If it still is a nonsolvable equation, multiply it by 1000 then throw the tantrum you wanted to have in the first place, move the decimal, and go take a nap.
We don’t want to hear or know about it, and no one cares but you if you solve for x, so shut down the computer, shut off the lights, and watch the cars pass by the street light in the window outside the hotel. We know you have a problem because of your erratic behaviour as of late. Should we talk about it?
Raymond Carver wrote a series of short stories called ” What We Talk About When We Talk about Love.” I started reading these in 7th grade and as usual, reread them until I couldn’t figure out what I was trying to learn from these stories. I was a kid, and I didn’t get the point. I am older and I don’t get the point. But I want to think about it.
If you’re not writing, you’re not thinking. As important as that quote is, I don’t know who said it so succinctly, and although it’s out of context, I’m learning not to scoff at this because maybe everything is better out of context.
I haven’t been in love in nine years. Maybe 19 years if you count _____________ who I am not sure I ever loved. Processing the new information that I am seriously, inequitably madly in love with someone who I don’t even really care that they love me back is not my jam, and I don’t like it, but it’s the best I have felt in a decade of thinking I lost that part of my brain — I will never love anyone ever again, I’m totally broken, but I will live on despite the horror of this complete loss of ability.
And I don’t know who I am anymore because this has consumed my DNA — I wake up happy and hopeful, and I sit by the phone like a fucking lovesick puppy, and I don’t even care! I’m relentless and I can’t stop thinking about this person, and it doesn’t even matter if I get my heart broken as long as anything happens. I am tossing my heart and love and brains in to the air and I have no shame. I don’t think it matters to this person, but I want to be validated or shot down and blown up.
I want to feel something. Ten years of a superficial relationship results in almost as much despair when there isn’t anything there, even though you looked for it all your life. That’s what emptiness is anyway; that is how much you believed was there and was never anything but your expectation of fulfilment. When you try not to reflect, the brightness of nothingness is quite a shock. But it doesn’t hurt, and you don’t know why.
So I take note of this day right here. The days have been long and meaningless and agonizingly sad until I fell in love again, with no effort, no nothing actually, making it stupidly immature and certain to break my heart.
But when you get your heart back because of some girl or boy who stole it and is running around with it and you need it back, let it go. I am thinking that person needs it more than you do, no matter if you are loved reciprocally or not, there’s nothing better to know you have something to give.
Return to sender if broken. No hurry, but you have it, and I’d love to know what you’re going to do with it.
So I think to myself when I’m trying not to, and it happens more often than I would like to think to myself, but nonetheless I keep thinking.
I keep wondering where I went wrong. Not sympathetically, but hypothetically, what the hell happened.
Everything is different but it’s kind of the same that I thought it would be, but I never thought it would be anything and it’s not.
So where do we go from here? I mean, where are we going. Which way are we going to take next turn? Are we headed for a sunrise or a sunset? Does it matter to you, it doesn’t but maybe when you grow up, my words will mean something to you.
Maybe so; maybe not.
I wonder what would have happened if we were together. I try not to think about you, but your are always going to be right there, in my way and in every other thought, every other day.
Perhaps if I could turn days into triplets, then quartets, then maybe jazz—non-conformist chaos coming going far away, like the times and the lost days.
We have to work to keep the lights on, gas in the car, rent/mortgage, food, pets, yeah and everything else.
Some of us have been underemployed or working scattershot jobs for inconsistent employers, those who are entitled to take your time when you have repeatedly suggested your own time, and gig jobs that make impossible demands, and on the brink of homelessness, we have to finally admit that as humiliating as it is, we need help because many of us have a debilitating psychological illness or disorder and our lives should not be under fire because we need a little help from those who aren’t quite as down on their luck. We aren’t asking for much: just enough to make it through the day and we seek an inkling of understanding and compassion that the majority of our American society cannot understand, thus we are treated as if we were liars; mere actors playing out a role while others whisper we are lazy or crazy.
This is a web of deception and lies and my disordered is punching me to my most vulnerable darkest days and I don’t know what to do. I’m trying to wait for final approval from Uber but if I don’t, I’m trying to figures out how to work for Amazon Flex for theory hours per day. I have been an ACT SAT tutor for a year and haven’t gotten a raise. I lost my WordPress freelance gig and paycheck four days before rent was due. I have to rent a better car to deliver which isn’t exactly profitable. I make a good amount of money playing music but haven’t had time to try to book shows due to trying to find more work. I am a security officer (uncertified, unarmed) a couple times per month for another gig job.
I was asked to help with two new client websites and both have not had the time or the opportunity to reply to me and you can’t tell a client that you are available, so let’s go! Clients generally don’t care and being the lowest priority for them is absolutely how the food chain works.
My point is that I have been worried about my rent (and am dying to give my 30 day notice).
Every day this month I have worked jobs at a low pay scale and I have nothing close to enough. After renting out my bedroom, I still don’t have enough. (Mainly because I got scammed stupidly.) I am building a digital download store but I can’t do it fast enough and ascap wants my song information but yeah, I can’t get it done fast enough, need to book gigs, need to take care of everything, and I have digital art and drawings but I
I can’t get it all done fast enough.
Now I have to figure out how to get shot down faster. CANNOT GET IT DONE FASTER.
i keep on falling for you, as you creep beside the moonlight
if i could not speak, would you tell me what to say?
you shine the bluest eyes and the dusk retreats to twilight
i don’t mind my misconstructions smiling as you let them ricochet
i’m in love with this afternoon
how good it is – right here with you
then time stands still in this empty room
but how good it feels – to be with you
i readjust my gaze as you realign my eyesight
i woke up running too soon under the milky way
i’m joyous every evening as you pull back the daylight
i scramble to the calendar and plead again for saturday
i don’t take for granted that you have mistaken me for stranded
as you take my cigarette and hallucinate my greed
i beg you to not imply why this is where we’ve landed
as we’ve long stopped complicating who should take or who should receive
i’m in love with this afternoon
how good it is – right here with you
then time stands still in this empty room
but how good it feels – to be with you
actual size it’s got a big red face that comes up clear a two-tone ride that runs on fear a bolt-on shimmy that hums in space and a brand new suit that’s going to waste a brand new suit that’s going to waste
it’s got throw-back padding that’s stapled down a pinched-up liner that’s wrapped for sound a cold blank stare whenever i talk
and thirteen names for the way i walk thirteen names for the way i walk
and i want you to sew it shut before it wakes me up you won’t recognize
the fifteen seconds i close my eyes
and i’m drunk now that you won’t be actual size
it comes when everyone goes to sleep the little red monster you let me keep it starts real small, unfolds its legs
then i feel heat on the back of my head
feel heat on the back of my head i want you right here when it burns up the atmosphere
wrap me steeling tight
unhook your jaws and cover my eyes and i’m drunk now that you won’t be actual size now that you won’t be now that you won’t be now that you won’t be
so surprised
luck and trouble
i thought a shot another man in texas
i thought about the ones in tennessee
what’s the use in doing so much thinking?
when all i do is think of you and me
forecast on the frontier of your future
damn, these cigarettes are tastin’ sweet
what’s the point in doing so much coca-iane?
when all you do is run away from me
but – you were on my mind
cutie-pie – all of the time
but i never thought you’d leave me
in the space you left behind
once upon a time or two in tulsa
the satellite sank into the sea
what’s the use of having all this luck
when trouble stays up late waiting for me
but – you were on my mind
cutie-pie – all of the time
but i never thought you’d leave me
in the space you left behind
and so this anecdote is almost over
the lesson learned is a likely theme
what’s the upshot luck just to fall back down
then to get back up just to fall back down
when the story ends right here for you and me
but – you were on my mind
cutie-pie – all of the time
but i never thought you’d leave me
in the space you left behind
consequence
did you forget my name? i notice everything hasn’t changed did you forget my words
or were they tangled in my obscurity?
i cleared away the residue
anything and everything that happened to do with you
but honey i still stumble and shake
every time that i see you
if you could read my mind
you’d see my love is totally blind
if you could know what i mean
if you looked at me like there was no body else to see
i cleared away the residue
anything and everything i’m prone to misconstrue
but honey i still stumble and shake
every time that i see you
if i could be the one you wanted
then i could be the one you wanted
all of the time
baby, don’t look now
because we still haven’t figured it out
honey, nothing never, ever gets past you
and i am beginning to wonder now if i even want it to
i pulled myself together again
fell back as the story goes, the consequences never end
but honey i still crumble and quake
every time that i see you
if i could be the one you wanted i could be the one you wanted
all of the time if i could be the one you wanted i could be the one you wanted
all of the time
distance
take everything you’ve learned so far and throw it all away i would have told you long ago but you’re nine time zones astray
your lack of concern concerns me, but i think i’m doing fine
ambition doth escape me and i’m dying to make it mine
traffic here on sunday is much worse than you’d expect
waiting at a stoplight lets you sit there and reflect
keep your eye on the canvas; tell me what do you see?
take what you can get – you know that never bothered me
what more can i say to you to make a difference?
each step closer to you, i can feel the distance
stretched out on the grass i count the ways you wrecked my life
cut my dreams right down the seams with that jaded, rusty knife
waited in your driveway, in that old abandoned car
started home at sunset but i didn’t get too far
what more can i say to you to make a difference?
each step closer to you, i can feel the distance
home up beyond these big lights in the miniature town
up over the hills – and the nights which allow
you were the only one and you were the only one
and i stood in the yard – smiled at the sun
way beyond these empty bottles in this place we call home
up over hills we still may roam
you were the only, the only, the only
i tell you i’m lonely, – lonely, i’m lonely
but i want to go home
i want to go home
because i don’t have anywhere left to go
up beyond these big lights in this mediocre town
up over the hills and the nights which allow
you were the only one when you weren’t the only one
stood in the yard – tied down the sun
way beyond these empty bottles in this place we call home
up over the hills we still may roam
you were the only, the only, the only
i tell you i’m lonely, lonely, i’m lonely
but i want to go home
i want to go home
because i don’t have anywhere left to go
i want to go home
i want to go home
because i don’t have anywhere left to go
up beyond these big lights in this mediocre town
up over the hills and the nights which allow
you were the only one when you weren’t the only one
i stood in the yard – tied down the sun
way beyond these empty bottles in this place we call home
up over the hills we still may roam
you were the only, the only, the only
i tell you i’m lonely, lonely, i’m lonely
but i want to go home
i want to go home
because i don’t have anywhere left to go
i want to go home
i want to go home
because i don’t have anywhere left to go
la carta
there was a time in the back of my mind
when i threw in the virtual towel, you said
with a scowl and my meds, it was all in my head
and i had every reason to smile once again
so i wrote down the words
’cause i needed to rehearse
and i left you a note on your microphone
often these lines in the back of my mind
rotate themselves into a blockade, you know
as you come and you go, it’s so easy to show
that it’s just that easy to care once again
so i walked down the stairs
’cause i needed repairs
and i left you a note on your microphone
i don’t care if you write me a letter
i don’t care if you play me a brand new song
what’s the point in dancing all night
if you don’t got no rhythm?
often the time as it creeps down my spine
as it seeps through the ceilings and it knocks down all the doors
as you come and you go, it’s so easy to show
that it’s simply that easy to care once again
so i made a list of the pros and cons
and i waited so anxiously for your response
i don’t care if you write me a letter
i don’t care if you play me a brand new song
what’s use in blaming yourself
when i haven’t done anything wrong?
i don’t care if you write me a letter
i don’t care if you play me a brand new song
what’s the use in writing the verse
when the words are all written wrong?
i don’t care if you write me a letter
i don’t care if you play me a brand new song
how many times have you believed yourself
when you know that everything’s wrong?
wrong
you’ve been acting kind of strange like you really just don’t care
you said you’d meet me at the pub then you never showed up there
i tried to call your house – a strange voice always answers the phone
whenever i go out on a date i find i’m all alone
well i don’t really know why i’ve been waiting for so long
all i wanna know is what did i do wrong
i got home the other night, found all my cds smashed it bits
i figured it was just another one of your epileptic fits
went into my closet, found that half my clothes were burned
matches on your bed stand baby, by now i should have learned
well i don’t really know why i’ve been waiting for so long
all i wanna know is what did i do wrong
what can i say to you to make you understand
what can i ask of you to make a reprimand
so you tell me i’m no good, and you don’t care anymore
so now i’m trying to figure out what the hell i’m with you forgiveness
well i don’t really know why i’ve been waiting for so long
all i wanna know is what did i do wrong
all i wanna know is what did i do wrong
all i wanna know is what did i do wrong
Lyrics to “Alien-American” by Tequila Mockingbird (2004)
From the Tequila Mockingbird sophomore release, hear/here are the words. Lifted from my band’s website.
Again (3:38) so what do you think it means the weather’s changed and how is your head well it’s prearranged and what are your thoughts on the politics around here well shit the optimism just fades too fast and i’m the first in line still you toss me back and i think it’s getting way too crowded in your head for me but what do think it takes to say goodbye when all i really gotta do is open up my eyes i’m falling again so what do you think it means that nothings changed and all the furniture has been rearranged and what are your thoughts on the spatiality damn this pessimism just stays around and if i am up then you kick me down and i think it’s getting too crowded in your room for me but what do think it takes to say goodbye when all i really gotta do is open up my eyes i’m falling again so when’d it go to hell and everything change because nothing here’s ever felt so strange and what are your thoughts on the bygones forsaken around here damn this optimism just was almost gone but still you come around and baby it’s never for long and it’s getting way too empty in your world for me but what do think it takes to say goodbye when all i really gotta do is open up my eyes i’m falling again
Cashed (2:45) it’s exactly like i imagined you never tell me what i want to hear it’s exactly like i thought it would be trapped inside my mind with all these things i fear beyond the mountains and the techno without the everybody ever known at last you realized but far too late someone took your brain and turned your heart to stone ‘cause i can’t get in to anything i can’t see out of this end i’m in and i end up where i’m supposed to begin the line i walk is far too thin i want to be your anti-hero never do you right but always true i want to be your less than zero i want to know what you think about you and me and me and you ‘cause i can’t get into anything i can’t see out of this end i’m in and i end up where i’m supposed to begin the line i walk is far too thin
UFO Intro (:23)
UFO (4:24) you always seemed light years away but i didn’t think that you would really leave that day this solar system has its ups and its downs and life on venus ain’t as cool as it sounds i can see clearly most of the time but honestly i swear i never saw the signs didn’t believe me when i said things could be worse than to be stuck here in this universe you said goodbye and then you headed for the hills you sold my car and stranded me with all the bills you left me for a ufo why’d you have to go i sit alone and stare at your moon rocks and cry can’t bear to watch star trek ‘cause it makes me wonder why i’m gonna build a rocket i’m gonna hope that it will fly maybe someday i’ll see you again in the stars above the sky gonna save my money and buy a radio tracking station gonna try my luck at newton’s law of gravitation you left me for a ufo why’d you have to go you said goodbye and then you headed for the hills you stole my car and stranded me your all the bills you left me for a ufo why’d you have to go you said goodbye and then you headed for the hills you stole my car and stranded me with all your bills you left me for a ufo why’d you have to go
The Honeymoon (3:29) the honeymoon’s not the same without you but i’m remaining optimistic my love just ain’t the same without you but i probably won’t be coming home it’s true but it’s alright yeah it’s alright never could write a love song about you without it sounding too sarcastic used to think the world about you but my universe is so elastic but it’s alright yeah it’s alright the sun-bleached sand where we used to stay i want to move so far away we would dwell here most each and every day i want to move so far away those vacations we would take without you i once believed were so fantastic thought i touched the heart inside you found that it was made of plastic but it’s alright yeah it’s alright the sun-bleached sand where we used to stay i want to move so far away we would dwell here almost each and every day i want to move so far away it’s not a pretty picture but i needed to get a shot i tried to write our story without a broken plot the honeymoon’s not the same without you but i’m remaining optimistic my love just ain’t the same without you but i probably won’t be coming home it’s true but it’s alright yeah it’s alright the sun-bleached sand where we used to stay i want to move so far away we would dwell here most each and every day i want to move so far away so far away so far away so far away
Sometimes I Think (3:00) well i took the clock i took the lamp i took the fertilizer i locked the doors i poured the gas i lit the match i took the oath i bowed my head i breathed the fumes but you took my car you headed west and you were gone well freedom rang through my ears and choked back acidic tears i tossed away the hopes and the money and the years i was reborn i went to church i sought a rock where i could perch i was gonna get it if it didn’t beat me to it first i spiked the punch i punched my glass i blew a 3.0 i locked the doors i hit the gas i ran that light i slept in jail i called for bail then i got out but you took my car you headed south and you were gone so now i’m growing up and getting older and sometimes they say i’ve gotten colder around here i’m an anti-contender and i live near the park in a four-plex in uptown denver well sometimes i bleed from too much drinkin’ and sometimes i have just too much fun and sometimes i think about you baby if sometimes into you i’ll ever run…
Catching On (the stupid song) (5:36) well i’m finally catching on yeah i’m beginning to apprehend and i’m seeing it all so crystal clear that this surely ain’t no means to no end and i’m pulling out all the stops and i’m shaking here in the absolved and i’m dismayed at the failure i am it seems my car ain’t the only thing that’s stalled you’re so stupid how you could have been so dumb i was wondering that myself you’re so stupid how you could have been so wrong i was wondering that i was wondering that myself well i’m figuring the “what went bad” and i’m reckoning the reasons why because i’m sure that it can’t be me as i know i stand much bigger than my size sometimes i notice i’m way off the target occasionally i see i’m stuck in the trough whatever the matter i’m keen to the coolness so all you had to do was tell me to back off you’re so stupid how you could have been so wrong i was wondering that myself you’re so stupid how you could have been so dumb i was wondering that i was wondering that myself well i’m finally catching on yeah i’m beginning to apprehend and i’m seeing it all so crystal clear that this surely ain’t no means to no end you’re so stupid how you could have been so dumb i was wondering that myself i’m so stupid how’ve i could have been so wrong i was wondering that i was wondering that myself
Shades of Grey (4:48) i thought you were right there in the crowd so i pondered these things to you aloud i thought you were right there in my sight i was sure i knew my day for night i thought i hold you in my hands so i ran and vanished in your lands i thought you were right there in my wake but once again that’s my mistake been breaking down myself over you when i noticed you had better things to do you stole all my friends away i didn’t need ‘em anyway i’m really not myself today the blue and black fade into grey i thought i was almost finally there till you came and caught me unaware i thought i was on the chosen path now looking back that’s such a laugh i’m a little more stupid than i look i couldn’t give you more than you’ve already took you stole all my friends away i didn’t need ‘em anyway i’m really not myself today the blue and black fade into grey and maybe you’ll be all alone when i’ve broken everything i own tangled in the elements i’ve torn but you’ve seen me far worse off before been breaking down myself over you when i noticed you had better things to do you stole all my friends away i didn’t need ‘em anyway i’m really not myself today the blue and black fade into grey
Couldn’t Anything (3:37) i couldn’t think of anything to do so i gathered my pens and wrote a letter to you it said baby don’t free your thoughts of me just yet i ran down the block and crashed into your sister i asked for your number she said it wasn’t listed she said maybe you should spend some time thinking ‘bout what you’ve done well i don’t want to think about the things i don’t remember and i don’t want to consider where i could have been if i hadn’t ever i couldn’t think of a way to respond so i went to your house by the church near the pond and tapped on your door and sang my song so resolutely baby i could see in the window you were watching the game and suddenly i started to feel pretty lame mama always told me to turn back when your reaction is insane but i won’t go on and on about the things i don’t remember it’s never crucial anyway to these predicaments i render i couldn’t think of a damn thing to write so i went to the kitchen and poured a whiskey and sprite poured gasoline on the candles you gave me and watched them burn i called up your house and got the machine i looked at your letter at the spaces between what it said and what the hell did it mean now i don’t know what i did to upset you i can’t even recall when i ever met you and everyone has told me think hard about my conduct being true so i wracked my thoughts for an hour or two and i realized what i said to you that night i blew from town i said “i’m probably not coming back for you” but i won’t go on and on about the things i don’t remember i know i’m only limited to what i want to see
I did a search for the word “panic” in my main Gmail account inbox today and should do a search on Google Docs too.
But I’m really busy and can’t fit that in. After figuring out again today that I wanted to be a writer even though I can still say I am a writer but it’s a lot like saying I’m a stealthy drinker but I don’t tend to lean into drinking. If I did, I could say that yes, I drink furiously and with passion and even some reckless abandon — but meh, yeah just not feeling it, you know like, every single day.
Heavy drinkers don’t say that now, do they. Because they do drink, and they do it because they love it and they have proclaimed themselves as these party monsters and they are good at it. People around even know this and will verify it.
I will circle or rhombus back to PANIC at some point. But since PANIC is always there, it’s easy to find a way to write about it. And all the time. But I don’t, which is why I digress.
The comparison I want to make isn’t important. Not only because I don’t think I can make this comparison, surely I will but I think you should figure out what this is and what it means because I don’t feel like explaining it.
The point beside the point is that I realize that to be a writer, one must write perhaps more than one thinks inspiration has been attained. That’s not practical because the inspiration is obtained when one doesn’t have a method to notate it approximately 90% of the time and inspiration, like excuses, are implied as having a semantic correspondence here. But these are not riddles. I am trying to make a point by being crafty. That’s not the same.
I have wasted like 25 years of my life. That’s half of it. I was supposed to be a non-fiction writer who wrote books. I dropped the ball on that one. I’m still thinking I should finish the one that is almost finished — ten years now — but instead I’m on the WordPress blogging about what a mess I have made of my career(s) and life both generally and specifically.
Maybe you needed some time before you could write about what you had to say in order to know how to say it. And to have something to say. Maybe you will do what you tell yourself you are going to do and carry through with it.
Maybe you should actually try being the drinker and give up.
I do have a really sweet mom who said, Wendy, don’t you know you are writer — the songs you write and those beautiful words…
That’s true. I do write fancy songs so that makes me feel better.
But it’s time to get the Zebra re-inked and see if I can do this writing thing every day for a month. Then for a year. I expect I will be happy with myself if I do. I’ve seen it happen!
I have to write something about panic for an organization soon and seem to have plenty of material for that one.
This, like all things written and said, shall be continued of course, unless you’re not feeling like it.
Subtitle: Written in iPhone notes. All typos and confusion is real.
Lesson: life is going to kill you eventually, and there is no safety generally (except bomb shelters?)
I just woke up not sure if today happened after we had shooting spree blitz the day before… it’s not a natural disaster if we caused the nature to recoil and seek such vengeance but I respect this element since watching an apartment burn in Denver and so the difference is that we have no idea what the weather will do to say, What did you THINK would happen? You and your shit is comically insignificant and since you think climate change is normal and your loser Neanderthal fellow species members think that it’s not global warming — please fall off the end of the earth you deem flat. Droughts and hurricane force winds indicate something is amiss and maybe don’t go shopping if you see a spot fire and remember your pets are nervous during storms — choose to use your heart and sense you know… danger that by all account, may cremate your home and all your things. Destroy the places with more people who coexist in a carbon state of perpetual waste. Then shoot the bear in your backyard. If you create nothing aand do nothing to help create, or have no sense, or don’t care, then thanks. It’s easy to care. It’s much harder not to care. So this was not what was predicted to occur to Boulder 25 years ago as the dam didn’t break and Boulder was not under water.
What kind of fire today? It was a tornado fire hurricane that had its own ecosystem that made the event so drastically worse and unpredictable except that it was going at 110 mph sideways. Like a sci-fi weather demon. The wind gusts would suddenly completely change in the opposite direction and soon it all just really said fuck you, we are sending a message and we are clearly riled up, we care not about the holiday and if you won’t die of a pandemic, let’s see how to with survival skills and freakish levels of mental illness plus easy access to guns, and then the new plan is to ruin what you thought you had with was anywhere safe to run.
The fire and the wind whipped flying flames flew and found the next thing to feed on.
I was lost on that road yesterday. I told Josh and Chris how pretty it was there despite the distance.
Once a fire scared me just on a mountainside, now it’s alive and is able to chase you and will survive on suburbia and devour it after beating the defenseless everything in front of it.
This is what we have done.
But we won’t learn because not all of us were affected. But if you have been here, you know Boulder County.
I worked at kpa out there. Neil’s work facility was dangerously close.
Did that really happen? Did I know this would happen? Maybe not on this scale. Think about this. Don’t let this go. Remember you were right there lost as hell 24 hours prior. Now it is gone but we gained big new means of destroying our little towns and desensitized minds.
This message is brought to you by Acute Panic Disorder; the sustainable and severe anxiety attacks.
I hope everyone has a place to go for reals.. Here’s a clip from someone in the firestorm.
The last flash of light I remember was the second time I thought of the first time I would remember the final flare, and who have thought I would have absorbed any light whatsoever, wearing the sun-stained black that was on my person when I moved forward that morning, and when I moved backwards, it all vanished. I was sleeping when the fire engulfed your father’s yacht; I could prove that because it was four o’clock in the morning and I was in the Wakkahellaudoon Municipal Detention Center – and your father his very self — bailed me out at 6am, and although he didn’t smell like gasoline, he was wearing a floral patterned yellow dress that was much to small for him, but I sure didn’t say nothing. After all, he was kind enough to pay my overdue fine for my initial arrest which occurred when I was caught lead-handed so to speak – emptying all the lead and ink cartridges out of their rightful mechanical pens and pencils – needless to say, this resulted in much displeasure from the students and faculty and especially the maintenance gentleman who had to use various erasers throughout our institution in order to remove the thousands of lines that were dragged through the halls, offices, classrooms, stairs, sidewalks, linoleums, carpets, tiles, and the blueprint
The Sketch
or the sketch, I suppose you could call it, but in other’s perception, if it is to be perceived, drew a plan, and then a fabrication of a plan and it stamped itself ARROGANCE and when the construction was obviously an end in itself, before the erasing and way prior to the shock and fury, but simultaneously to the end of what should have been the beginning of the highest elation, the ground came rushing up to my eyes at the same instant that I fell to that pavement where I remained for many moments: how many I can’t say because I had no wristwatch and as I turned my head ever so angled to the right of my otherwise very firmly planted body that I certainly felt not like moving with the exception of my neck and eyes and only then to get the time of day from a shopper or a businessman or a businesswoman, or a salesperson on their way to sell stuff, or an elderly person who actually tried to help but had another appointment to tend to, or a cat, or a leaf, or maybe just myself – after all, who was painting this audio visual performance art anyway? This is the art of Performance Rhetoric. You have every talent in the world and you make words an omega. You make sentences sing. What is the matter with you? Why the f___ can’t you talk?
La Luna
Think before you speak. But do not think like me before you speak. Or else you will learn not to do everything that I have never known nor will I because you can’t keep up with me. You will never be anywhere near as fast or smart or savvy as I am, and life is short – so I suggest you go ahead and get that there life for yourself before you think that I am not speaking because I could not think fast enough.
Answering the question which is posed by the person who knows nothing of the thousands of titles, the millions of agonising scriptures, the brooding over the same sentences you celebrate, the tense of the tensed and the lens of every color of every eye, all resounding that is loud and soft and active and not-so-much, the middles and endings and end-notes and footnotes and prefaces and preludes and postscripts and addendums and afterthoughts and annotations and additions and adjuncts and supplements, narratives, and the words lost; the other side of the words unwritten – the other side of the mirror some of The English Elders may reference the unrecognizable.
Sunday is a poet. You know this because as you walk down the street with her to the Quik Stop for a bottle of Old English 800, she speaks in a manner almost lyrical, and you notice things you’ve never noticed before, like the lime fragrance of the fountain and the way you can still walk straight even if you close your eyes.
Sometimes in your mind, you walk past the big white colonial house where Sunday lives, stained-glass front windows and magnolia garden, and Arthur, her Great Pyrenees greeting you at the sidewalk. You imagine here eyes shining through the drawn blinds. Those eyes know you’re longing for the verse of Shakespeare in the hammock near the creek that lines the backyard, or sweet rhetoric of political apathy. For the feel of her hands running through your hair as her words echo through your mind — both like crisp water, cool and soothing.
You sit perfectly still. You know that all moments end.
You and Sunday are together. She whispers and laughs lightly ande when she can’t think of anything to say, she hums. You can smell the strawberry shampoo she uses. Her eyes, which you watch carefully, turn from green to grey as the sky darkens. She lights a candle and is quiet. You tell her that maybe your life would be different if only you had stayed back East, or studied Law.
“There’s a poem there,” she says.
You fall asleep on her couch; she is in the chair. You awaken, very late, and watch the lights of the cars outside as you listen to Sunday’s soft breathing as she rests peacefully. You imagine what she could be dreaming about, maybe rainbows or angels.
Last night, you watched her in the street below your window, the rain falling everywhere around her; the April showers saturating her. Then she turns to you, or maybe the stars, and begins to sing a silent song, dancing drunkenly. You realize, even in the blackest rain, you can see clearly. You believe she was never at your side.
You know that there will never be another like her. Somehow she has become your long lost, never ever. The rooms she danced in have become your shrine. Her image becomes an icon. Your heart sinks each time you see a fire-engine red Wrangler. You wish you had done things differently, or maybe you wish you could be different. You wonder what you did wrong, or perhaps, what you didn’t do at all.
You will get the same result(s). You will trust, you will grow, you will flourish, you will, fall, get up a time or ten, and you will still lose nothing from within who you have become – but you will also lose what you never fucking needed because you were not paying attention.
On that note (all puns intended where they seem suitable), the future is fresh and never dull albiet unpleasant at times, and you will remember starting something big and you will have the love of that long strange trip always, and when the honeymoon is over, walk back into the sun and watch that new garden comfort you, heal you, keep you warm, and you will walk and think more deliberately and no matter how great you are, never let them take away your guitar.
It seems that the [comfort/convenience/pleasure/lack of guilt/rush of righteousness] associated with a dysfunctional premise often distracts people from embracing the temporary pain of a functional strategy.
Yesterday. All my troubles seemed — to be taken out on stage by the happiness of my love for writing, revising, rehearsing, and executing musical compositions. With my friends. For a superb audience.
I am grateful for my band mates and friends and family and fans who joined us for my 23rd year of playing at the Capitol Hill People’s Fair. Too many people in my life have passed on and I remember them being there for me for so many years, so many shows, good and sometimes *not so good* and absurd, bizarre, impossible to explain memories. I remember almost every show I have played, when and where, with whom, and the experiences and the people who have come, gone, stayed, and the ones who aren’t here anymore to laugh and play with us. We work hard, sometimes I may be obsessively diligent and proud of working 60 hour weeks — but that’s what I think keeps me rollin’ along. I love my life because I can write it out and play it for you in less than five minutes. And I love my band. And I love the friends who are kind enough to keep coming back and motivating me to be as good as I can be at this game of musical wars that it tends to be — but I don’t let it get to me — I won’t see someone as or let them be more important than anyone else because they have the power to make or break you on the scene. Of course it’s healthy to be competitive, but we aren’t competing. We aren’t judging or criticizing. We are still playing music that we composed and not in this for the money (although we don’t turn it down) and hell, we are not going away as long as we still are being asked to show up. No apologies. I speak for myself and the kids in the band when I say we wouldn’t do this if we didn’t have the balance and ability and joy to play well with others. Enjoy what you gots. You can have it all and set your standards however you like. You can do what you say you are going to do -and- carry through. No one is better than anyone else or has the right to take away what you love in life — not with their words, actions and behavior, or their demeanor.
I have to be grateful for those who have destroyed me as much as I am grateful for those who have mended me.
I have written this statement once before and I have to think to myself that maybe it is more significant than ever.
Saving a person’s life when he is seconds away from stepping off that ledge was not part of the plan. A few years ago, saving a life was important to me until this turned on me as something that was my fault; I knew this was clearly not the case — I was so glad I was there at the right time and place to prevent this — but I was no hero to the people who I loved. I learned what it was to be the anti-hero more than I ever believed possible. But no no no, I can cleanly admit that I learned that I was a hero, damn it, and to let go of the ones who made an effort to destroy me from that moment in time that I walked into a bad situation, to the phone call I made for help. (Note: Call 911 when someone tries to commit suicide because he or she will certainly try to do it again, sometimes that same day.) The strangeness of thinking — that seconds later, I would have found this person dead and maybe I would never recover from the guilt of not showing up in time, shadowed the years of the disrespect and evil that plagued me because I got in his way of getting out the easy way — and retaliation takes on a wretched anguished ghost who is always there to let you know, “Hey, dude. You are going to hell for getting in the way of destiny,” and shreds pieces of your life and limited time on the planet in order to carry on and live well, and then what happens:
Your life changes you; you change your life.
I’m not dwelling on the reasons I have been destroyed. When I was in those moments, it was difficult to avoid the sick feeling of reflecting for and with no reason, and empty hopes and pure loathing of self, but yes: I am out of there now. I have been for awhile. But I’m better than that — I am fucking lucky that I saved his life and so are the people who weren’t so sure. Those people will never know how to thank me, yet I thank them for teaching me who I am and being myself and happy about it all. Their hostility is common and I know to let it go when I see it. You can have it. Keep it; I can’t sail that ship, I will swim back to shore, please send me my mail and keep the rest of my stuff, or give it to someone else. I don’t want you to give me another gigantic piece of anything- tangible or intangible – that it takes every last drop of sweat to mend for myself so I don’t end up on the wrong side of the rope (so to speak).
Right now, the circumstances are trying to break me again but have not done so. Right now, I am mending and letting it go. Right now, I have myself to rely on — no one else should have to help me — and although the damage is done, I am not finished and I need some letting go. I will be on the other side of this situation and then I can bury it. And write about it.
Saving a life and saving yourself are both similar and equally dangerous. But I get to try to meliorate and rehabilitate myself and spare myself the long ride on the wave of mental erosion and psychopathic entities who betray in the most unfathomable manner, and who hate and break and enjoy it. Watching you struggle is what they need to be happy.
Whatever.
I’m grateful anyway. I never promised you a rose garden. I’m not the sharpest pencil in the pack. I’m not unhappy either.
I know who I am. I’m grateful for that and for losing so much that I never really had – and being a rock star for getting back up, dusting myself off, tipping my hat and exiting the theatre rather than the sharpening the stick and returning with the blackness of hatred I was meandering through too long. I sharpen the stick to make a point; the point of it all is how you find your way back to the shore, back to the mountain after a cliffhanger, back to music after the silence stops making so much noise.
You are allowed to be happy and to laugh despite yourself.
As much as I have to admit I have a tendency towards the unconventional methods to deal with uncomfortable events and actions in my life, I have turned into an attack binge writer. Be careful not to tell me what a limitation is. I hope Brian recovers from this shady way of covering up emotions with a series of words injected painfully until the victim is too confused to ask what happened. Apologies to the others who know who they are. But I’m not sorry. Don’t be a crybaby for Christ’s sake. Not here; start a blog or watch a different time bomb.
I’ll be on streaming youtube now while I fix websites and play some songs to get even with my lack of practice by showing how much no one cares.
Get off FaceBook. Go outside and steal some hubcaps. Streak down Broadway. Write or play music or build a bad reputation.
GET BEAT UP. Trust me – that is the way to learn how to unlearn how stupid you thought you were.
I can’t stop writing. This is a real issue. I’m going to WordPress. My phone is off and I don’t want to talk about it. I want to make sure nothing changes enough to succumb to boredom and retweets of Trump. I want to start something and then run.
Yes, I won’t know until I do the analytics so if you think you don’t care, you would have figured out how to tell me that and stop asking me to think positively and MAYBE you would get out of the way and do something intelligent.
I will not make apologies for my stupid mistakes again.
The Space You Left Behind 