO sighting in Canada, Yukon Territory. I looked out on the lake as I smoked and saw what looked like a serpent in the water, once it reached the bone white moonbeam it turned into a log though. I chuckled to myself and put the cigarette out. I fell asleep to a woman from Santa Fe that could talk to lizards.

12/13/09 - Los Angeles, CA

Two more days and I will be six months without a cigarette. This is obviously great news for my physical being. For my mental being though, there are anniversaries every other day, the one month anniversary of the last time I was in a good mood, etc.

Making some friends out here, but really, when it all comes down to it. Nobody matches my friends back home who I have a history with. They know me well, people here it takes them a long ass time to figure you out. I see through every fucking one of them though. Suggesting ideas and places to go that I have not even the slightest care about. I see through the games played with networks and empty handshakes and silly conversations that sound like they come from outer space or some bizarre world in the back room of some shady tarot card place. All these practices to make yourself feel like you will live longer. Potions and exercises designed to sound interesting in conversations and that’s all. None of this crap does anything, it’s all empty placebos. Then you get hit by a car on Ventura Blvd and die anyway. Or some kid shoots you for $34. I am trying to keep my distance from people now because first of all I don’t trust anything they say or what their intentions may be. You pick that up pretty quick out here. Three months in and yeah even the people you feel you know best are out for something. They all show their teeth in the dark. You see it when they turn around and you can see their tail, their forked tongues and horns hidden under some bad haircut and worse outfit. I should make a list, a list of whatever those things I said were all bad things about back home and what made me want to leave there and come out here. The cold weather isn’t really that big of a deal. Also of note, this whole place is supposed to explode and die like September 11th.

They don’t know shit about me and I want to go home

I would turn on all of them and I will

I can’t take seriously men women and well you know

Back when it was just me and a whole bunch of dead horn players

I thought I was like I don’t know, some whacky guy

Just a normal plain old bore like your aunt and uncle back home though

Frame by Frame

2010-05-27T13:21:00.000-07:00

This feels like one of those periods of time where I would do well to take a week by myself and look at shit I’ve never seen before or have only seen a few times before. Green fields and grass and hills and trees Ill never see fall over in the rain and trees that only go from green to black. Trees presumably jealous of our trees that go from bright green to bright reds and yellows and fire orange and crunch crunch when you walk through them in the crisp months. Surely they must be jealous of this.

It just gets boring sitting still like this, even if I was supposed to already be something and somewhere by now. I was thinking of how the Indy 500 is this weekend. Wait is it? Yeah, it is Memorial Day weekend apparently. I love Indiana. Most boring state you could ever think to be in in your life, but it looks nice. It seems every time I am in Indiana, it is the state I stopped in late at night, and get some sort of fresh start in the morning. It’s been sunny and wide eyed blue skied every time I’ve been there (four or five times now). The best way to start any day of a road trip, Day One, Day Eight, whatever, is obviously on one of those kinds of days. When I went to Oklahoma last summer and trained back home after that depression-fest, we left Massachusetts when it was pouring rain, it was like 5:30 PM on a Friday night when we left so you can imagine how miserable the first three hours or so. We were also dragging a car behind the U-Haul, had two cats and I was two weeks into not smoking cigarettes anymore after eighty three years or whatever it was. After that first night of driving, I was no longer allowed to drive the U-Haul truck. A few days of day dreaming in the passenger seat with a cat in my lap was just fine with me though even if her and I barely spoke and she had stopped laughing at my jokes at that point.

So the first time I went to Indiana I went to the race track and took the tour and took pictures of cars for the dudes back home....and I just spent twenty minutes looking for them on this laptop and they are not here. I have a number of missing pictures I am discovering, as they are on my Windows machine I don’t have set up. What a horrible life I have, now I can’t finish what I was going to talk about here. Fuck you.

Some of these women that come in here, I mean there are some religious folks coming in here and they look like normal nice people. But then one will come in with all sorts of makeup on looking like she just snorted ten thousand lines of cocaine off of eight thousand cocks, but in 1986. That’s what some of the women who come in here look like to me.

I rarely judge people by how they look, but I will judge them by certain criteria. One is how long they can look you in the eye. Another is, and this one is very important and goes along with another situation as well. “How useful will this person be if some serious shit goes down?”. For instance, if we are under attack by armed men and women surrounding our house how good is a baby going to be in this situation? Sometimes you have to make tough decisions. I’m not suggesting you murder a baby, but they do make noise, and can’t use weapons. They can be used as bargaining tools though...If you have to leave to get away from the situation. Maybe go on the run for a while, you aren’t going to take your one legged friend with you, or someone who can’t drive a car right?

Another time I try and measure this same thing is when I am in public, especially an airplane, or any tight quartered place like a small restaurant. I like to survey the room to see who I should maybe try and team up with, who is going to be a pain in the ass about shit. Who might I have to knock out or kill just to make things easier? Who might be working against us, etc. If you don’t figure these things when you are out and about at places you’re not going to do well at all really. Right now where I am there are....twenty six people in here including the employees. I see about three I think I could really count on if we all of a sudden are invaded. Two guys over there would probably just immediately be shot by the invaders, I can tell which women here would probably not stop screaming and would also be shot and killed by the invaders. There is one woman here (the one who looked like the 80’s coke whore) who may or may not be working with the invaders. There is one black guy here, kind of big. Probably can’t run very far, but could be a good ally as he has a pretty good mean face like me. Everyone else in here is a fucking pussy. I think as long as the number of invaders was under twenty, we could probably take them with improvised weapons and some secret plans and techniques I already have planned out in my head. (80’s coke whore woman has just met up with someone and kissed him on the cheek, they are now sitting together. He’s about 5’4”, a little meaty on his bones, but his button down shirt and hairdo indicate I could easily take him out even if he does have a gun on him. Judging by how he looks and how he carries himself he’s obviously the “money guy” in this covert gang of thugs that will soon invade this Starbucks and try to kill all of us. Anyway, I could easily deal with him I think. I already se five things around me I could throw at him that would shock and disable him for a brief few seconds.)

So I have been off and on working on a “novel” among a million other projects that maybe someday will exist. I’m trying to come up with a good opening line for the novel though. Here are some I have come up with so far:

I walked among the brokenhearted buildings of a city that lost its soul when she left town.

Drunk and brains fucked out, we left my apartment for a cup of silent coffee, and loud haircuts.

He was part Michael Caine, part Ted Kennedy, and he was on PCP.

We John Coltraned ourselves downtown, and made our way into the disconcerted evening of nightclubs, smoky all night diners, and characters out of a bad Steely Dan song.

The night he broke Nobuko’s heart, he felt as if he had single handedly avenged the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and finally gotten the closure on this tired relationship.

Jennifer was ready, fuck was Jennifer ready.

With my messenger bag filled with memories, and mix tapes, I put on my Sauconys, and left Detroit for good.

She made me feel like Jesus Christ, I made her feel like a pile of dirt.

The acrid taste of the night before filled my mouth, as I emptied the contents of my pocket onto my dresser; this would be the final morning of my coke binge.

My father would have been proud; I strummed the first few chords of “Private Dancer” by Tina Turner on my guitar, and faced my first day as a transvestite with vigor not seen since the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001.

She fucked him for coke, he fucked her because his wife was pregnant.