New Mexico

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. 

Master of Puppets

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

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

Summer - 1998

I took one good long look at the bizarre pattern on the rug of the hotel lobby, and realized I would be in for, at the very least, an interesting stay.

“Sir,”
she broke my concentration

“your room is around the back, 113. Enjoy your stay.”

“Thanks” I replied and walked out into the thick pea soup air.

August was a hot month for North Carolina. I had already withstood a week of this nasty hot weather, but today was extra brutal. I walked by the pool on the way to my room and noticed an old pale man sitting by the pool. We both made eye contact, and then broke when a young boy jumped into the pool screaming something unintelligible.
The smell of a new motel room is always nice, like a new car. After the stale ashtray of my cars interior, any new smell is always greeted with a pleasant sigh. One time, I was in Pittsburgh, or rather, outside of Pittsburgh. My reservation should have been changed weeks before, but I didn’t, so I stayed in some small blue collar town with all kinds of factories and Ford trucks, and men with mustaches, and white people with nice SUV’s and black people with dirty sidewalks, and fast food restaurants filled with acne covered Puerto Rican boys. This was the epitome of traveling to me. The people who lived in these towns I passed through. The people that live and breathe the towns always make me feel unwelcome. “People watching” is a favorite way to pass time when I have time between travel days. So I’m in this outskirt of Pittsburgh and I show up at this run down motel that is in between a Kentucky Fried Chicken, a McDonalds, and about nine other businesses recognizable from ten miles away(who can’t spot a Dunkin Donuts sign from three miles away?). I get the key to my room. Before I even open the door, I am greeted with an odor that makes me practically gag. It’s the smell of a room that apparently had someone smoke maybe a carton of cigarettes (in a row) in a room with an air conditioner blasting (with a dirty filter). Not wanting to deal with this for more than five more minutes I did what any smart traveler would do, I fumigated the room with steam. This was a trick I learned…that day. “Improvisational fumigation” . I turned the shower, as well as the sink on full blast and turned the heat all the way up on both of them. The steam started pouring out of the bathroom swiftly. First little puffs of steam here and there, until eventually I had the Iron Maiden stage set (during the pre Bruce Dickinson era, Killers [Paul D’ianno, vocals] tour of course. As later tours seemed to have specific themes, like the Egyptian/Graveyard mood on the Powerslave tour, or the Blade Runneresque Somewhere In Time tour The room started to get unbearably hot, so I opened the door, with a good weeks worth of facial hair, and an ironic cigarette dangling out of my mouth to discover a family loading into the room next to me. I made eye contact and said hello to the wife first, the young daughter, and then to the father, as what must have looked like a scene from a Fellini film took place behind me, and eventually around me. Smoke and steam can have a cool effect sometimes. If used in an original manner such as greeting a family from Connecticut in the midst of trying to fumigate your room from the smell of cigarette smoke (while yourself smoking), one feels like some sort of character. The smell did eventually go away, and I never saw the family again the rest of my stay.



I rested easy that night, as the stench was gone, and in a day or two, Pittsburgh would be a dim memory for me.

Back to North Carolina.

I get to my room and it smells wonderful.

“It's like that new car smell!” I think to myself

I throw the television on as usual, and go outside to get the rest of my stuff. A suitcase full of clothes, clean and dirty, a messenger bag filled with notebooks and journals filled with bad art, and worse memories, three CD cases filled with a total of 500 CD’s, and my trusty boom box. I can’t sleep in the dead silence, as my ears ring all the time and it keeps me awake, so I lull myself to sleep with anything from Miles Davis to Black Sabbath. Heavy metal is easy to go to sleep to actually. I set up the boom box and throw in the Duke Ellington trio CD (definitely one of the best things the Duke ever did in my humble opinion. With Charles Mingus and Max Roach rounding out the rhythm section, how can you get a better trio than that?) and immediately skipped to Caravan (track 8, which when one looks at the history of Track 8’s from tons of releases, you’ll see the attraction to this sacred home in album sequencing history, check it out: Bowie’s Man Who Sold the World: seven tracks before getting to the title track, Van Morrison gives us the beautiful When That Evening Sun Goes Down eight tracks in on Tupelo Honey, the Beach Boys Pet Sounds boasts the greatest song they did in God Only Knows eight tracks in, my favorite track on the brilliant Stones Exile on Main Street, Sweet Black Angel is guess what, track eight. Even the Beatles knew what they were doing when they put the creepy Happiness is a Warm Gun 8 tracks in on the White Album. The Smashing Pumpkins Gish offers the listener Tristessa at number eight, T-Rex gives us Telegram Sam eight tracks into The Slider, and the Sugarcubes give us their best [also most obnoxious] song, deus on Life’s too Good. This is obviously not an accident. Track 8 will be revered for years to come as the key spot to hook the listener and make a classic record just that, a classic record. One example of this not happening is on the seminal Replacements record Let it Be, where the weakest track on the record Seen Your Video is erroneously given the coveted track 8 spot. The albums best song actually opens the record as I Will Dare, or arguably opens “side two” with My Favorite Thing. There are good arguments for both songs. I Will dare boasts the best pop hook in the history of guitar playing this side of You Really Got Me, where My Favorite Thing presumably filled thousands of mix-tapes throughout the eighties. Both are great songs regardless.), one of my favorite songs of all time, made most famous by Dizzy Gillespie. I turned the volume down on the television set and started to fade off.



I dreamed of this big mountain I was driving on. It felt like I was driving for hours as my eyeballs felt like dry golf balls whatever that means. I was hot in the car as I drove down this huge mountain, and it surrounded me. There was mist and fog along the sides of the mountain that made it impossible to see how high up I was. My ears were filled with hot air. I felt all of this vividly in this dream. Perhaps it was the actual long hours I had been driving in reality, mixed with a steady diet of caffeine, nicotine, and THC I was living on for days that made me have such rich, alive dreams. So I’m on this thing driving not really knowing where I’m supposed to be going in the dream. Just following everyone else for the most part. Everyone is going just fast enough to make it uncomfortable, and unsafe. I feel like I am going to drive off the mountain. In the dream I am with someone else, they sit in the back seat, each time I look in the rear view mirror to see them they turn their head away so I can’t see their face. They sometimes obscure their face without turning their head confusing me even more, as I try to concentrate on gravity and speed at the same time. I picture the car driving off of the side of the mountain into the woods. Traveling at speeds well over one hundred miles an hour, this is a very real vision within a dream. I picture the car tumbling violently over jagged rocks and tree branches breaking, and the contents of my car being thrown around like balls in one of those bingo things. I picture myself landing though, and walking away from the car. Nobody is in the back seat. A bunch of broken picture frames and empty coffee cups litter the area in and around the car. I manage to get the crushed trunk open with the help of a piece of the bumper (?) and retrieve my most coveted possession, the boom box, and the CD’s. I start walking through the barren woods, knowing well I can’t climb back up the valley and make it to the highway above. I go through the CD’s and find Simon and Garfunkel – Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme and put it in the boom box and begin my descent into the woods.

I awaken to what sounds like someone hammering nails into a giant aluminum silo. I look out the window, and the father from the family is actually packing things into his car. I can’t figure out what he was doing to make such a racket, but I keep investigating. Pretty soon the mother, followed by the daughter come out of the room and start talking to the father. What looks like an argument turns into a kiss on the cheek from both women as they leave the parking lot and walk towards the gas station across the street.

The family is a thing I will never really have. I can’t really imagine what kind of things go with being a family person. Here I am traveling around the country in my car to amuse myself. I have a ton of money to just waste on nothing but rare blues records and cigarettes, and this guy probably has an agenda each day. “Today we need to leave the hotel room at seven in the morning so we can make our way to Hershey Park by noon. At ten o’clock this evening we will go to dinner at this restaurant I found in the travel book. This is what will go down. This is how my family will spend their vacation” Me, I’m showing up in these towns and cities and grabbing the yellow pages and looking for used record stores, book stores, and whatever else to look at along the way.

I close the drapes in the room and walk over to the boom box, The Ellington CD probably stopped playing 7 hours ago. I press the play button and crawl back into my seven thirty in the morning bed hoping to hit the town later in the day. Wondering how I fell asleep in North Carolina and woke up back in Pittsburgh.

Rippinest Town Pt III

Well after 2:00 AM and I’ve had thirteen shots of espresso today and still annoyed myself by hearing some grown man at the coffee place say “expresso”. Really people, how hard is that word to say? There isn’t even a letter that looks like an “x” in it. Drives me up the fucking wall. Worse than “supposebly”.

Have spent every extra minute here writing for what reason? I have no idea. This evening had a nice dinner with my two friends who weren’t born in the United States (Matt and Crystal), which I thought of briefly while we were hanging out. Not that exciting of a fact about them though really, but anyway, we had a great time and went back to their apartment and talked about music and politics and travel and drank espresso based drinks and now here I am, seven hours away from the reason I came out here for this trip. I think I lied to most people I know and said I had some “family thing”. Heh. Anyway, yeah so that is tomorrow morning and then the rest of the weekend who knows. This trip is kind of worth it in a way. Even though I am coming back in a week it kind of gave me that one last chance to say “yeah I think I’m going to stay in California”. I already knew the second I decided to move back here that staying in California wasn’t an option no matter what happened. This is where I want to be which is all that matters. People out here and out there and what they think, well it has no bearing on anything I will ever do again.



I am writing way too much online lately. Oof (?).

I am going to document my trip across the country again like I did here before The original idea for this blog was mostly to write when I went on road trips or any kind of vacation which I tend to do quite a bit. I get a little obsessive and want to track everything like when I moved out there last August and I listed every single song I listened to on the way out to California which I gathered from an Excel sheet. I dumped playlists in it every night from the iPod. If I happened to listen to an actual CD I would write that down and add it in myself. I originally planned (there is definitely someone or something stirring outside this house up and around the windows. The two windows in this tiny bedroom look out into complete pitch black. I am a 40 year old guy that people tend to say looks “mean” or whatever and you could not pay me any amount of money to open the curtains right now and look out there. If I did that whatever/whoever it is would surely jump up and start banging on the window or break through it and grab me to pull me outside to meet my fate...perhaps the real reason I came out here for this trip [!]) to also put music in this file that I heard in gas stations and restaurants, hotel lobbies and department stores but decided against it at the last minute. This time around (whatever it is out there is sounds like something keeps sighing and clicking some weird like old crackity tape machine thing, and then when I go to look around the room I see these old dolls and crucifix on the wall and man I just don’t want to be in this room) though I have come up with some easier ideas. I am going to do some video stuff, maybe with me talking I have no idea I hate what I look like and sound like so who knows if I will do that. I also have ideas for writing exercises. Well, I have a list of “rules” I made for driving across the country at one point. So maybe doing one each of those and talking about it might at least give me some sort of focus rather than writing this (yeah okay I get it you’re out there) and that about how lonely I am and boo hoo my life is no fun. I have some “games” to keep myself entertained....maybe something like “Let’s wear this Eyehategod shirt in Texas and see what happens”, etc.

Speaking of keeping myself entertained and generally being kind of a jerk. A week or so ago. Fuck I hate bad drivers and I am not going to blame it on LA or Boston as they are everywhere. It’s a cliche, I”m probably a bad driver to someone else, who cares though? So I am in this parking lot where my mail box is and I am pulling out and this guy in a LIncoln Town Car just breezes through the stop sign like he never even considered stopping an option. Of course I did that thing where I jumped out a little like I was going to just go and he had to swerve out of the way. I didn’t really have anything else to do for the rest of the day so I decided I would follow the guy and just “keep it real” as I like to call it. He eventually pulled into a parking space and I pulled a U-Turn. I then slowly at drive-by-shooting speed I drove past his car and held my phone out the passenger side window and “took a picture” of his car and license plate. He has just gotten out of the car and then noticed me, I then pointed the camera at him and “took his picture” and the guy stood there with his mouth kind of agape. He was maybe in his late 60’s, white shorts, moustache, typical asshole. I then sped off and saw he was just standing there the whole time as I pulled away. I then got nervous he was going to call the police and thought they would confiscate my phone and see that I did not take a picture of this poor fuck who doesn’t understand stop signs, but really I wonder what could have happened? Wow how weak of a person am I for kind of harassing some guy to feel better about myself. Actually I did it because that guy was shit.

Wish You Were Here

August
I’m through with lighting fires and throwing hand grenades at burning cars and boats I mean I haven’t been on a boat in a while people get killed on boats people they get killed every day boats cars guns knives diseases you know the works I’ll have it large with the works on it.

September
I’m through with answering the phone at this point. I do not need to ever answer the phone it rings and the sound is so similar to that of my alarm clock in the morning well to tell you the truth it has the same soul as the alarm clock if you know what I mean my cell phone has a soul and it’s the same dark soul my alarm clock shares no big deal it’s just something I find easy to ignore.

October
They made this community out of breaking laws and sins they come by the house here and there and try to get me to buy I ain’t buying though I can hardly imagine the products being worthy in my existence I can’t imagine how their community of people has lasted this long they will be gone with the rap singers and the white kids with turntables for cocks.

November
I murdered 14 people in the state of Virginia over the weekend nobody will notice them gone they weren’t taken or anything I was initially confused as to where I was at I thought I may have been somewhere else until I realized there are two of me now I have a pet that does some of the other chores I need to get done day to day this pet went down to Virginia for me this past weekend and got some people done for me while I vacationed amongst the bizarre dichotomy of snow and dark roads.

December
It seems that once you shake someones hand you’re in it for the long run tonight I sat here and shook my own hand and then took myself out into the backyard wow what a view from up here wow what a view I have when I go on the roof too it’s kind of funny to think that I lived in the basements of churches and restaurants for years like I did back in the seventies.

January
The dog simply told me that it was upset at the recent rule imposed in the house of no running around the dog then told me that my father made too many absurd rules I can’t say I blame the dog my father has a way of making these rules that seem fit for just a dog or just a person or just him he has his own silly rules like no smoking in the house he doesn’t want to encourage us he once came home with ten boxes of canned tomatoes and told me that he was probably going to divorce my mother soon.

February
So it turns out that the best way to deal with the concept of maturity is to completely forget the word exists to forget the word morality exists to forget that you can insult and piss off and surprise and hey you can even surprise yourself sometimes it turns out though that this is not the way to do it who knew I certainly didn’t listen I’m trying to fix this but once I smack it in the side to get it working again it breaks even more.

Because I'm Afraid of Heights

where are we?

I don’t know yet

where are we going?

I don’t know, what’s the big deal?

I’m just asking

well, you ask too many questions

what’s wrong with that?

nothing, but this is a good song, so shhh for one minute

sorry

I’m just messing around…well, it is a good song

OKAY I’LL SHUT UP

you don’t have to shut up

well what the hell are you telling me to shoosh for then?

okay, now we’ve missed the song, I’m starting it over, just listen for the four minutes, can you handle that?

yes

what did you think?

that is a good song

I told you

yes, you sure did

getting back to what we were talking about before the song..where do you see yourself going with all of this anyway?

I don’t know, I just want some piece of mind

and you think this is your answer?

well, it should help

I guess

Why don’t you think so?

I just think you need to find a mirror first

what?

you need a better mirror than the one you’ve been looking in

I’m lost

you’re getting all introspective lately, but I think it’s fueled by some other power, some other people or something

I guess I get what you mean

well, look at it this way, you have problems, they have problems, I have problems, you start analyzing yourself, and you get advice from people who have the same problems, you’re getting advice from bad new age books, you need to make your own mirror and try and see yourself how you want to see yourself my opinion of how you should be shouldn’t matter, nor should the ideas some of these so called friends give you nobody knows what’s best for you better than you do

I guess so

no, it’s true

I just need to do something quick though

well, you go for the quick fix and you’re going to be taking this ride with me again talking about this same shit

I know I just feel like I’m at a dead end right now

was that a goat on the side of the road there?

what?

forget it

I just feel lost I guess

well, you can’t be lost if you’re not going anywhere

true

so get off your ass and do something

like what

I don’t know, paint, write a novel, learn how to walk the tightrope, find a career

a career in tightrope walking?

sure why not?

tightrope walking?

yeah, they must make money

how?

by being fucked enough to want to walk a tightrope

yeah

I’m sure there’s not many of them

you’re right, who walks tightropes?

people

would you ever walk a tightrope?

Hell no

why not?

because, that’s fucked up

can I have one of your cigarettes?

no

thanks, where’s your lighter?

so why wouldn’t you walk a tightrope?

it’s not necessary

so why should I do it then?

I think you’d be good at it

why?

because you have some practice already

I do?

well, sort of

I hate heights though

no you don’t

yes I do

you don’t

what do you mean, of course I do

you think you do, but you really don’t think about it

ummm…yeah, I’m still scared of them

okay whatever you say

would you rescue someone from a high building if you had a big ladder?

What kind of question is that?

A hypothetical one

fuck you

well?

I don’t know, it would depend, is the building on fire?

Don’t get into specifics

why not? I want to know what kind of trouble I might get myself into

trouble? it’s a simple question, would you or wouldn’t you?

no I wouldn’t

why?

because I’m afraid of heights

so you wouldn’t save the little boy and his pet dog?

you didn’t say anything about a little boy, or a dog!

why, is it different now?

no, but you said there were no specifics

it was my hypothetical question, I can do anything I want with it

not fair, is this cd repeating itself now?

yeah, I’ll put something else on

can I pick something?

ummm…yeah, well, let me play this for you you’ll love it

oh yeah, I forgot that you control the music in your car

the driver should be comfortable as possible

what does that have anything to do with anything?

I shouldn’t have to listen to something I don’t want to while I’m driving

these are all your cd’s though!

yeah, but I’m usually not in the same mood as someone else might be

but these are your cd’s

yeah, but right now, it’s three-fifteen in the morning, I’m not going to want to hear Motorhead most likely, I want to hear Django or the Stones or something

well, can’t you let someone look and pick something with you

of course not

where are we?

the beach

what are we doing?

we need to talk

okay