Thursday, September 18, 2003
except i sustained a massive hematoma in last week's game, and now i can barely walk. i can still buy coke, though.
Thursday, September 04, 2003
i am an excellent coke-buyer and a fucking brilliant street-walker.
allow me to qualify those claims:
for the last year, every day at about 3 or so my energy runs low and i go down to the street to buy a can of coke from the newspaper vendor on the corner of 23rd and park. it’s the same man every day, but i don’t know his name and probably never will. i go to the corner, walk up to the little fridge and pull on the rope to open it (the rope has a little bell to prevent theft), and hand the guy a dollar. whether it’s a bill or change, it is always a dollar. to be honest, i don’t even know if a can of soda from his stand costs a dollar. i just give him one. when i don’t have exact change i almost apologize to him.
i know a can of coke is less than a dollar at the duane reade on the ground floor of my building. i know it is less at the supermarket across 22nd. but the duane reade is inefficient, and there is always a line. same thing for the grocery store. i know if i give the lobby security guard a dollar, he will buy me two (only 50 cents) from the vending machine (owned by a different company on the 2nd floor of my building). but i can’t be bothered. there's only one way to buy coke and that's through my guy. there is also a hot dog lady on the corner of 23rd and park, and she sells cans of coke. i tried going to her once, but i had a ten and she let out this big sigh because i either:
a) only wanted a coke and didn’t want a dirty water dog
or,
b) didn’t have exact change.
in any event, she pissed me off and i threw the coke down on her stand and demanded my money back, telling her if it was too much fucking trouble for her to sell me something she is standing on the street selling, she could go fuck herself. she took a few steps back, handed me my bill and told me to please take it easy. fuck that. you are selling and i am buying. i said please, i asked for what i wanted clearly, and i handed you money—if you can’t handle the rest of the transaction for any reason, fuck off, i’ll find someone who can.
there are often a number of lowlife lotto players and scratch-off junkies in front of my vendor, but it’s like they don’t exist to me and my guy. i cut right past them, right through them, right over them. i reach over, his hand snaps out, and he gets the dollar-- in a flash i am heading back, coke in hand, with the little bell from the fridge door still tingling.
today he was out in front of the stand putting out candy or something. today we one-handed it. i reached past him, dollar in hand, grabbed my coke and he plucked the dollar from between the can and my fingertips as it passed his head, all without either of us even acknowledging one another. a co-worker i was with asked me a second later if i had just stolen it. we’re mesh that well, me and the vendor. we have a perfect relationship. i am an excellent coke-buyer.
i am a fucking brilliant street-walker, as well. legendary. i slide down the sidewalk, cross busy streets, go up and down staircases—all that shit—with an amazing agility, speed and with what i would have to say is a clarity of mind that i rarely notice in others. i know where my train doors open—not on some commuter LiRR train that i board the same time every day-i mean on the subway--on lots of trains on different platforms across the
city. i know which end of the train i need to be on in order to be closest to my destination’s corresponding exit when it reaches a particular stop. i move with an efficiency and economy of motion that is almost fucking godlike.
i can approach a crosswalk, scan the situation and make the call in an instant, timing my movements, my angle and my gait, so that i need never break stride and cross in one smooth, swift motion. i never appear hurried or pressed for time—i am just...maximizing.
Usually i have to dodge the people staring blankly at the don’t walk sign. i’ll never understand that. They just sit there looking at the little red sign waiting for it to go green, to say, “it’s ok to cross the street now, little one.” i know it’s the law and all but what the hell, i’m not a sheep. i’m not going to stand there like a jackass when there isn’t any traffic, simply because the sign says “don’t walk.” Countless times i have passed people who are just standing there, with not a car in sight, waiting for the light. i just don’t get it.
i always feel a bit burdened when i have to walk with someone else in the city. i just have a way of walking, a way of making all those little decisions--of balance and stride-- that come with living in this city, quickly and independently. i move for self. When i have a partner i am forced to figure them into my equation. i have nearly lost friends to taxi cabs in crosswalks, because when i got to the corner i instantly reckoned whether i had time to get across and made my move. My friends always seem to hesitate for a moment, and that little instant is often the difference between having time to cross and getting hit. i have heard a sharp intake of breath behind me, on many occasions, as friends realize that they waited too long and need to run a bit to get across ok, or else they have to jump back and wait for the car to pass. it happens a lot.
i enjoy the crush and commotion changing trains each morning at union square station or when i find myself in times square. i can always see my path laid out in front me ahead of time—i see the turns, the changes in speed and the paths of all those who will cross mine. when i am walking i am a 10-second seer and the future is mine.
allow me to qualify those claims:
for the last year, every day at about 3 or so my energy runs low and i go down to the street to buy a can of coke from the newspaper vendor on the corner of 23rd and park. it’s the same man every day, but i don’t know his name and probably never will. i go to the corner, walk up to the little fridge and pull on the rope to open it (the rope has a little bell to prevent theft), and hand the guy a dollar. whether it’s a bill or change, it is always a dollar. to be honest, i don’t even know if a can of soda from his stand costs a dollar. i just give him one. when i don’t have exact change i almost apologize to him.
i know a can of coke is less than a dollar at the duane reade on the ground floor of my building. i know it is less at the supermarket across 22nd. but the duane reade is inefficient, and there is always a line. same thing for the grocery store. i know if i give the lobby security guard a dollar, he will buy me two (only 50 cents) from the vending machine (owned by a different company on the 2nd floor of my building). but i can’t be bothered. there's only one way to buy coke and that's through my guy. there is also a hot dog lady on the corner of 23rd and park, and she sells cans of coke. i tried going to her once, but i had a ten and she let out this big sigh because i either:
a) only wanted a coke and didn’t want a dirty water dog
or,
b) didn’t have exact change.
in any event, she pissed me off and i threw the coke down on her stand and demanded my money back, telling her if it was too much fucking trouble for her to sell me something she is standing on the street selling, she could go fuck herself. she took a few steps back, handed me my bill and told me to please take it easy. fuck that. you are selling and i am buying. i said please, i asked for what i wanted clearly, and i handed you money—if you can’t handle the rest of the transaction for any reason, fuck off, i’ll find someone who can.
there are often a number of lowlife lotto players and scratch-off junkies in front of my vendor, but it’s like they don’t exist to me and my guy. i cut right past them, right through them, right over them. i reach over, his hand snaps out, and he gets the dollar-- in a flash i am heading back, coke in hand, with the little bell from the fridge door still tingling.
today he was out in front of the stand putting out candy or something. today we one-handed it. i reached past him, dollar in hand, grabbed my coke and he plucked the dollar from between the can and my fingertips as it passed his head, all without either of us even acknowledging one another. a co-worker i was with asked me a second later if i had just stolen it. we’re mesh that well, me and the vendor. we have a perfect relationship. i am an excellent coke-buyer.
i am a fucking brilliant street-walker, as well. legendary. i slide down the sidewalk, cross busy streets, go up and down staircases—all that shit—with an amazing agility, speed and with what i would have to say is a clarity of mind that i rarely notice in others. i know where my train doors open—not on some commuter LiRR train that i board the same time every day-i mean on the subway--on lots of trains on different platforms across the
city. i know which end of the train i need to be on in order to be closest to my destination’s corresponding exit when it reaches a particular stop. i move with an efficiency and economy of motion that is almost fucking godlike.
i can approach a crosswalk, scan the situation and make the call in an instant, timing my movements, my angle and my gait, so that i need never break stride and cross in one smooth, swift motion. i never appear hurried or pressed for time—i am just...maximizing.
Usually i have to dodge the people staring blankly at the don’t walk sign. i’ll never understand that. They just sit there looking at the little red sign waiting for it to go green, to say, “it’s ok to cross the street now, little one.” i know it’s the law and all but what the hell, i’m not a sheep. i’m not going to stand there like a jackass when there isn’t any traffic, simply because the sign says “don’t walk.” Countless times i have passed people who are just standing there, with not a car in sight, waiting for the light. i just don’t get it.
i always feel a bit burdened when i have to walk with someone else in the city. i just have a way of walking, a way of making all those little decisions--of balance and stride-- that come with living in this city, quickly and independently. i move for self. When i have a partner i am forced to figure them into my equation. i have nearly lost friends to taxi cabs in crosswalks, because when i got to the corner i instantly reckoned whether i had time to get across and made my move. My friends always seem to hesitate for a moment, and that little instant is often the difference between having time to cross and getting hit. i have heard a sharp intake of breath behind me, on many occasions, as friends realize that they waited too long and need to run a bit to get across ok, or else they have to jump back and wait for the car to pass. it happens a lot.
i enjoy the crush and commotion changing trains each morning at union square station or when i find myself in times square. i can always see my path laid out in front me ahead of time—i see the turns, the changes in speed and the paths of all those who will cross mine. when i am walking i am a 10-second seer and the future is mine.
the whole world is going crazy. I can’t ride the subway, can't walk out of my apartment without experiencing some new kind of horror each day. I can't fathom the people around me, can’t understand them.
What the hell are you thinking, putting a big sticker across the windshield of your Lincoln Luxury Sports Coupe that says LUXURY SPORTS COUPE? There's some point to that? That announcement is somehow necessary and beneficial?
I saw thirteen Central American people get out of one station wagon in the Bronx last night. Two infants, 5 or six kids and the rest were adults. Are you out of your mind? You don’t DO that. THAT is DUMB.
I went to the Queens Central Library the other day in Jamaica. There were no less than 5 security guards evident there. 5. Is there some sort of high finance going on at the book borrowing place? No. They are there in case of "trouble", in case "something goes down". At the LIBRARY.
I had lunch in Flushing, which is like some sort of little Korea in the midst of Queens, and I just stared at some Asian guy selling tofu in little cups and plastic bags. He has a little stand with a big vat of tofu and every time I go there he is in the same spot, smiling and scooping out tofu. Care for a tofu cone? You want sprinkles on that? I could just picture him in some freaked-out apartment making huge batches of tofu with his toothless mother cackling and stirring the vat. Then some woman walks up to me and says "What time now?" What time now??? Time now 1:30. Bye Bye.
We always eat at Szechuan Capital if we go to Flushing. They have fantastic food and great prices. Ed always gets basically the same thing: Two steamed vegetable buns, seaweed soup and scallion cakes (He's a vegetarian, but not for any other reason than he used to be a great big fat person ((220 lbs.)) and he went down to 165 lbs. when he stopped eating meat.) We usually have the same waitress, a chinese lady who looks to be in her late 30's. I wonder if she is really IN THERE. We go fairly often. We are usually the only white people in there. We order the same food, but I don’t think she has any idea. Every time he orders those friggin buns she says the same thing. "Vegetable bun very big" and she makes this little gesture with her hands indicating the size. I mimicked her perfectly at the exact same time she was doing the gesture and her little speech about the size and she laughed. Thing is, we go in there next week and I bet she's going to do the same thing. We leave no impression. Too many faces.
I remember one time I stopped in to this little printing place where a friend of mine was working, just a little storefront printing press. It was Friday and I was wearing a suit. The lady behind the counter said he was off today. I asked her to tell him "ray stopped by to say hello". She said she wouldn’t see him until Tuesday and may forget to tell him. I thought a second, and then did a handstand in front of the counter and held it for a few seconds. Then I asked her if she would remember now. I saw him a month later. She did. The bun lady is in for something soon, maybe I'll bring a sign with me that says "VEGETABLE BUN VERY BIG" and hold it up when Ed orders.
My friend Brian, who drives bent forward against the steering wheel "to be closer to the action", accidentally ran over a huge raccoon last night on Gun Hill Rd. in the Bronx. I looked out the back window and could see it violently writhing on the ground with its legs shuddering in the air. On the hood of his car, a duster, it says 3.0 V6 OHC. (He didn’t put it there, it came that way).
I saw this middle eastern guy on Park Ave. and he had on those awful, awful sunglasses with the gold-like plastic on the sides. I love those things, they are as good as having a t shirt on that says AVOID ME, I AM OBVIOUSLY A BUFFOON. STAY CLEAR.
I went out on the Upper East Side last night. A totally different kind of horror. Cheeseballs. Slacks. Plaid. Brown shoes. Beautiful idiots and people that could buy and sell me. I'm sitting in a bar, surrounded by my peers who are smarter, more successful and better dressed than I will ever be, thinking "these people are so fucking stupid." "You must have agonized over which button up shirt will match with those khakis" $4 for a pint of Bud Light. Are you out of your minds? The "acoustic" band looked like a bunch a CPA's singing about coping with hair loss.
I was looking at this guy at the bar in front of me whom I had noticed because his laugh seemed sort of strained and loud. He was wearing brown shorts, a button up shirt unbuttoned about 3 buttons down, a thick gold chain, an expensive looking watch, a cell phone clipped to his pocket and tan socks with some kind of whacked-out sandal-type shoes. He had muscular legs which I think accounted for this wearing the shorts and he had a tan. His hair was parted in the middle, a little thick (almost bushy) on top and feathered back, halfway on the ears. Just like I got it caught in elementary school. He was kind of nodding his head to the music to this horrible music and I think it was more for show than for enjoyment, like "look at me , I'm grooving". I was watching him (I realize that sounds frightening) and I was looking for a wedding ring which I didn't see and I remember thinking to myself "So that's what it's like to be 34 and single on the Upper East Side."
I know that the downtown scene which I prefer is just a different version of the same bullshit. Tattoos and piercings and I'm so god damn unique and artistic and it's not about money can I borrow $10. I went to the warped tour at Randall's island to see this band I really like (the Deftones).Ed stopped at one point as we were walking around, looked at me and said "I see a lot of people who are going to regret their bodies in twenty years." I remember thinking to myself, this is the youth, this is our army, navy, air force, marines. An army of retards.
I keep wondering what the hell is going on, and why isn't anybody realizing it. People are becoming more and more fucked up. That's about the size of it. I am too, I am sure. It's this living on top of one another that's doing it. Piling people on top of people and all our humanity is being squished out. We aren't made to live like this, this never-ending migration to cities and the urbanizing of the suburbs and the suburbanizing of rural areas.
I imagine people have been saying the same thing as this forever, that it's all wrong, that we can't continue like this, yet we do. Will it last forever? Will we figure out what to do about all that shit I hear about, over-population, shortages of natural resources, killer bees, starlings from england, nuclear power in the hands of religious zealots ? The number of un-imaginable acts committed against or by children that indicate the level of our sense of humanity has sunk to. Those horrible sunglasses.
I can't see any other solution than some sort of even-ing out. Some sort of global, spiritual, economic and physical middle ground that will be reached, whether we want it or not. The whole world is gonna turn gray. I suppose that sounds simplistic. It should. The extremes keep getting further and further apart, and there ain't shit I can do to stop that, but the middle doesn't move. It's always gonna be right where it started. I can't conceptualize a new middle.
I don’t think we are going to evolve into some non-violent, well-spoken, sensible-as-all-hell race of hard-bodies. Nor do I think that we'll spend our future in some sort of post-apocalypse anarchistic half-lit nether world. Ever. I just don’t see that "enlightenment" dawning on us all, or even being forced on us. There are too many contradictions in that idea for it to be conceivable, the simplest being that a real UTOPIA couldn't be something forced. I found it very interesting that the only type of religious belief they wouldn't tolerate in that book "utopia" by whoever wrote it was no religion at all, atheism. Reason being was because an atheist would have no deterrent other than fear of punishment and his own sense of morality to keep him from breaking the law. No fear of holy retribution or vengeance.
True, maybe there is an understanding we will one day achieve that I could not possibly conceptualize, that will be so simple and so universal that it will be accepted immediately and wholeheartedly by all. Will that be God? I don't know.
I think things are going to continue as they are. The freaks will become more bizarre and incomprehensible. The boring will become more plain and indistinguishable. But I do think that the number of people that could be said to fall in the middle will grow. The mediums of communication are becoming more and more accessible to people. Cell phones, beepers, lap tops, internet, email, they are undeniably having an effect on people. I wouldn't say, though, that they are drawing mankind closer together. I think that they are providing forums within which people can become more aware of how other people live, how they think and act and what they are thinking about. But that awareness doesn’t necessarily bring understanding and it doesn't necessarily bring them closer, either.
But it helps. The awareness that these relatively new tools and means of communicating have made possible is encouraging. But I don’t think it will have much effect on those people you could say live on the edges. Nutballs, spanks, down-right weirdos. They aren't going to be brought back into the fold by interaction with the more even-keeled population.
Somebody once said that a man shows his greatness, not by being at one extreme or another but by touching both at once. I agree with that. Someone also said "I don't care whether it's good or bad, as long as it's intense." I can see that in myself as well. I am making an effort, not to know everything, but just to get a good idea of how much is out there to know, and to know it a little. It sounds egoistic, but I really want to be a kind of renaissance man, a jack-of-all trades type guy. A little bit of everything. I want to be the middle. Right now, I can see myself as being more on the fringes. Let's face it, I'm practically a fucking freak. But I KNOW that, so I am one up on the rest of them.
What the hell are you thinking, putting a big sticker across the windshield of your Lincoln Luxury Sports Coupe that says LUXURY SPORTS COUPE? There's some point to that? That announcement is somehow necessary and beneficial?
I saw thirteen Central American people get out of one station wagon in the Bronx last night. Two infants, 5 or six kids and the rest were adults. Are you out of your mind? You don’t DO that. THAT is DUMB.
I went to the Queens Central Library the other day in Jamaica. There were no less than 5 security guards evident there. 5. Is there some sort of high finance going on at the book borrowing place? No. They are there in case of "trouble", in case "something goes down". At the LIBRARY.
I had lunch in Flushing, which is like some sort of little Korea in the midst of Queens, and I just stared at some Asian guy selling tofu in little cups and plastic bags. He has a little stand with a big vat of tofu and every time I go there he is in the same spot, smiling and scooping out tofu. Care for a tofu cone? You want sprinkles on that? I could just picture him in some freaked-out apartment making huge batches of tofu with his toothless mother cackling and stirring the vat. Then some woman walks up to me and says "What time now?" What time now??? Time now 1:30. Bye Bye.
We always eat at Szechuan Capital if we go to Flushing. They have fantastic food and great prices. Ed always gets basically the same thing: Two steamed vegetable buns, seaweed soup and scallion cakes (He's a vegetarian, but not for any other reason than he used to be a great big fat person ((220 lbs.)) and he went down to 165 lbs. when he stopped eating meat.) We usually have the same waitress, a chinese lady who looks to be in her late 30's. I wonder if she is really IN THERE. We go fairly often. We are usually the only white people in there. We order the same food, but I don’t think she has any idea. Every time he orders those friggin buns she says the same thing. "Vegetable bun very big" and she makes this little gesture with her hands indicating the size. I mimicked her perfectly at the exact same time she was doing the gesture and her little speech about the size and she laughed. Thing is, we go in there next week and I bet she's going to do the same thing. We leave no impression. Too many faces.
I remember one time I stopped in to this little printing place where a friend of mine was working, just a little storefront printing press. It was Friday and I was wearing a suit. The lady behind the counter said he was off today. I asked her to tell him "ray stopped by to say hello". She said she wouldn’t see him until Tuesday and may forget to tell him. I thought a second, and then did a handstand in front of the counter and held it for a few seconds. Then I asked her if she would remember now. I saw him a month later. She did. The bun lady is in for something soon, maybe I'll bring a sign with me that says "VEGETABLE BUN VERY BIG" and hold it up when Ed orders.
My friend Brian, who drives bent forward against the steering wheel "to be closer to the action", accidentally ran over a huge raccoon last night on Gun Hill Rd. in the Bronx. I looked out the back window and could see it violently writhing on the ground with its legs shuddering in the air. On the hood of his car, a duster, it says 3.0 V6 OHC. (He didn’t put it there, it came that way).
I saw this middle eastern guy on Park Ave. and he had on those awful, awful sunglasses with the gold-like plastic on the sides. I love those things, they are as good as having a t shirt on that says AVOID ME, I AM OBVIOUSLY A BUFFOON. STAY CLEAR.
I went out on the Upper East Side last night. A totally different kind of horror. Cheeseballs. Slacks. Plaid. Brown shoes. Beautiful idiots and people that could buy and sell me. I'm sitting in a bar, surrounded by my peers who are smarter, more successful and better dressed than I will ever be, thinking "these people are so fucking stupid." "You must have agonized over which button up shirt will match with those khakis" $4 for a pint of Bud Light. Are you out of your minds? The "acoustic" band looked like a bunch a CPA's singing about coping with hair loss.
I was looking at this guy at the bar in front of me whom I had noticed because his laugh seemed sort of strained and loud. He was wearing brown shorts, a button up shirt unbuttoned about 3 buttons down, a thick gold chain, an expensive looking watch, a cell phone clipped to his pocket and tan socks with some kind of whacked-out sandal-type shoes. He had muscular legs which I think accounted for this wearing the shorts and he had a tan. His hair was parted in the middle, a little thick (almost bushy) on top and feathered back, halfway on the ears. Just like I got it caught in elementary school. He was kind of nodding his head to the music to this horrible music and I think it was more for show than for enjoyment, like "look at me , I'm grooving". I was watching him (I realize that sounds frightening) and I was looking for a wedding ring which I didn't see and I remember thinking to myself "So that's what it's like to be 34 and single on the Upper East Side."
I know that the downtown scene which I prefer is just a different version of the same bullshit. Tattoos and piercings and I'm so god damn unique and artistic and it's not about money can I borrow $10. I went to the warped tour at Randall's island to see this band I really like (the Deftones).Ed stopped at one point as we were walking around, looked at me and said "I see a lot of people who are going to regret their bodies in twenty years." I remember thinking to myself, this is the youth, this is our army, navy, air force, marines. An army of retards.
I keep wondering what the hell is going on, and why isn't anybody realizing it. People are becoming more and more fucked up. That's about the size of it. I am too, I am sure. It's this living on top of one another that's doing it. Piling people on top of people and all our humanity is being squished out. We aren't made to live like this, this never-ending migration to cities and the urbanizing of the suburbs and the suburbanizing of rural areas.
I imagine people have been saying the same thing as this forever, that it's all wrong, that we can't continue like this, yet we do. Will it last forever? Will we figure out what to do about all that shit I hear about, over-population, shortages of natural resources, killer bees, starlings from england, nuclear power in the hands of religious zealots ? The number of un-imaginable acts committed against or by children that indicate the level of our sense of humanity has sunk to. Those horrible sunglasses.
I can't see any other solution than some sort of even-ing out. Some sort of global, spiritual, economic and physical middle ground that will be reached, whether we want it or not. The whole world is gonna turn gray. I suppose that sounds simplistic. It should. The extremes keep getting further and further apart, and there ain't shit I can do to stop that, but the middle doesn't move. It's always gonna be right where it started. I can't conceptualize a new middle.
I don’t think we are going to evolve into some non-violent, well-spoken, sensible-as-all-hell race of hard-bodies. Nor do I think that we'll spend our future in some sort of post-apocalypse anarchistic half-lit nether world. Ever. I just don’t see that "enlightenment" dawning on us all, or even being forced on us. There are too many contradictions in that idea for it to be conceivable, the simplest being that a real UTOPIA couldn't be something forced. I found it very interesting that the only type of religious belief they wouldn't tolerate in that book "utopia" by whoever wrote it was no religion at all, atheism. Reason being was because an atheist would have no deterrent other than fear of punishment and his own sense of morality to keep him from breaking the law. No fear of holy retribution or vengeance.
True, maybe there is an understanding we will one day achieve that I could not possibly conceptualize, that will be so simple and so universal that it will be accepted immediately and wholeheartedly by all. Will that be God? I don't know.
I think things are going to continue as they are. The freaks will become more bizarre and incomprehensible. The boring will become more plain and indistinguishable. But I do think that the number of people that could be said to fall in the middle will grow. The mediums of communication are becoming more and more accessible to people. Cell phones, beepers, lap tops, internet, email, they are undeniably having an effect on people. I wouldn't say, though, that they are drawing mankind closer together. I think that they are providing forums within which people can become more aware of how other people live, how they think and act and what they are thinking about. But that awareness doesn’t necessarily bring understanding and it doesn't necessarily bring them closer, either.
But it helps. The awareness that these relatively new tools and means of communicating have made possible is encouraging. But I don’t think it will have much effect on those people you could say live on the edges. Nutballs, spanks, down-right weirdos. They aren't going to be brought back into the fold by interaction with the more even-keeled population.
Somebody once said that a man shows his greatness, not by being at one extreme or another but by touching both at once. I agree with that. Someone also said "I don't care whether it's good or bad, as long as it's intense." I can see that in myself as well. I am making an effort, not to know everything, but just to get a good idea of how much is out there to know, and to know it a little. It sounds egoistic, but I really want to be a kind of renaissance man, a jack-of-all trades type guy. A little bit of everything. I want to be the middle. Right now, I can see myself as being more on the fringes. Let's face it, I'm practically a fucking freak. But I KNOW that, so I am one up on the rest of them.
Wednesday, September 03, 2003
as i sit, idly penis-proofing and manually editingmyself, i wonder about beef-cooking gluttons, faulty disgust mechanisms and red desperation. i ponder the meanings of these efforts. ed puts thecountry club cc's in himself, brian saws and hammersin the dark/disco/lab, and fatty makes love puddles onhis gut. i picture defeatist malt liquor stickersstuck to the walls, golf statusclubs in the trunk and costume-suit jackets on telephone wirehangers. i see 70's FMcentrifuge receivers hooked up to orangeintestine-extension cords. i think long hard thoughts about nails driving willingly into fat, hairy fleshand commmon sense being physically enforced on ourmost wayward members. i think about hair conditoner tub love and the special referee's outfits. i mull over the human genomeand the awaiting eternal hell of vengeful cracked-neck miceghouls, especially those from the learning process days. i wonder about rabbits nuts and tweezersand median income. i know about my appointment withdeath and the steady drizzle of my flesh off the bones into the bottom of the casket. women aren't all thesame. i just treat them all the same way and then getsimilar responses in return.
NO means no and you can't drive far enough away to getaway. how do we get into the spirit world...where they can't see us/touch us/fuck uswith their long dangling pricks? tied up in IRSharnesses and gang-banged by older men in better suits withno imaginations--only disgusting appetites.income tax returns in the mail and we're all toostupid to have jobs. i think they made it up. I thinkour fucking chances are gone and they will continue tosuck it out of us because we aren't tennis buddiesfrom harvard days and we had to mow our own fuckinglawn/carve out our own big white water spouting stones in the garden/repair our own cars/transport our own couches. ye ssuck it outand pump in the vitrol fluids fill up the pulsing veins until they substrate on it and harden ourworld, just more freakbots swinging empty cocks in theface of the new youth.
NO means no and you can't drive far enough away to getaway. how do we get into the spirit world...where they can't see us/touch us/fuck uswith their long dangling pricks? tied up in IRSharnesses and gang-banged by older men in better suits withno imaginations--only disgusting appetites.income tax returns in the mail and we're all toostupid to have jobs. i think they made it up. I thinkour fucking chances are gone and they will continue tosuck it out of us because we aren't tennis buddiesfrom harvard days and we had to mow our own fuckinglawn/carve out our own big white water spouting stones in the garden/repair our own cars/transport our own couches. ye ssuck it outand pump in the vitrol fluids fill up the pulsing veins until they substrate on it and harden ourworld, just more freakbots swinging empty cocks in theface of the new youth.
it doesn’t matter how big the sky is
as long as you burn across it
as long as you burn across it
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
my friend alex wrote the other day about having a chance of getting the "dream job" of sportscaster....
"fan"
an enthusiastic devotee (as of a sport or a performing art) usually as a spectator
2 : an ardent admirer or enthusiast (as of a celebrity or a pursuit)
3 : a sad little person with no life of their own, who takes far too much pride and joy in the accomplishments (and despair at the defeats) of other people whom they bear no relation to and hold no friendship with.
like i want to sit around all day and talk about other men running about on some field in some state i don't live in/never even set foot in? "dream job" of a non-life time, is more like it.
i can't stand sportscasting--a bunch of meatheads (or worse, totally un-athletic geeks) in $4,000 suits sitting around some roundtable desk like they are in a fucking U.N. session, talking about a bunch of other men all day. as if you needed their help and commentary to watch a game and appreciate it.
like when you walk into a bar and want to put the jukebox on and some loser is like "hey, dude! we're watching the game, man!"--i'm sorry, can't you figure out by now what is happening on the screen which you are so fucking fixated on (why didn't you stay on your own couch?) without the play-by-play reporting from the announcer?
ever think about WHY they need a "color" commentator in the first place?
get a fucking life you couch-bound fantasy-footballing-draft-watching playing-golf-cos-you-think-it-makes-you-class losers.
and don't even get me started on WFAN or radio listener call-in shows about sports--that is simply the bottom of the barrel.
just the idea of someone listening to a game--not even watching it...why why why?
i do appreciate all sports, admire some of the athletes and their talents, and watch occassional games of most sports (save golf/bowling/nascar), but am i a fan? no, sir. no.
"fan"
an enthusiastic devotee (as of a sport or a performing art) usually as a spectator
2 : an ardent admirer or enthusiast (as of a celebrity or a pursuit)
3 : a sad little person with no life of their own, who takes far too much pride and joy in the accomplishments (and despair at the defeats) of other people whom they bear no relation to and hold no friendship with.
like i want to sit around all day and talk about other men running about on some field in some state i don't live in/never even set foot in? "dream job" of a non-life time, is more like it.
i can't stand sportscasting--a bunch of meatheads (or worse, totally un-athletic geeks) in $4,000 suits sitting around some roundtable desk like they are in a fucking U.N. session, talking about a bunch of other men all day. as if you needed their help and commentary to watch a game and appreciate it.
like when you walk into a bar and want to put the jukebox on and some loser is like "hey, dude! we're watching the game, man!"--i'm sorry, can't you figure out by now what is happening on the screen which you are so fucking fixated on (why didn't you stay on your own couch?) without the play-by-play reporting from the announcer?
ever think about WHY they need a "color" commentator in the first place?
get a fucking life you couch-bound fantasy-footballing-draft-watching playing-golf-cos-you-think-it-makes-you-class losers.
and don't even get me started on WFAN or radio listener call-in shows about sports--that is simply the bottom of the barrel.
just the idea of someone listening to a game--not even watching it...why why why?
i do appreciate all sports, admire some of the athletes and their talents, and watch occassional games of most sports (save golf/bowling/nascar), but am i a fan? no, sir. no.
what is wrong with this world? i see all these shithead business"men" on the sidewalk with those little rolling suitcase things, even when they are no bigger than an ordinary knapsack. they feel the need to put wheels and a handle on them? those shits could be filled with the densest material on earth (e.g., bush's intellect) and a 2' x 2' suitcase still can't weigh all that much. not so much that you need to roll it, rather than simply carry it.
the grey buildings rise up in the night sky
tombstones
marking the spot where dreams died
lonely
in so many hearts and minds, and little lives
lost
what fighting spirit they had inside them
struggling
against the crushing weight and absent
humanity
of a world with people living on top of people living on top of people
who are already dead
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What I was trying to get at was that people aren't "supposed" to be living on top of one another in these huge buildings. I think too much interaction with others, especially unconnected strangers, leads to a coldness and an impersonability that leads to a kind of dehumanization. People need space, simply to be "people." If you take away that space you quite often get someone who is a little less than a person-- someone that is more like an animal.
These housing projects are like permanent refugee camps, with poverty the only common bond between one so-called household and another. It squishes out one's humanity and it creates those people I hate riding the trains with late at night. If you take a young, future criminal out of a project when he is two and raise him in Montana there is a good chance that you will cease to have a criminal on your hands. Sure, nurturing is important and one's upbringing and parent's can often overcome the influence and damage that an insufficient and dangerous environment can create. But if you get these people out of the cities and give them a shot at some surroundings, something they can deal with on a smaller scale instead of this "everything all of the time" non-stop city living, they might stand a better chance at leading a more peaceable and therefore less criminal existence.
Everyone is used to the idea that in small towns people say "hello" to one another or at least acknowledge each other when they pass on the street. It's impossible to do here; impractical-- and that's bad. I know I can't nod or say "hello" to everyone I pass in my neighborhood, but I try to do that on my own block, at least. That's the problem, people only develop a sense of community in areas like mine in the Bronx when they are threatened by something.
It's like when there is severe weather, say a blizzard or some really crazy rain. All of a sudden what were previously unconnected and self-concerned people on the streets are smiling at one another as they scurry out of the weather. They make comments about the snow/rain or whatever to one another and there is a spirit of "we're all in this together" that didn't exist prior to this.
Remember those movies "Independence Day" and "Deep Impact?" Humanity was faced with a common problem and all of a sudden we are telegraphing the Iraqis and giving them the secret that will destroy the invaders. The U.S. is faced with a meteor striking the earth, and all of a sudden people are crawling out of the woodwork to offer the helping hand to one another and pulling together.
Why doesn't that go on all the time? Does it take some major calamity for people to find some common ground with one another? The Beatles might say that all we need is love, but the Bronx may need a major earthquake to set things back to right.
The immigrant experience that once tied diverse communities like mine together has defused. There are still plenty of new immigrants but they section off into there own cliques and neighborhoods even though they face many of the same challenges and have many of the same goals.
There are too many people in the cities. But that's something that, besides being obvious, is inevitable and unstoppable. And it wouldn't necessarily be evil except that not everyone is equipped to behave like a human being in such circumstances. They don't have the mental apparatus for treating an overwhelming number of people decently on a daily basis and the result is anti-social behavior, a vicious selfishness and criminal-mindedness.
The normal barriers that prevent one from doing wrong include the public's perception of your behavior, but when you are in the midst of an ever-changing and largely apathetic mass of people, there is an often irresistible temptation to behave in any fucking way you please. Hell, I've done it-just acted in a way I wouldn't normally because I was "in the city" and "it didn't matter." After all, you will most likely never see any of these people again.
And this is an especially bad forum for children to grow up in. There are often no consequences to their bad deeds, which in a more structured environment would normally be stopped, prevented or at least noted. Here, there is a freedom that is dangerous to youth. But it isn't the freedom of a field, or a riverbank or a forest. It's the freedom from consequence. The road to their self-destruction as teens is paved with the minor transgressions of their childhood's.
I don't want to put any limitations on children or limit the ways in which they can express themselves, but I think if the right environment is present from the beginning, the expressions of these children will be less severe, less violent and less dangerous to themselves and others. In the endless migration to urban areas, only the smart or lucky ones do what they have to do here and then split for more peaceable areas, for more space. A lawn isn't just a place to have a catch or set up a patio set-it's a fucking barrier and it's stronger and more important than any concrete wall, than being on a different floor, than 6 inch steel. It's a bit of air between you and the people near you and it's the guardian of your own humanity. Space is the place, baby.
It's what it's all about, and it's the only thing that's gonna turn people around, because they sure as shit ain't learning humanity in school; and they're not learning it from their caged in and defeated parents, either. They can be told the rules that go along with being human, but have no motivation other than the fear of getting caught to convince them to operate within the structure these rules create. They are missing the keys to their innate knowledge and their natural inclination to be a human; it has long ago been hammered out of them. They can go from innocents to animals in the first ten years of their life.
It's like there is simply too much world, and little children have no place to grow. Where is the safe haven for innocence? Where is the childhood protection agency? Screw the environment-that is until we can be certain it's not animals who will be living in this world we are trying to preserve. I'm not certain what the criteria is that would be used to distinguish a person from an animal. I remember in "Dune" where the protagonist first had to undergo a test to make sure he was a human being before he was entrusted with a certain knowledge and power. I wish we could have the same kind of test, just to let people be around others.
That kind of thinking could lead me to wish we actually would sacrifice a country and use it as a pen for undesirables---"Escape from New Zealand." Continuing with the constant movie analogies, look how many of the SCI-FI films portray future societies wherein the incompatible and criminal really are sequestered to some island or such place and left to fend for themselves. Do we need a new Australia? Wall it up? Reopen the shipping lanes?
Ok, so that's not really a very viable or nice solution and I know this. Reeducation? People have to be able to and want to learn first. Maybe it goes back to an innate motivation to be good. And I don't mean that everyone should go around being some kind of hippie-missionary. I don't expect people to be great nor overly friendly or nice or cool, but just decent. A simple human decency, just like Colonel Kurtz was lacking in "Apocalypse Now."
Maybe that's another side of things. Kurtz had too much space. He was" out there operating without any decent restraint. Totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct." He had no constraints on his behavior and no system of checks and balances on his actions or decrees, and his soul went mad. So there is a danger in that, too. So what is the perfect amount of space? 1 acre?-2? What am I getting into here? It's relative to what people can deal with. So how do we separate the people how can live as human beings in a major city from those who can't hack it and turn to their baser instincts for their behavioral norms?
There is also the problem of being "sheltered." There are kids kept so far out of the loop that the realities of the world prove overwhelming when they are finally forced to face them. Fuck. How are we supposed to be good parents? Some kids get life's harshest and most crude and ugly truths thrust in their faces without any explanation, guidance or support and they overcome this and even flourish--other kids sink like stones.
Ideally, I think that life's harsher truths should be metered out to children as their capacity to understand and handle them develops. That's part of the parenting job, and there seem to be a lot of vacancies. I'm not talking about R-rated movies or violent video games. I have faith in the ability of most children to distinguish between what they see on a screen and what goes on in real life. Kids see this superhuman shit on tv and they are wowed by it, but they also know that if they fall on their knee and scrape it, well, it hurts like hell. By the time they are (or at least by the time they ideally should be) out playing unsupervised, they know that what they see on TV isn't reality and can't be imitated successfully or without dire results.
I'm talking about the other things-the ugliness, crime, the misery, the suffering and all that melancholy and damaging shit. I hate the idea of a small child passing the homeless huddled on the street and not seeing them, not acknowledging the pain that is going on there. Yet I don't want them to go around with their heart breaking every time they are confronted with some new horror associated with life here, either. So what do you get? I don't think they come up very sympathetic, to say the least. I may be wrong, but I think the majority of those people working in the shelters and spooning out the soup are transplants to this city and not from the five boroughs.
I think about volunteering and I feel such a sense of futility about it. I admire those who feel otherwise while at the same time I am confused. I understand and share the need to feel like I am making a difference. But when I talk about these things with my friends I get mixed responses. One response of note when I showed a friend an earlier version of this essay was "someone has to dig the ditches." That's the kind of thing I mean. There is no sense of social responsibility for those less fortunate among many of my friends and other people that I know. They begrudge the tax dollars they pay for social service programs, which would include after-school programs and things that directly affect children's lives. I do see their point, but I have trouble taking the chance for a decent life away from children.
I do see most of the people on the street as being sort of unsalvageable. It makes me sad and it makes me angry, but I just don't see them as being able to cope, no matter what is done for them in the way of social services, counseling and treatment programs. For whatever reason (drugs, alcohol, mental illness, ignorance ) I simply don't think that everyone can carry the weight of the world. Not everyone fits in-- like it or not. I don't know what to do about that. Not everyone is made for this world, as it stands. And I have no idea how to change it. But I'd like to.
tombstones
marking the spot where dreams died
lonely
in so many hearts and minds, and little lives
lost
what fighting spirit they had inside them
struggling
against the crushing weight and absent
humanity
of a world with people living on top of people living on top of people
who are already dead
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What I was trying to get at was that people aren't "supposed" to be living on top of one another in these huge buildings. I think too much interaction with others, especially unconnected strangers, leads to a coldness and an impersonability that leads to a kind of dehumanization. People need space, simply to be "people." If you take away that space you quite often get someone who is a little less than a person-- someone that is more like an animal.
These housing projects are like permanent refugee camps, with poverty the only common bond between one so-called household and another. It squishes out one's humanity and it creates those people I hate riding the trains with late at night. If you take a young, future criminal out of a project when he is two and raise him in Montana there is a good chance that you will cease to have a criminal on your hands. Sure, nurturing is important and one's upbringing and parent's can often overcome the influence and damage that an insufficient and dangerous environment can create. But if you get these people out of the cities and give them a shot at some surroundings, something they can deal with on a smaller scale instead of this "everything all of the time" non-stop city living, they might stand a better chance at leading a more peaceable and therefore less criminal existence.
Everyone is used to the idea that in small towns people say "hello" to one another or at least acknowledge each other when they pass on the street. It's impossible to do here; impractical-- and that's bad. I know I can't nod or say "hello" to everyone I pass in my neighborhood, but I try to do that on my own block, at least. That's the problem, people only develop a sense of community in areas like mine in the Bronx when they are threatened by something.
It's like when there is severe weather, say a blizzard or some really crazy rain. All of a sudden what were previously unconnected and self-concerned people on the streets are smiling at one another as they scurry out of the weather. They make comments about the snow/rain or whatever to one another and there is a spirit of "we're all in this together" that didn't exist prior to this.
Remember those movies "Independence Day" and "Deep Impact?" Humanity was faced with a common problem and all of a sudden we are telegraphing the Iraqis and giving them the secret that will destroy the invaders. The U.S. is faced with a meteor striking the earth, and all of a sudden people are crawling out of the woodwork to offer the helping hand to one another and pulling together.
Why doesn't that go on all the time? Does it take some major calamity for people to find some common ground with one another? The Beatles might say that all we need is love, but the Bronx may need a major earthquake to set things back to right.
The immigrant experience that once tied diverse communities like mine together has defused. There are still plenty of new immigrants but they section off into there own cliques and neighborhoods even though they face many of the same challenges and have many of the same goals.
There are too many people in the cities. But that's something that, besides being obvious, is inevitable and unstoppable. And it wouldn't necessarily be evil except that not everyone is equipped to behave like a human being in such circumstances. They don't have the mental apparatus for treating an overwhelming number of people decently on a daily basis and the result is anti-social behavior, a vicious selfishness and criminal-mindedness.
The normal barriers that prevent one from doing wrong include the public's perception of your behavior, but when you are in the midst of an ever-changing and largely apathetic mass of people, there is an often irresistible temptation to behave in any fucking way you please. Hell, I've done it-just acted in a way I wouldn't normally because I was "in the city" and "it didn't matter." After all, you will most likely never see any of these people again.
And this is an especially bad forum for children to grow up in. There are often no consequences to their bad deeds, which in a more structured environment would normally be stopped, prevented or at least noted. Here, there is a freedom that is dangerous to youth. But it isn't the freedom of a field, or a riverbank or a forest. It's the freedom from consequence. The road to their self-destruction as teens is paved with the minor transgressions of their childhood's.
I don't want to put any limitations on children or limit the ways in which they can express themselves, but I think if the right environment is present from the beginning, the expressions of these children will be less severe, less violent and less dangerous to themselves and others. In the endless migration to urban areas, only the smart or lucky ones do what they have to do here and then split for more peaceable areas, for more space. A lawn isn't just a place to have a catch or set up a patio set-it's a fucking barrier and it's stronger and more important than any concrete wall, than being on a different floor, than 6 inch steel. It's a bit of air between you and the people near you and it's the guardian of your own humanity. Space is the place, baby.
It's what it's all about, and it's the only thing that's gonna turn people around, because they sure as shit ain't learning humanity in school; and they're not learning it from their caged in and defeated parents, either. They can be told the rules that go along with being human, but have no motivation other than the fear of getting caught to convince them to operate within the structure these rules create. They are missing the keys to their innate knowledge and their natural inclination to be a human; it has long ago been hammered out of them. They can go from innocents to animals in the first ten years of their life.
It's like there is simply too much world, and little children have no place to grow. Where is the safe haven for innocence? Where is the childhood protection agency? Screw the environment-that is until we can be certain it's not animals who will be living in this world we are trying to preserve. I'm not certain what the criteria is that would be used to distinguish a person from an animal. I remember in "Dune" where the protagonist first had to undergo a test to make sure he was a human being before he was entrusted with a certain knowledge and power. I wish we could have the same kind of test, just to let people be around others.
That kind of thinking could lead me to wish we actually would sacrifice a country and use it as a pen for undesirables---"Escape from New Zealand." Continuing with the constant movie analogies, look how many of the SCI-FI films portray future societies wherein the incompatible and criminal really are sequestered to some island or such place and left to fend for themselves. Do we need a new Australia? Wall it up? Reopen the shipping lanes?
Ok, so that's not really a very viable or nice solution and I know this. Reeducation? People have to be able to and want to learn first. Maybe it goes back to an innate motivation to be good. And I don't mean that everyone should go around being some kind of hippie-missionary. I don't expect people to be great nor overly friendly or nice or cool, but just decent. A simple human decency, just like Colonel Kurtz was lacking in "Apocalypse Now."
Maybe that's another side of things. Kurtz had too much space. He was" out there operating without any decent restraint. Totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct." He had no constraints on his behavior and no system of checks and balances on his actions or decrees, and his soul went mad. So there is a danger in that, too. So what is the perfect amount of space? 1 acre?-2? What am I getting into here? It's relative to what people can deal with. So how do we separate the people how can live as human beings in a major city from those who can't hack it and turn to their baser instincts for their behavioral norms?
There is also the problem of being "sheltered." There are kids kept so far out of the loop that the realities of the world prove overwhelming when they are finally forced to face them. Fuck. How are we supposed to be good parents? Some kids get life's harshest and most crude and ugly truths thrust in their faces without any explanation, guidance or support and they overcome this and even flourish--other kids sink like stones.
Ideally, I think that life's harsher truths should be metered out to children as their capacity to understand and handle them develops. That's part of the parenting job, and there seem to be a lot of vacancies. I'm not talking about R-rated movies or violent video games. I have faith in the ability of most children to distinguish between what they see on a screen and what goes on in real life. Kids see this superhuman shit on tv and they are wowed by it, but they also know that if they fall on their knee and scrape it, well, it hurts like hell. By the time they are (or at least by the time they ideally should be) out playing unsupervised, they know that what they see on TV isn't reality and can't be imitated successfully or without dire results.
I'm talking about the other things-the ugliness, crime, the misery, the suffering and all that melancholy and damaging shit. I hate the idea of a small child passing the homeless huddled on the street and not seeing them, not acknowledging the pain that is going on there. Yet I don't want them to go around with their heart breaking every time they are confronted with some new horror associated with life here, either. So what do you get? I don't think they come up very sympathetic, to say the least. I may be wrong, but I think the majority of those people working in the shelters and spooning out the soup are transplants to this city and not from the five boroughs.
I think about volunteering and I feel such a sense of futility about it. I admire those who feel otherwise while at the same time I am confused. I understand and share the need to feel like I am making a difference. But when I talk about these things with my friends I get mixed responses. One response of note when I showed a friend an earlier version of this essay was "someone has to dig the ditches." That's the kind of thing I mean. There is no sense of social responsibility for those less fortunate among many of my friends and other people that I know. They begrudge the tax dollars they pay for social service programs, which would include after-school programs and things that directly affect children's lives. I do see their point, but I have trouble taking the chance for a decent life away from children.
I do see most of the people on the street as being sort of unsalvageable. It makes me sad and it makes me angry, but I just don't see them as being able to cope, no matter what is done for them in the way of social services, counseling and treatment programs. For whatever reason (drugs, alcohol, mental illness, ignorance ) I simply don't think that everyone can carry the weight of the world. Not everyone fits in-- like it or not. I don't know what to do about that. Not everyone is made for this world, as it stands. And I have no idea how to change it. But I'd like to.
I want to write about life and souls and music and everything, but I don’t want to get too involved or think about it all too much. I want to explain my outlook and how and when and why and where and exactly what it is that’s on my mind (or at least part of my mind) when I’m not hungry or thinking about sex. I feel like I want to challenge everything and everybody. My family, my friends, the government, the cops, red lights, the little old women who go to church every single day, no smoking signs, “No Dogs Allowed!” Everything.
I want to drop acid on mountaintops in the spring. I want to throw roses in garbage cans and drive the wrong way down one-way streets. I want to piss on the front lawn and jump out every cab without paying. I want to make a grab for the gun in the cop’s holster (’cause I’ve always wanted to try it, ever since I was little). I want to hop fences and piss people off. I want to chop down trees and plant seeds and start fights and make peace and love and hate. I want to shun schools and be the most respected scholar. I want to talk about all the things I should keep to myself and not give anyone the time of day. A really fast car with no steering wheel and no brakes. Just one pedal:
GO! GO! GO!
I hate people. The ones that are so boring and the ones that are so fucking artistic it can make you puke. They’re either tucked into a numbing niche of mediocrity and TV-fed goals or burning with ideas and change, visions of a New World. Piercing and tattooing themselves to reaffirm their uniqueness. “Me, Me, Me,” or worse, “The world, save the world.” I don’t want to sit in some ultra-cultural bar, drinking dark beer, listening to jazz and talking about the “inside” all my friggin’ life. And screw that tired hippie-love-your-neighbor bullshit. It’s great to hate, too. We care about certain things, we give to certain people and everything else can go to hell and who cares. And all this kind of shit about people and who they are and what they do and how they do it that I can’t understand and makes me so angry.
And there’s a girl and she’s great, but I don’t know what I want or how much of it. Am I only 32 or am I 32 already? (“Should I get married? Should I be good?”) I feel so much and it all gets lost in the translation to words and actions, and I can’t be true because I don’t know what Truth really is or how to find it. Is it in my own heart or some external to be embraced? But I’m not denying love or commitment or responsibility or honor, I just...what? I just don’t know and sometimes I don’t care and I can’t explain it all or make any of it real to anyone, anyhow. I just feel all these things and sometimes and they hurt and sometimes they feel good and usually I’m just confused.
I try to think intellectually and I’m so naive. All this talk about busting out and doing things and going places and yelling and laughing and diving into life and who am I? I’d rather spend my time and money on dance, drink and recreation. I share a two-bedroom apartment with two friends. I lost my last job because of my “insolence,” my car was seized by the Sheriff’s department and I’m 32 and still get a pimple about once a week. (My friend calls it the panic button.) So I read books, I listen to music, I know how to buy drugs and I know how to interview with executives. So I know about a few things; I know bullshit when I see it, I’m a little more tolerant of difference and a little less tolerant of stupidity--but so what? Big deal.
It’s not LIFE. Not hot, steaming, pumping, passionate expression of my Youth and Energy. It’s realizing I am in the early stages of my mediocre career (provided one of these interviews turns up a job sometime soon) in publishing, probably trade publishing, of all things. I’m a new-school Yuppie in training diapers, shitting out the last of my exuberance and desire on the train into the city and learning how to fold the New York Times the right way. 9am to 5pm and only 38 more years until retirement. I’ll run with the bulls then, right. Tour the world and sleep with foreign women. Me and Geritol against the Universe. My ass.
I need to find a direction. Sometimes I feel like I could have all the answers if only someone would ask the right questions. It’s all inside me and I just need to find the right trigger to get it out. And it can make me crazy just as often as thinking about all of this can bore me. Whatever the hell “it” is.
I want to write more. I want to write better. But what have I written already? I couldn’t tell you. If I want it so bad, how come I’m not working at it harder. Do I truly want to write about these things? Do I want to live them? Shit, right now I’m supposed to be taking in the garbage cans. Meanwhile, I’m getting older and tired and the wind is blowing the cans further down the street, giving me more work to do to get the job done.
I want to drop acid on mountaintops in the spring. I want to throw roses in garbage cans and drive the wrong way down one-way streets. I want to piss on the front lawn and jump out every cab without paying. I want to make a grab for the gun in the cop’s holster (’cause I’ve always wanted to try it, ever since I was little). I want to hop fences and piss people off. I want to chop down trees and plant seeds and start fights and make peace and love and hate. I want to shun schools and be the most respected scholar. I want to talk about all the things I should keep to myself and not give anyone the time of day. A really fast car with no steering wheel and no brakes. Just one pedal:
GO! GO! GO!
I hate people. The ones that are so boring and the ones that are so fucking artistic it can make you puke. They’re either tucked into a numbing niche of mediocrity and TV-fed goals or burning with ideas and change, visions of a New World. Piercing and tattooing themselves to reaffirm their uniqueness. “Me, Me, Me,” or worse, “The world, save the world.” I don’t want to sit in some ultra-cultural bar, drinking dark beer, listening to jazz and talking about the “inside” all my friggin’ life. And screw that tired hippie-love-your-neighbor bullshit. It’s great to hate, too. We care about certain things, we give to certain people and everything else can go to hell and who cares. And all this kind of shit about people and who they are and what they do and how they do it that I can’t understand and makes me so angry.
And there’s a girl and she’s great, but I don’t know what I want or how much of it. Am I only 32 or am I 32 already? (“Should I get married? Should I be good?”) I feel so much and it all gets lost in the translation to words and actions, and I can’t be true because I don’t know what Truth really is or how to find it. Is it in my own heart or some external to be embraced? But I’m not denying love or commitment or responsibility or honor, I just...what? I just don’t know and sometimes I don’t care and I can’t explain it all or make any of it real to anyone, anyhow. I just feel all these things and sometimes and they hurt and sometimes they feel good and usually I’m just confused.
I try to think intellectually and I’m so naive. All this talk about busting out and doing things and going places and yelling and laughing and diving into life and who am I? I’d rather spend my time and money on dance, drink and recreation. I share a two-bedroom apartment with two friends. I lost my last job because of my “insolence,” my car was seized by the Sheriff’s department and I’m 32 and still get a pimple about once a week. (My friend calls it the panic button.) So I read books, I listen to music, I know how to buy drugs and I know how to interview with executives. So I know about a few things; I know bullshit when I see it, I’m a little more tolerant of difference and a little less tolerant of stupidity--but so what? Big deal.
It’s not LIFE. Not hot, steaming, pumping, passionate expression of my Youth and Energy. It’s realizing I am in the early stages of my mediocre career (provided one of these interviews turns up a job sometime soon) in publishing, probably trade publishing, of all things. I’m a new-school Yuppie in training diapers, shitting out the last of my exuberance and desire on the train into the city and learning how to fold the New York Times the right way. 9am to 5pm and only 38 more years until retirement. I’ll run with the bulls then, right. Tour the world and sleep with foreign women. Me and Geritol against the Universe. My ass.
I need to find a direction. Sometimes I feel like I could have all the answers if only someone would ask the right questions. It’s all inside me and I just need to find the right trigger to get it out. And it can make me crazy just as often as thinking about all of this can bore me. Whatever the hell “it” is.
I want to write more. I want to write better. But what have I written already? I couldn’t tell you. If I want it so bad, how come I’m not working at it harder. Do I truly want to write about these things? Do I want to live them? Shit, right now I’m supposed to be taking in the garbage cans. Meanwhile, I’m getting older and tired and the wind is blowing the cans further down the street, giving me more work to do to get the job done.
