FAILED WRITINGS

the essay that caused my depression

2011-01-19T07:27:00.000-08:00

**note** i have not updated this blog in ages and I am sorry for the two or three readers that I do have. Is blogging somewhat fading into irrelevance? Anyway, I've been busy writing for this broadcast company and also trying to finish a small book. By a small book I mean a PDF that nobody would ever read but hey, I'm trying my best to be an accomplished failed writer.

So maybe you thought I've run out of material from 2006 to publish, but fear not, I have found yet another folder within a folder that holds treasures for many blog posts to come...this one is called "the essay that caused my depression."

19_06_06

nothing is forever the same as you were on the day you found out. about what though? The meaning of life is what I found out and I've been depressed ever since. The story goes like this:

A couple of us enrolled in an extracurricular philosophy class were to write a paper on the meaning of GOD in our society. Not thinking too much into anything, I just wanted a passing grade. This class was taken for the amusement of my parents so they had the extra hour or so a week to masturbate or anything else that needed to be done in discretion of us children. I took pride in knowing more than what my parents gave me credit for and with that in mind, I agreed to take this course with the stipulation of getting the computer I've always wanted with just a passing grade. None the less, I was ready to finish up the class when the topic of our last assignment came up. Who is GOD and how does he relate to our society in the grand scheme of things? It being a very generic question, I would reply with a generic answer. GOD is the end result of our search. The search for the question beyond all mighty questions: "What is the meaning of life?"

So there lay the question that would needed to be sought after. Of course in any one person's mind, they would think such a ridiculous question would bear no energy cost on my behalf to figure out. The question in many ways, is a rhetorical one and in every way, shallow, absent, don't matter and who cares. But that was just my opinion. But of course, I needed to pass the course and so pass it I would. I sat down in front of my desk and began to write what seemed to be the answer to all questions unanswerable. I wrote and wrote until my hands became stiff. I relaxed for a while and started back up again, only to run out of ink in my pen. I grabbed a new pen and began writing some more. I wrote for eight hours straight only to read back what I wrote in pure amazement. I had written almost thirty some pages of shit. I read it a second time, maybe I'd missed something on the first read. It was worse than the first time around except with the second time, I had realized what an idiot I was. I closed my eyes and went to sleep. Forgave myself for wasting eight hours and forgave myself for utterly being so naive and dumb. I told myself that tomorrow was a new day and that it'll all be better.

I woke up floating on top of some cloud and saw gold fishes flapping their gills to the sound of the beat. The beat that was playing on the out door speakers. Of course this is a dream that I was having but this night, it was no ordinary dream, it was a revelation. I had a vision and the vision was mine.

I awoke in ecstasy. Had been enlightened and saw the totality of my existence. This dream which I can not share with you, had been the dream not meant to have.

I sat down in front of my desk and wrote my paper once again. Five hours later I was done. I didn't want to go back and read the paper I had just written. I knew it was the best thing ever. Something that'll blow Kant and Nietzsche out of their seats. A piece of work so perfect and smart, it would have to be recognized. And all this because of a simple dream I had had. And so, I passed the course and had my paper in the local newspaper and different magazines and eventually I had received a lot of press about it. No one really grasped what I was trying to say in my essay. A lot of their interpretations was mindless jargon. Words that more or less confuse rather than elaborate. This caused quite a stir in my community. I had written something and it became something I'd never quite imagine it ever being. Something of importance.

I relished my moment on top of the world. Status quo and I was it.

Many years went by and I remember what I had dreamed about. Long after all the curtains had came down and the extraordinary amounts of fame and fortune had settled, a friend of mine came up to me and asked what I had dreamed about that night. And I answered, "shit."

june 24, 06_random things

2010-12-16T11:10:00.000-08:00

lacan says that writing is secondary to the spoken language and that the spoken language is closer to the present, to the truth. Derrida claims that the written language must be broken down, because words full of metaphors and such is irrelevant to the truth.

The written language is more tactically and wisely considered than the spoken language. More precisely thought out and pondered upon. A slip of the tongue can produce words not originally meant or unbearably misunderstanding.

I write to please myself. Nothing else. They are mental notes and they will be the only thing i leave behind. I am fulfilled when i write and find joy in producing something with longevity. Something that will outlast even myself. These words are a part of me and will live within me but most of the time, the thoughts get imbedded so deep into the brain, that none of even the bravest excavators can dare dig it out.

I was told stories since a little boy and the way they stay in your mind is amazing. How one thing lingers and others fade deep into the background is surprising to know.

Times are tough and when everything is going wrong, then you have one person to turn to. The person that you can fully trust other than yourself. Fully trusting is something unattainable. You fully trusting oneself is the knowledge of oneself. Even the dirtiest of flaws in a given situation but the thing is, you've never been in every situation and with all the different exponentials and such, it is unworthy to have the fullest of trusts. Just enough to make life easier. Everything has shades. Nothing with definitives. Nothing is right and wrong, just our interpretations of it. But sometimes, its too much for us to care about. There we make lines and laws to make life simpler but that doesn't make it just. Just in our society for the moment and we make it so but it was like that from the beginning. All our thoughts in one egg basket is easy, way too easy to break.

Inner Monologue

2010-12-16T10:59:00.000-08:00

(Its kind of funny to read what I was thinking back during 2006, which is a little less then 5 years ago. We all have desires to become famous to a certain degree and I've always thought up of words to say during a national interview. The closest I got since 2006 was being interviewed by an NYU student for his experimental film class. He found me through the internet and asked questions about my work at Barnes and Noble in Union Square. I was quite flattered because NYU was one of the schools I would have loved to go to but couldn't get in and here I was being interviewed for an NYU class project.)

Interview with BO LEE by BO LEE

Bo: So thank you for sitting down with me to have this interview.

BO: No problem at all. Actually, this interview feels very comfortable.

Bo: Maybe it's because every thing is an inner monologue?

BO: Maybe, but yeah..

Bo: So how did it all start for you? When did you feel like, yes, I've made it?

BO: You never really start or end do you? I guess when you're born and when you die but other than those two points, I can't really say. I can't say even if I've actually started or not based on your point of view of "Starting."

I guess when I first met my wife maybe. Or maybe when I first got the call from a curator asking me to exhibit my work. It was for a gallery in Helsinki and didn't think much of it. Then during that year, I started to get more and more calls about shows and exhibits. Before then, I've always wanted to be a narrative, feature filmmaker, which I'm still hoping to accomplish, but not in the context that I initially envisioned. I took a year off from a post production house to work on these three scripts that I'd been conceptualizing for two years before and when I had actually finished these scripts I'd been bogged down with other work, mostly freelancing stuff that I took my thoughts away from these three scripts. When it was time for me to go back into these scripts to actually do something with them, I had seen some ridiculous, outlandish films like "El Topo," and "Begotten," that really interested me and made me think of the narrative form in a slightly different way. So when I went back to my scripts, I didn't feel the passion for the stories any more. Before, I had thought, I was the only one who should make these scripts come to life but now, I couldn't care less about them. It's like having these three kids and you love them to death, but at a certain point, you just have to let go and make new kids. No?

Bo: So what are you developing or working on now?

BO: Well, I started on a five part series on the "CYCLE OF MAN" is what I'm calling it now. The first part is done, its a series of short one minute vignettes that go through the cycle of life and rebirth and all that stuff. The first one is called: "Deconstruction of a Man." And the second one will be called "The Birth of a Man."

I'm also putting together a collection of screen tests in part like the Andy Warhol screen tests. That'll be like a side-long term thing. I initially wanted to have a collection of all my friends and family and people I basically know. And now it's become more of a study on human behavior.

I'm also in prepro of a documentary that I want to do about the store that my family runs down in Philadelphia.

Bo: What's so special about the store that they have? What kind of a store is it?

BO: Well it's called "Ah's Garage Sale." and it's basically a thrift shop. It's open 7 days a week but I want to be more of a story on life down in rural pennsylvania, how the people live, the back story to how the concept of the store was developed and how it came about happening. The immigrant society particularly the Korean immigrant society. SO a lot of issues that's we're going to aim for but I'm sure a lot of it has to be narrowed down a lot more.

Bo: Speaking of Korea, I know you were there not too long ago, do you ever want to go back?

BO: Actually my wife and I were considering moving out there in a couple of years for a year or two to be with her side of the family since all her relatives are there. Then I began to think of things that I could do while I'm out there and the only thing I could think of was making a film, so yes I do want to go back and work on a film there. Nothing is set in stone and I don't have the slightest idea on the story that I want to do but like they say "LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION" and I already have that.

Bo: I know we just talked about stepping away from the traditional sense of filmmaking much endue to Alejandro Jodorwosky and Elias Merhige's films and I'm not sure about Elias Merhige but Alejandro was a man with a whole lot of different trades. He was even a puppeteer before becoming a filmmaker.

BO: Yes, and I think that's the most wonderful part of life, experiencing everything there is to take in. The producer at the post house I used to work at gave me this advice about changing jobs every five to seven years to get all there is in life. I love everything and my interest lies in almost everything. I want to be a designer, a furniture maker, a store owner, a glass blower there are so many things that I haven't seen or experienced, it'll be a pity to waste it all behind a lens of a camera. I mean, I love filmmaking, photography in the artist sense, but art is frivolous without life. And in life, you need experiences. I would much love to run a ice cream shop in italy or be a surfer in Brazil. Something that I couldn't picture myself doing just because I don't like being in a situation where I'm so comfortable. During my year off from Post Production, I worked as a flea market vendor every saturday for six months. Wake up at five am, drive to hell's kitchen, unload my van, and sit outside until five pm. The atmosphere and the feeling you get can't really be described in words, it's something that you have to experience for yourself. The best writers in the world can't describe to the dot how they felt when they first made love. It's just something you have to do for yourself.

Bo: Not to get away from our topic but I notice your necklace with two charms dangling from it. Do they bear any significance?

BO: Well the cross is kind of obvious. During childhood, I went to church every Sunday and did the whole "Christian" thing. After moving to New York, I remember first reading Nietzche's "morality of genelogy" and thinking, man---- I didn't really know what to think. I went through a period of struggle trying to figure out "What it all meant" and blah blah blah, and the conclusion I got was that we're all human. We can only know so little. So I'm an "agnostic" per say but I find that believing in something other than yourself can release a lot of your burdens and stress. It's weird and strange but I consider myself a Christian, who doesn't believe in the church nor a definite answer to the mysteries of afterlife. I'm an agnostic, universalist, a Christian wrapped up in one. I don't want to pick and choose the parts of a religion I feel fits but I'm actually conflicting with myself but I don't think Contradiction is necessarily "wrong?"

The other charm I got when I first went to korea, it was a rough time family wise. My parents were living separately, we had just lost our home, my mother had to start working for the first time in so many years, I was about to graduate college and my brother had failed out of school and moved back home. It was a lot of things to consider and I realized that if our family can get through this, we can get through anything together so I had bought a similar charm for my mother, father and brother but I think I'm the only one who actually wears it anymore or even has it around.

INTERVIEW PART 2 (To be continued)

Series of short poems:

2010-12-08T05:38:00.000-08:00

Strange Events

It must have been on weed
Ginsberg, all of it.
Bush’s war on Iraq
quite quack.
You left out some pieces
Feces for it all.
In fact, strange
I hope, you learn.

What do I do now?

Dream on my brotha.
Lean on...

The Judger

Who are we to judge?
Who are we to tell wrong do?
And you. And you are who?
Who am I not to tell
you too. Because, I am.

Evelyn

I remember things when I’m like this.
I stare off and off and off
and off.
It’s about nothing.
something it can not be.
But I do remember her.

Poem without meaning

2010-12-08T05:36:00.001-08:00

For those who End

2010-12-08T05:31:00.000-08:00

my brother who works too much to live,
my uncle who can't see his children,
my father who can't get his paycheck,
my mother who needs to see the doctor.

this is the best it will ever get.
this is the worst it will ever be.
this is the farthest you'll ever see,
but it's not the place you will sleep.

the children with malnutrition,
the aging folks that have no more,
the slaves of once and are to be,
the homeless that "let me be."

I am the best you'll ever get,
I am the worst that you will ever be,
I am the farthest thing you will ever see,
but I am not the one that you will sleep.

This is the end, this is the end.
All has failed and so this is the end.

My Reoccurring Dream

2010-11-30T02:50:00.000-08:00

*This was my first attempt at a full-length novel. Obviously it was never finished and quite frankly, I haven't re-read it all to determine if it was any good to begin with. Let me know how it is if anyone reads it all the way through. Thanks!

THE DREAM:

I follow this lady dressed in white down an empty street. There is no one on this street but had it not been a dream, the streets would have been crowded with people. People selling counterfeit merchandise, people buying counterfeit merchandise. People dealing and rambling on about their lives and other ordinary things but in my dream, the streets were bare. She’s not racing nor is she speeding along but it’s very hard for me to keep up. I would lose my breath rather quickly and at one point, I almost lose sight of her. It’s not as if she’s leading me on or guiding me anywhere but its her red shoes that grabs my attention and for whatever purpose, I pursue her like a drug sniffing dog chasing down a dealer.
I follow her to a narrow alleyway where she disappears. There are no other ways to leave this alley way but to go forward, so down the way I go. At this point, I forget about the red shoes and the lady the shoes were on. Nothing is on my mind but this alleyway that never seems to end. No matter how fast I run, the alley just doesn’t want to come to an exit. I see the end of the road, but I just can’t seem to get myself to it. I stop to reassess the situation. I’m in an alleyway that doesn’t end. I can’t turn back now and I’ve got to get out before the sun comes down because when the sun comes down, that’s when all the alley cats come out and I sure as hell didn’t want that to happen. What is it about the alley cats I don’t know, but in my dream, I’m deadly afraid of them. I’ve got to get out.
I hear a whisper. If I heard it again, I’d probably be able to make out the words but at this moment, I didn’t understand a word. All of a sudden, I realize what the whisper was. It was a combination. A set of numbers I can use to get myself out of this mess. I see a bag of trash that wants me to empty it. I open the bag and start throwing out its contents. I keep digging at the bag until I’m completely engulfed by it. It’s completely dark. “I am trapped in a garbage bag,” I tell myself. I fiddle around for a little bit when I realize a knob is underneath my bottom. I turn the knob and the bag is lifted and I can finally see light. As if everything that has just happened was no longer. I am standing in the midst of an expansive, everlasting field of grass. The sky is light blue and the sun is shining. I hear birds flying in the sky above and distant laughter of children playing in the playground. “I am in heaven” I mumble to myself. I’ve done myself well and made it to heaven. I proceed to move forward when I feel a slight tug at my feet. I try harder to move this time but the grip has tightened and I’m actually starting to feel pain. I look down to notice a vice on my foot with a series of numbers. It wants me to enter a combination of numbers. It’s obvious that the whisper I heard was telling me what the numbers are for this vice on my foot, but… I look around. I can’t seem to remember the numbers. I start to notice people out in the field. My mother is holding my brother by the hand as my dad sits by eating grapes. My old roommate and that one kid in high school who always did my homework, they’re there as well. And then I saw my girlfriend, but she was crying. I need to get to her and I try so hard but the harder I pull, the harder the vice clamps up. I cry out to her “hold on, I’ll be right there, I’ll be right there” but she can’t hear me. None of them can. The quiet breeze of the autumn wind swallows up my cries. I grab my leg and tug. Harder, harder but to no avail. I realize that I am stuck. Stuck in this moment, just being able to watch all my loved ones at a distance that I can’t do anything to help stop their suffering or to enjoy in their joy. I am stuck.

THIS IS NOT A DREAM:

I walk down the empty subway path and realize that I am living in the vision of the future presented so well to us in those old movies like “Total Recall,” “The Running Man,” “Blade Runner,” and any movie that was taken from a Philip K. Dick novel. Capitalism is at its full throttle and there is no turning back. The poor ravishes the streets and the underground while the rich buy expensive home systems that control the color of your wall and the amount of light that shines in through your window. Actually, that home system is not available yet but I’m sure they have the capability. Hell, they’ve cloned a dog named whatever, I’m sure they can change the color of your wall at a push of a button.
My vision gets blurred so I just close my eyes and float across this platform towards the end of the track so it’ll be easier for me to exit once I get home. This high has to stay just a little longer. It can’t go away now. I want to at least get home before I sober up. Because one thing about being sober, it makes it that much harder to deal with things. Your normal everyday things. For instance, my cell phone was stolen today. I was sitting in a coffee shop and had it right their on the table. I get up to get some sugar and bam, it’s gone. Now if I was sober, I’d be bugging out. No numbers, how is my girlfriend going to contact me? And the ridiculous price of a decent cell phone these days is just plain crazy. But remember, I am high. That means no worries, at least for the time being. Right now, all I’m concerned about is the large breasted black lady sitting in front of me and how the hell she got into that top. It just boggles my mind. I look around to see if anyone notices that I’m high. I see a couple talking to one another, they might know that I’m high. The Indian boy is telling his mother that I’m high, I’m sure of it. Those fucking Indians and their funny accents. Why do they cover up the stench of their convenient shops with the worse stench of those incense sticks? That’s another question that boggles my mind at this moment. Wait. Okay. Back to the large breasted black lady. Did I see a nipple pop out? Wait, I think the Indian boy, the breasted woman, and the couple are out to get me. Yeah, they realize that I’m high off my knocker and they want to get me arrested. The streets need a little cleaning they think to themselves. Fuck them. Fuck them all. Who are they to judge me? Okay, keep my cool. Be cool. Be cool. The train comes to a stop. It feels as though it’s been still for quiet some time now. Have they realized that I’m high? And maybe they alerted the police or something. No, that’s just my silliness talking now. Come on, think straight. Focus. Okay, we’re finally here, I’ve arrived at my stop.

AT HOME:

At home I realize that I’m still feeling the high. I hadn’t imagined that I’d feel it this long but I guess old crazy horse really came through for me this time. I haven’t been this bonkers in awhile. I feel the need to take a warm shower, so I throw my clothes off my body and turn on the water. At first the water is pretty cold but it gradually warms up. It takes a couple of minutes but it reaches its optimal warmness. This feels pretty good I think to myself. I don’t remember the last time I took a shower when I was high. Usually the last thing I want to do is do anything when I get home. I would just crash on the sofa or make my way into the bedroom and launch myself into hibernation until the morning alarm went off. But tomorrow is Saturday and tonight, I just want to take a warm shower before I throw myself into bed. I use the bar soap to clean all areas of my body when the image of the large breasted black lady pops into my mind. I try hard to lose the image but I find myself aroused. Fine, I’ll take care of myself before I fall asleep, and I’m high anyway. Might as well take advantage of the moment. I focus on her nipple. The nipple that almost slipped out of her top, but in my mind, they actually slip out. I try and picture the couple. The girl pushes her man aside and comes over to the black lady. She starts rubbing her leg against her breast. She has netted stockings on. The nipples go through the net and touches the skin of her leg. They both start to touch each other in different places. The black lady grabs the girl by the crouch and slides it back and forth. The girl rips open her blouse and touches herself until milk pours out of her breast. The black lady starts licking the milk off her chest. The black lady begins to rub her breast all over the girl’s. They start licking each other and then stops for a moment to invite me over. This whole time I’ve been beating myself off and by the time I step over to them, I’ve come. It’s not usually this short, I can assure you. Tonight was just a special night. And by special I mean that I was high off my ass and felt pretty damn good. I get out of the shower and grab a piece of tissue to pick up the little mess that I’ve made. I dry myself off and before I can put any clothes on, I find myself already in my bed underneath my sheets. Its very unusual for me to forget what happened two minutes before but like I said, tonight is a special night.

THE DREAM:

Dreams reoccur or do you just think they are reoccurring when they’re actually not? This dream I’ve dreamt before I’m sure of it. It’s the only dream where me and my girlfriend fuck all night. Good dream right? Well I usually dream of different girls. Models, actresses, hostess at a local restaurant, a friend, one of her friends, a random girl on the street, a pop singer, a porn star, usually a porn star but this dream, it was with my girlfriend. Now how silly is that? You can fuck your girlfriend anytime you want and when you finally sleep, you dream of fucking her as well.
The dream starts off with her standing by the ledge of our apartment building rooftop. Coming closer and closer to her, I realize she is standing there naked. She turns to me and says something to me in French. I’ve never been able to speak French nor has my girlfriend ever spoke French. I wasn’t sure if it was even French she was speaking but something let me know it was. I try to grab her but soon as I extend my arms, she leaps off the building. Now here is the part that gets a little strange. I jump after her and while I’m jumping down, I feel the urge to undress myself. I take all my clothes off and am able to grab my girlfriend. Why we haven’t hit the pavement is still a mystery. I hold her by the arms and bring her through one of the windows, into a bed which happens to be mine and we just fuck the whole night.

REALITY:

The truth is, I haven’t seen my girlfriend in some time now. We haven’t talked in over two weeks and I haven’t physically seen her in over a month. Sometimes I wonder if we are still a couple. I don’t remember us ever fighting over anything other than the time she got upset over me coming to pick her up from the station a little late. She’s not the type to hold a grudge and I really don’t think she’ll break up with me over a late pick up.
I try and take my mind off of her. I lie in bed and just listen to the empty silence. Listen carefully to the silence. It’s strange what you can pick up from absolutely nothing. If I had it my way, I’d just lay here all morning until the late afternoon. But you never have it your way. The phone rings and knowing the phone is in the kitchen I ignore it. At least I try to ignore it. I had forgotten to put the answering machine back on and now the phone is ringing for its tenth time. I stumble my way to the kitchen to pick up the phone. It’s the collection agency. They want to know why I haven’t paid my credit card bill in over three months and when I’d be able to pay it off in full. I curse a little, scream a little and tell them to fuck off. I have no money and no money to pay off some credit card bill that I don’t remember spending in the first place. I probably did spend it on something, but nothing that I can remember and that’s what makes me angry. Angry enough not to pay the bill. Who cares if it reflects my credit history. What do I need a credit history for any ways. Fuck it, I’m going to take a bath and go out to buy some records.

The reflection in the mirror is not mine. I look carefully and see the mess that has destroyed my complexion. I look like a slice of pizza that’s been through a radiator. I grab the soap and rinse my hands. I lather some foam up and start washing my face. My nose starts to bleed. I wonder why? This is what I say to myself:

Pain, where did you come form? I’ve had enough of this life. I’m stuck in a place that I never wanted to stay in. I want to climb out and make my way but I’m still here. Don’t cry for me, this is what I’ve become. A monster in my own rights. Not one with claws and bad texture skin but one that feels like he’s been through the radiator one too many times. Not one that goes through towns destroying silos and capital buildings but one that sleeps through storms and wonder how he never made it to Oz. That’s it, I’m a man who wants to leave Kansas. This is not my home, just my temporary residence. Help me oh lord, I’m a fallen man who wants deeply to get back up and do some good with his life. Oh this pain. Go away…

I REMEMBER…

I look in the mirror to shave and cannot recognize the man staring back at me. He looks familiar but something about him, the way he just feels like he’s not there any longer to which I don’t understand the meaning. This happens on occasion and then I jump back into my regular self, but this time, I truly didn’t know who the man on the other side of this glass was. And then he started to talk to me in a tone of voice that most resembled my father, only a decibel or two lower and much slower. Hell, I guess he wasn’t anything like my father after all. He started to mumble at first, but then I told him to speak proper and keep his chin up, it’s hard to speak to a man with his head down, the sound just hits the floor and dies.
“Speak to me boy.” The boy started to tell me stories. Stories of when I was young. The emotions I felt at a particular moment. A particular time in my life. I was young then, and I could hardly figure why I was feeling or thinking this way but now I can see. I was just too young to realize it then. I had been emotionally scarred. Not that a great tragedy had happen to me but the emotions of all six of my family members breaking down at the loss of my father was a great burden to handle.
See, my father was a workaholic. He had owned a contracting service that dealt in building homes and remodeling them. He probably had about 50 or 60 employees that worked directly underneath him and he took pride in what he had accomplished. A man with no degree from a poor family making it big by owning his own company to much success was something anyone could stand tall about. He worked hard. Sometimes fourteen, sixteen hours straight. Two or three jobs at a time and sometimes this went on for years. Once a job was finished, he would acquire a new contract and another one. He knew of nothing else. He rarely spent time with his family although, he always would say it was because of the family he had to work so hard. He did have a wife and five kids to take care of but we had been doing fine for so long, he could have stopped and just used the money he made from owning the business to support our family. But, he knew of no such thing. He could barely stay at home without being lead to his office to finish paper work on a new contract. That’s all he knew and it was this that eventually killed him. After 35 years of non-stop work, he had literally burned out and fell to the floor of our kitchen. Once we found out he had fallen, there was nothing that we could do but to watch as he turned into nothing more than a corpse. This is when everything went a little ballistic. Brother fighting brother, mother fighting sister. See, none of my brothers and sisters were that bright. Neither was my mother. They had for all their years, been riding out our father. Not to say that I wasn’t because I was. And being the youngest child I knew how to sustain my livelihood but my siblings, they were just ridiculous. Bank accounts, stocks, investments, properties, they were all up in the air and they were all fighting for space on that trampoline to try and grab it. So I just left.

When my trust fund matured, I had a good chunk of change. So I left everything. My family, my home, my childhood friends, my fiancé, everyone. I left everyone for a city called New York. Now its not that I left in the spur of the moment. I had thought about it. Put a lot of consideration to it. Weighed out the pros and cons and in the end, nothing really mattered. None of it. I just wanted a new life. This new life was going to bring me the joys of my youth again. The ones that were spent miserably watching my family be torn to shreds by this human trait called greed. A flaw I shall think, because greed is the single trait that will put to shame a person who is in the excess of it. I’m not just saying this because I was a victim to it at an early age. Since the dawn of man. Alexander the Great, Hitler, Mao, Michael Jordan, they were all victims of their own greed which in one shape or another, killed them.

I found a nice little studio in the meatpacking district and soon made friends with some local hipsters. Met them at a club called Juice and soon called it my home. Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays were all spent at the club. For three years I did nothing but drink myself to sleep only to wake up the next morning for some lines of powder so I can drink again at night. One night I had managed to indulge myself with every drug known to man and not die of it. Coke, pot, meth, e, you name it, it was now in my blood streams rushing the energy to my brain which in turn was soon about to explode. Which brings me to the present state and why I can’t remember how I look like. My brain had been fried and I couldn’t remember. I don’t remember if I was white, black, yellow, pink, peach or orange and I sure as hell didn’t recognize that ugly face staring in front of me.
I filled the tub with hot water, got undressed and placed my body just so that the top of the water reached right below my eyes. I felt the heat rising through my skin and the alcohol just releasing its odor through the bubbles bursting at the surface of the water. I held my breath and sunk my entire body below the water and tried to stay submerged as long as I possibly could.

REALITY:

I began to sink. The water level kept rising and I felt as though I was sinking below the depths of the sea. I could have sworn I was still in my bathtub but the water was too expansive for that. I was not in my bathroom any more. The water forced its way inside my mouth and the bitter taste opened my mouth to swallow even more of the foul water. I had to focus. I began to swim around in the hopes of finding an exit. There was a small hole about twenty yards in front of me. I began to swim in that direction until I realized the hole was not a hole. It had led me astray and now I was gasping for air. I couldn’t make it any more. I’m sure I was going to drown in my own bathtub that had turned into a sea of foul water. I closed my eyes to say a final pray. Not a prayer of rescue but a prayer to allow my family to live in peace because that’s all I really wanted. For my family to realize that the family itself was more important than any amounts of money that our father had left behind. I began to drop lower and lower towards the bottom of the sea. The temperature began dropping as well as I felt a cold chill run through my back. I was just drifting now into the depths of my tub into territories unknown to man. It started to get darker and colder and I needed air. Everything just faded to black.

“Wake up, wake up” a voice whispered to me. It was a woman’s voice. Her voice was soft and delicate. A very feminine female voice. One that you can imagine hearing over a 900 number hotline or on some sex channel narration. One that just turns you on but just a notch or two more wholesome. Not Mrs. Beaver wholesome but more like um. Well, you’ve got the idea. This voice brought me to a semi awoken state of mind. Her touch topped it off and in about a ten count, I rubbed my eyes to see a Rita Hayward type standing right on top of me.
I didn’t remember ever meeting this girl. I don’t remember sleeping with this girl the night before. Who was she? Before I had the chance to ask who she was, I had fallen back to sleep.

THE DREAM:

This dream I suppose was a prequel to my dream about chasing the girl with the red shoes and why I was chasing her. See I was doing a little Christmas shopping when I saw a pair of shoes that would look perfect on my mother. She was a size seven and the lady at the register told me they were out of that size. I could have told them thank you and left but these shoes were no ordinary shoes. In this particular dream, these shoes were my mother’s ticket to heaven and I needed to buy them for her. I began to look around the store, just incase there was some lying around. And then out of the corner of my eyes, I see the girl. The girl with the red shoes. I look down at her feet and begin to visually measure the size of her feet. A perfect seven, just the size I needed. So I walk up to the girl and ask her if she’s willing to sell me those shoes. Of course she says no because that’s the only pair she owns. I tell her that I’d buy any pair of shoes in the store only if she sells me those shoes but she just shook her head and taunted me like a bully in the playground. Waving her index finger at me and just giving me the slightest of grins. Then she began to walk away from me and that’s how the whole chase began.

REALITY:

I wake up to Rita Hayward again. I don’t realize the bed that I’m in because I don’t think it’s actually my bed. “Hello” the voice calls out. She reaches over to put her hand on my face. “You’ve had a terrible accident I’m afraid.” “Daddy found you in the sewage lines and had to pull you out. None of us thought you were going to make it and so we brought you here, so that maybe you would be able to get some rest and possibly wake up.” “Where am I?” I questioned. No reply. “You’ve had a terrible accident, I would get some more rest” the voice whispered. Why didn’t you just take me to a hospital?” I asked. “What’s a hospital?” she answered. Now I must have been going a little mental here. “You know, a place where they take people that are sick” I responded. She must have been retarded or one of those special people. Although she looked absolutely normally. She was actually rather attractive, like I said, she looked like Rita Hayward. But she didn’t know what a hospital was. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. This is what her explanation was.

THE CITY OF ROMAVANA

Romavana is an underground city. The people who live here are called Romavanians. The city was started some one hundred years ago. The people moved down here out of fear. Fear for their lives and the future of man. War was just around the corner and they sure as hell weren’t going to stay above ground. Who knew when the next nuclear head was going to be launched. Now some of the Romavanians also moved down here because of their disgust for the way their cities were being run. By the way society had changed so rapidly, it was just too hard for all of them to take it in. Now in my opinion, this would be called “running.” But to the Romavanians, this was the search for utopia. So out of all their frustration and anger, this city of Romavana was started miles and miles down from the surface of New York City.
So why haven’t I ever heard about this city? Well, I remember vaguely reading about it on the internet but for the most part, the government plays it off as some radicals playing in the sewage lines.
What they don’t know is that over the past one hundred years, they have developed a one hundred percent self sufficient environment and a society that is actually ten times more efficient than the one that we live in, above ground. Their political structure, their finances and resources, thousands of untapped energy producing strategies in a city that welcomes new ideas and left side thinking. A city that would be able to protect itself if a neighboring army ever did invade. But who would want to invade a city that lives underground? I mean, how pleasant is it to envision a city of people just shitting on top of your city?

(finish the city explanation later)

After Rita’s explanation of the city I had enough strength to get up and had her show me around. We walked in this self-enclosed city and she had shown me how much of the city operated. We talked about the various things that interested us. We talked about school, relationships, movies, music, books. All these things they had down here as well. In fact, they had a huge music scene. A lot of the first immigrants you can say were either big music fans or musicians in their own right. A lot of their music they had brought down with them and that goes the same for films. They had jazz, rock, hip-hop all that stuff that we use to listen to. Films by Fellini, Godard, Orson Welles were all here too. A lot of the things they did were similar because they had been brought down when they first came.
The city didn’t seem all that impressive at first. It seemed as though it ended five blocks down or where ever it seemed like the road would just end but that was just the start of the next “little city within the city.” There were many branches that extended itself to another smaller neighborhood and this stretched out over miles of land. A city that was big as Manhattan, all underground. Rita took me to this one shop that had old memorabilia’s from the ground above. Sports cards, baseball, basketball, football. Sports that they didn’t have down here because of the obvious reasons. It’s hard to have a league with such a few number of people. The only way the city sustains itself is the fact that every person in the city limits contribute in a very specific way. There is a specific number of entertainers, doctors, architects, lawyers, policemen, firemen, farmers, business owners small and big, they all fit the mold of the city and what it needs to carry out its independent life below the grounds. They’re not forced to do anything, that is the very reasoning that they despise but these Romavanians know what needs to be done and are willing to sacrifice one’s own greeds for the welfare of the society as a whole.
Rita and I went inside this old church that was first built when they settled here underground. She had told me that they have no set religion and no one really practices any sort of religion. They had just built this church out of tradition but rarely is it seen filled with people on their knees praying. People down here are busy she told me. Either busy working hard, or busy playing hard, enjoying their lives. Religion was something that most decided, that they could live without. It’s not they didn’t believe in a God or the idea of a supreme power most of the early settlers did have some sort of religion, it just doesn’t get practiced as much and the fact was, organized religion created more problems for them than they really needed. So because of that, rarely was there any fights or arguments about beliefs and religious traditions. No one killed each other because they didn’t believe what the next person believed. To them, religion was headache. Headache they didn’t need and that was the mentality on religion. We left the church and headed to a market where many people hang out to share thoughts and talk and drink and just have a good time. We met some of her friends that she introduced me there. Rita was the friendly type and she knew many people at the market and they all seemed to know her. I had told them that I just happen to fall down here some how and was not accustomed to the life down here no matter how similar it was. They all began to ask me questions. Questions like how the sky looked? And how the snow looks? They had asked me if I had ever rode in an airplane and where I traveled to. I felt as though I was an astronaut that just came back down to Earth and was now giving my feedback on my experience on outer space because to them, the life above ground was outer space. You see, they all live down here, and over time, forgot how to get back out. Its not they want to be kept below the surface, no that was never there intention. After the wars ended, they had every notion of heading back out into the “real world.” They wanted to see natural sunlight again. They wanted to feel the breeze of the autumn wind and the snow that fell to there feet in December. They wanted to hear birds flying around in the spring and the thing that most people missed the most was the ocean. Being able to lie in the beach and enjoy the water that washed up. Sitting underneath the beauty of the sun and collecting its energy. That’s what they missed the most. The original settlers had all died before the end of the war and none of their descendants knew the passage back to the surface. Some say that the passage was destroyed, forever preventing them to leave the city underground. Some say there are other passages, waiting to be found. The fact that I’m standing here right now suggests that there is a passage between here and there and that was their main interest. I had told them I didn’t remember how I got to this place but they didn’t believe me. They grabbed me and pulled me and some begged for my answer. They wanted to buy me drinks and maybe drag the answer out of me. The wanted to drug me and take me home. I actually wanted to be drugged myself so I drank the drinks and I used their drugs and found myself wandering between worlds. Between worlds of reality and imagination before I collapsed once again.

I woke up next to a pool of vomit and once again heard Rita’s voice. She called me and told me to open my eyes. I kept rubbing them just incase this was all a dream. I wanted to rub my eyes so hard that maybe it’ll force me to believe this was all a dream but to no success. I found Rita standing on top of me once again. “You must leave” she told me. “You must leave here and never return.” Now, I had the feeling that I was not welcomed here anymore. She grabbed me by the hand and pulled me up. She undressed slowly in front of me. She started to undress me as well and in about five minutes, we were standing in front of each other in the nude. We proceeded to have sex. Maybe fucking is the more appropriate word because that’s exactly what we did. Afterwards she dressed herself and told me to do the same. She then grabbed me by the hands once again and led me out. She ran and told me to follow her. It was hard trying to keep up with her, she was in pretty good shape and I was probably in the worst condition of my life. We finally reached this old sewage pipeline. She explained that this was the place her father found me and that I should take it straight back up to where that leads and never look back down. I looked into her eyes and knew she was serious. I had no other choice but to climb up the pipe and swim back to the outer surface.

REALITY:

I laid on my couch in the living room and had the morning news on. I had stayed up all night and wasn’t able to fall asleep. Rita and the Romavanians was the only thing I could think of and that kept me up. Why did she want me to leave all of a sudden? What did I do wrong or maybe it was something I said? No, I barely said anything. I barely did anything. Maybe it was because I was an outsider. I wasn’t a Romavanian and so she didn’t want me there. None of them did. Although she sincerely seemed as though she was concerned for me. Maybe I was in some kind of danger? All these questions with no definite answer, why didn’t I just ask her before I left? No reason dwelling over what I didn’t do though. I’m sure someone knows about the city underground, someone surely has to know how to get back down there. But for now, all I wanted to do was lay on my couch and think about what I had seen down in the city below. It wasn’t a city I can see myself living in but maybe, just maybe I could stay there for a little while, just until I figure things out.
The reason I can’t go back down the pipe that I climbed out of is that the pipe only goes one way. It would be impossible for me to climb down. I had checked my bath tub again but it must have been a trap door that only opens on rare occasions. It was closed the last time I checked and so I still lie on my couch thinking about the city I had just left. I mean, I must have slipped down there for a reason. There must have been purpose for me to see what I have seen. I’m a true believer in fate and the divinity of every action. The purpose of a single action and the effects it has. So with this in my mind, I wonder what my purpose in visiting the city of Romavania was? I didn’t ask to go down there. I don’t remember walking down there on my two legs, otherwise I would’ve never went down there in the first place nor would I really know how to get down there but for some reason, I was taken down. It was my fate that I go down to the underground city and it’s my job to figure out why I had been taken down.
A big rush came over me. All these years I’ve spent in New York trying to figure myself out, being away from my family, I think I’ve come to something. I see a purpose for my once empty existence. I needed to figure out the connection between me, and the city of Romavania. For some reason, I get the feeling that the city needs my help. Something is going on and I will not just lay on my couch anymore trying to figure it out. It has already been figured out. I had figured out the purpose of why I’m here.

Mundane

2010-11-30T02:38:00.000-08:00

*story was never finished and I can't remember what it was leading into but the ending seems quite amusing as it is.

It was just about the turn of autumn when I lost my job and was forced to sit at home dissatisfied about the way my life was turning out. I had lived out for the past twenty seven years, a life of uncanny mundanity. Which pushed me to give unsatisfactory results at work, which in the end, had me terminated from my position. It wasn't a great position to begin with but something. Better than nothing I suppose. I was a store manager at a local furniture store, which wasn't terrible pay, but the benefits weren't really up to par. It mostly consisted of wicker furniture that didn't really match any of my other furniture in my apartment.

So here I sit, in front of my television. One hand on the remote and the other hand free to roam about.

DAY 1_ (49 days until I find a new job)

I've saved up some money here and there and was sure I could make a couple of months before I really needed to start looking for a job, so I considered this an unpaid vacation. I made a list the first day, of all the things that I wanted to accomplish that I wasn't able to do for the past twenty seven years. Okay, so:

1. Go Hiking
2. Read a book
3. Learn an instrument
4. Write a song
5. Make a library card
6. Spend a week with my parents
7. study communism
8. write a new list in one month

Then I bought some weed and smoked the rest of the day. Things became clearer this way.

2010-11-28T07:16:00.001-08:00

"One"

2010-11-28T07:04:00.000-08:00

*was a huge fan of hip hop and still am but when I was a teen and through-out college, man, all I ever did was write rap lyrics.

celebrate the fact
gives me time to react,
mesmerize my pact,
repeat the track....

all in all, I've become a soldier
god given talents, no time to bother,
with pain and it just hurts
blood squirts, i flirt with disaster.

when can I just, justify my reactions,
actions lead to consequences, that lead to reparations,
perspiration for the unity of one nation,
marching to the front line, demanding unification.

line after line, hit after hit,
bodies fall to the floor, it hit but we missed.
mothers cry for death, but we keep spending our bullets,
feels good, but then we start to panic.

Manic depressant and hard core drug addict,
feels safe then but now a psychotic,
drank to much hypnotic, blood pours out her amniotic.
guard our lives because somehow we're all in it.

Can't leave now, the story's just begun
our lives full of hope with songs to be sung,
swing low but our dreams gone,
our favorite father, they tortured and hung.

it all makes sense, to burn our trust
for the lust to gain, but she gives him her thrust.
up and up till he can't take and busts
what has she done, to defend it we must.

go after the heart of all alters.
fortify our men become the rock of Gibraltar
walk on water and take man's torture,
gravitate towards the heavens to awaken our fathers.

painstaking wraths of gods, call us martyr
lose our faith but gain it back in one quarter,
don't cry because we can't all be starters,
but soon we will all be part of.........................

ONE, it don't matter because we're ONE

gibberish

2010-11-28T06:53:00.000-08:00

*Note* Not sure why I ended up calling this gibberish, now that I read it for the first time since writing it, it feels like the most sensible thing I have written.

we only dream so seldom. we realize it was all a joke and stop thinking about the impossibilities. The joke goes something like this

_ a man stamps his thumb into the dirt and creates little live creatures. The creatures are thankful of this tremendous gift and begins to pay respect to the man, they work hard and try to find meaning as to why this man has given them life. They all eventually die like the little creatures they are. Now they thought after they die, they would have the opportunity to meet their maker and reap the benefits of working so hard but little do they know, the man is only a man and has died himself wanting to meet his maker and so on and so forth._

The possibilities are endless yet we see the end already. So near sighted we are that we figure that nothing is able. We are a group of enablers. If the meaning of all this was given to us, in simple man's language, we still would look at that person in the eye and ask him to explain. He would say, "I've just explained it all to you, what's so hard to understand? and we would reply, huh?" because that's just what we are.

I lie away, dreaming of another day. But that day will never come. Its a mystery as to how we got this far. Its all an obstacle and the purpose doesn't come until the end like a good movie but will it be the hollywood ending or the ending in some films where its left open ended? You begin to think of ways to spice up the journey and the mysticism of it all. We look upon other people because we can't see it in ourselves. The stars and celebrity that we've created to literally "CELEBRATE" these characters in life that we have no relation with. But we look to them for comfort, the comfort of having a life that we seem to be unable to achieve. And many times, we feel as though we're glad. First we're hopeful but later we're regretful.

Time is one of these mystic reminders that we're only here temporarily. The temporary and not forever. Will you love me forever she asks and he responds oh yes, forever and eternity. But that's all a lie, we know it. Its sad to remind ourselves that after we leave this life, nothing is certain. All that we know can disappear or maybe the life that we lived will stay intact and we will see ourselves from afar or maybe we will be reincarnated in another life or maybe just nothingness. The emptiness of being nothing. Maybe there is a heaven and a hell but for some reason or another, I tend not to think that way... For all we know, our lives could be heaven, or are we in hell?

Connie and Johnny

2010-11-25T23:56:00.000-08:00

This story was never finished. I believe I wrote it as a backstory for a script idea I had in mind. Maybe someone who reads this can finish it and do something with it. It seems like an excellent start.

------------------------------start here------------------------------

Introduction:

One in every 200,000 births occurs like this. So horrible the birth that many times, the parents would dispose of their own children to escape the humiliation or the burden of having these children around. This mother in this particular case died while giving birth to Connie and Johnny, the Siamese twins from Kentucky. The mother was in labor for thirty-two painful hours, the screams could have possibly made Johnny partially deaf. But partially deaf he wasn't. He rather wanted to born completely stupid and so his wish was granted.

Johnny: He is the half of the Siamese twins that gave his part of the brain to his brighter, much more intelligent sister. Johnny had a rough childhood to say the least. He was always a quiet child, never went over someone's house to play board games nor did he have any friends to spend after school time with. He was in a special class but before long, had to be home schooled for the lack of any kind of sense. Soon his father gave up on him and just asked him to feed the chickens whenever he remembered how. So all Johnny ever did was go out to the chickens and throw them pellets of food and go into the barn to exercise. Now what people say about jocks and how dumb they are probably goes in reverse as well. Johnny was one stupid fellow, but he was stronger than anyone in his town and the state for that matter. He went into the barn and lifted weights until his father called him in for dinner. And still he continued to lift weights partially because he was too stupid to realize that his father was calling him. The lack of any kind of intelligence gave him brute strength that was unimaginable in those days. He was a beast, with a beast like temper to match. Anything that would upset him, he would release his frustration with his mighty fist, that must have weighed fifty pounds alone. He once even flattened his father to the kitchen door, just picked him up and threw him, not thinking twice about any consequences for no one was able to discipline him. No one but his sister.

Connie: She is the intelligent half of the Siamese twins. She is half the size of Johnny but has taken most of his brains and quiet smart, even for her own age group. You see, the twins are still attached, and with Johnny lifting weights all the time and not being able to go to school and learn, Connie was forced to dangle from Johnny's head and teach herself all the essentials of life. Connie was a well-spoken lady, being able to annunciate all the proper syllables and knew all the synonyms to the words Johnny can only hope to learn in his lifetime. Connie was a small girl, not much physical mass to her at all but then again, she had Johnny for that.

Part 1: On the farm

"I want to be separated" exclaimed Connie. Connie was in one of her foul morning moods and the thought of being stuck head to head with Johnny for the rest of her life wanted to make her kill herself. She threatened Johnny that he’d just have a dead corpse hanging from his head by the day’s end. Her father tried to calm her and held her hands to his heart. “You hear this pulse, that’s my life. I will gladly give it to the either of you if you asked.” Connie being the devilish one, asked for it and when she realized it was all a metaphor, she wanted the separation again and threatened to kill herself. There were many attempts at this separation but was foiled by their father. Connie would deceive Johnny into using his massive strength to try and detach her head from his. Nothing worked, and fortunately for them because any physical removal of either person from the other, would cause immediate nerve damage to the brain killing them both instantaneously. It was difficult for the father and Johnny to deal with Connie’s tantrums sometimes, but for the most, the two men took it well.
Johnny adored Connie for she was his better half. Johnny admired the fact that she was able to read and that she was able to analyze things and comprehend meanings. Johnny knew that as long as he had Connie attached to his head, he wouldn’t have to feel handicapped in terms of information. Connie was bitter towards the fact she lacked any physical strength and blamed Johnny for that but she knew it was a fair trade off and soon realized that Johnny was more than just a brother to her. He was her. The father loved both of his kids, even if they were part of the same and treated them both as complete separate individuals. Two birthday presents, two Christmas presents.
So they all lived peacefully on their farm, a bitter but sweet Connie, a stubborn but child-like Johnny and a headstrong family head in the form of their father.

Part 2: Life experiences

The family never ventured past their property lines, most of their daily needs were self produced and completely self dependent, but on occasion the father would travel out to indulge just a little, getting some chocolate for his two children and a copy of the next alphabet in the encyclopedia, the local shop carried. Right now, they are on the letter “L.”
The reason that they never traveled outside much was the fact that there were terrible stories about the twins going on. They weren’t accepted at school so they were home schooled. The kids can be so cruel and they would come to the farm to throw rocks and sticks and anything else they can find in the near vicinity. That was the reason the father put up a high fence, closing them off from the rest of the world. The parents were just as cruel and gave the father a dirty stare whenever he came into town as if he was the owner of a two headed monster. Soon, even the friends he had before stopped visiting, probably from the pressure of the town’s people.
This never bothered the father. Yes his wife was taken away from the birth of his twins and yes, he has secluded himself from any form of a social life because of his twins but he loved them so. He became a father, a dream he had for many years and something that he thought he was never able to attain. His wife was a beautiful much younger bride who he met at a local town meeting. She had just moved into the neighborhood and with the blessing of their parents, married underneath the twinkling skies at the local recreational center. She vowed to give him many children in exchange for comfort and stability but was a vow she could not keep. They had tried for twenty years until she nearly reached the age of forty and still was unable to bear children. The father had become the brunt of all jokes in town and was ridiculed by even the closest of friends. They’d given up any hope of having children but to much surprise, the twins were born. The process was all too traumatic for his wife and soon she passed but not before leaving a pair of children attached at the head, who would become a social outcast and an oddity tailor made for the freak show or the traveling circus. All this the father took in as a gift from God and thanked the Lord for providing him with children despite many of the unfortunate events.
The father was raised up with protestant values and possessed strong family morals. He was an only child who never had many friends so the longing of a large family was there from the start so there was no possible way he could go on and despise his children for they are the product of his prayers for so many years.

My Whole Life in a couple of Pages

2010-11-25T23:38:00.001-08:00

Its been a long time coming since the early days. but those days are all i've got left. I've never claimed to be the hardest working man in life but there are days that i've pulled in my share of overtime. Now, I just stare out the window and want to sleep.

I was the oldest in my family who immigrated over to the states. Any son from an immigration family would tell you that they have their share of the burden. The language but also the capacity of the responsibilities given to you by your parents who will speak little to no english, even after the twenty years they've spent here in the States. I had two younger brothers and a sister under my care. Whether they got to school on time and came safely back home was all on my narrow shoulders. Whether they had a decent meal for lunch and whether they did their homework for the next day. Not to mention my own belly and my own homework that I had to tend to. When we had trouble paying the rent on time, it was me who had to go speak to our landlord to give us an extension and not call the police.
I had my first job at thirteen, running strange errands for a local barber shop to help and pitch in towards the household. See, my dad was half retarded and my mother didn't graduate high school so their income was relative to their abilities.
Okay, so my dad wasn't half retarded, but he was very much mentally challenged which practically is the same thing. Half his brain went numb from a burst of a vein in his brain and at an early age in his life as well. The combination of all those facts led me to the decision I made after High School and that was to leave my hometown for a college far far away. I didn't know what I was going to study in school and I wasn't sure how I was going to pay for school, but I knew I needed to get out. My parents struggled with the notion of me leaving home to go to school but reluctantly gave in. They always had seen me going to college close to home and that way I would still have the burden of the family on my shoulders. Was it their greed or was I obligated? The obligation in my belief held no bearing. Why was I to spend all my years being the man of a family I was born into? Family's are made, am I not right? That's why we marry and have kids of our own. But all that comes together when we are physically and mentally ready. All this was thrown at me and now my shoulders were about to give in if I hadn't been able to leave this town.
My mother of course, being the sentimental and emotional type, grabbed on to my button down shirt and cried for a good hour or so. I changed my shirt and grabbed my bag and jumped on the next train heading west. I didn't have too many options on which school I could attend. Helping my siblings everyday took away from my own studies and I was left with a less then decent grade point average by the school's end. I was bound for community college when I found a small school in San Francisco that would take me in as one of their students.
The four years in college wasn't any easier than the life I'd live back at home, but I felt rewarded that I was able to live on my own. During the days I would go to school and at night I would work in the kitchen of a small restaurant to pay for tuition and boarding. A couple of creative writing classes got me interested in becoming a writer. Any spare moment I had, I would take out my notebook and do some writing and by the time graduation rolled along, I had enough writing material to use as a portfolio to land a steady stream of freelance writing jobs which helped pay for rent and food but still, I was in the kitchen of the small restaurant making sure the food was hot enough to serve.
I had gotten my first short story published at twenty seven and by thirty, I had met a nice young lady to accompany me in my life journey. By then, I was an editor of a local newspaper, wasn't anything big and fancy but it helped pay for the bills and luckily, got me away from the kitchen of the small restaurant. I soon had kids of my own and found myself changing diapers and helping with my children's homework, something my parents weren't able to do for me. I had gotten a call from my sister one day in the summer telling me of my father's death and a year later I had gotten a call from my one brother telling me of my mother's death. They wrote me sometimes, my siblings, letting me know how their life turned out. My sister is now married and became a house wife. My first brother served in the army and it's been 2 years since anyone has heard from him. My other brother is happily married and running his own convenient store. I live here in San Francisco and have seen my family a total of ten times my whole life while I was out here.
I think about the decision I made to leave home quite often. How would my life had turned out? Now I'm pushing eighty and all I want to do is sleep all day. Like I said, I don't claim to have lived the hardest life, but I've had my share of overtime. And now, all I want to do is look out the window and dose off.
It's funny that even though I left home to pursue a brighter future for myself, my life still fits into a couple of pages...

Freedom Revised

2010-11-24T18:25:00.000-08:00

She turns to me and complains of her sickness. Her body aches and now asks me to get her some water. I comply like I only know how and pour her a glass of water from the kitchen. Something grows within her and gives her the custody over who I am. I am at her mercy. She holds me by the leash and I'm cuffed with the collar at the end of that leash. She tugs a little harder and I snap back only to be hit with a rolled up newspaper. She looks at me and then falls asleep.
I fall asleep next to her but having been deprived of all blanket coverage, I hug myself and turn into a fetus. I roll up and think warm thoughts.
At night I might hit her by accident but tonight was not one of those nights. She wakes up in the morning and complains of her sickness. This sickness has not gone away and its at its third week. They say up until week twelve it becomes very unpredictable. Gone are the carefree days of wandering through the city without a reason to go home. We stroll in our modest spending spree of drinks and dance and think of ways to save up for our future. The future is now and so it becomes the present. We go through miles upon books to realize what we've been looking for no longer exist. I choose to purchase something else and remember that I'm suppose to be home. I'm a prisoner in my own home and the dreams of active freeway driving has become extinct. Here are the days of not being so wild.

Retarded Love

2010-11-21T05:06:00.000-08:00

I have a habit of loving too much. The way that I love my mother’s restless behavior and how she can’t sit down for ten minutes without finding something for her to clean up or reorganize. The way that I love my father’s restful behavior where you can’t get him to do any of the household chores after he’s come back from work and that’s just two out of the thousand things I love about the world that surrounds me. You see, I’m a true believer in love and what love can do to a person. Love makes things work, it makes an ugly place such as this world, into something magical and marvelous. It’s what keeps people of different cultures together and it’s what makes films so special. It’s what binds my wife and I together in our twelve-year marriage and I would tell you the lovely story of how our love came to be but that’s not the story I want to tell at this moment. The story I want to share is a story of love beyond any ordinary measures and standards. It’s a special type of love between two very special people on a very particular moment in their lives and had it been any other moment, it might as well have been very ordinary, this I’m sure of.
You see, love is not just an emotion between two lovers. It’s more than that. I can’t exactly describe what love is but maybe I can explain its effects. For example:

A man had to part from his lover because he was being sent off to fight in the war against Germany and its Nazis. Because he loved his wife so much, he didn’t think twice before leaving her in the arms of his best friend so that harm wouldn’t reach her way. He loved her so much that not a week went by when she didn’t receive a letter written with the most elegant prose and metaphor confessing his love for her. Not a day went by when he didn’t masturbate thinking of her and only her. Not another single breast entered his thoughts during this time of self-gratification. So maybe you’ll understand this fellow when he finally came home after years of separation and emotional hardship to want to jump into bed with his wife. Although he did jump into bed, he found his best friend there as well, and found his wife six months pregnant. Because he loved his wife so much, because of the love between his best friend and his wife, because of all this love that surrounded him, he was forced to dig a hole in his wife’s belly with a kitchen knife and cut off his best friend’s penis. All this was out of love for the two lying now dead in bed.

So now, you must believe what strange effects love can have on a person and when I say love will make a person do crazy things. Love is special like that and it was out of this love when I promised my parents that I would come down to their wicker furniture store at least once a month even after I graduated and found a job to help out, because that’s what you do when you love someone. You do everything in your power to help them in any way, shape or form. So yes, I drove from New York City to the middle of Pennsylvania every second weekend of the month to help them move wicker furniture around. Wicker furniture is not all that heavy and very easy to lift and move around but I figured my parents needed at least a weekend of a little R and R.
The drive down would take approximately three hours but in my broken down Saab, the three hours seemed like six. On the drive down, I was constantly reminded of this guy. This guy named Stanley. Stanley lived across the street from my parent’s store and would drop by on occasion to help out for a little bit. Stanley was in his late thirties with no wife and kids and no job that we were aware of. He would just sit outside, on his porch, a beer in one hand and his other hand was always scratching his back. How he maintained this way of life always boggled me but there was a rumor going around in the old neighborhood that he’s an only child of a brilliant scientist and is just living off his trust fund. Not to say his house is any better than the piece of run down building a few blocks down but rumors also say he’s a child prodigy gone wacky. They say he won every math competition up until the eighth grade and now he just mopes around and never uses his brain. He sits on his porch with a beer in one hand, scratching his back with the other. Not to say he’s a bad fellow, in fact he’s awfully kind and he was always very fond of my father. He always asked him advice on plumbing and whether he should start buying free-range chicken eggs. One time he came over to the store on a slow day with a bottle of Jim Beam and finished it amongst the two of them. Stanley had gotten drunk and threw a wicker footstool in the middle of the street where it had been run over. The next day he begged my father to let him work it off and so he did. Everyday for a week, he came to the store 10 AM sharp and left not a minute before 6.
Stanley is a kind hearted man who’s troubled by his ingenious childhood, left alone to live off his remaining days destroying his liver. In a perfect world, a man like Stanley would have a home with a white picketed fence and two or three kids running around playing kick ball or 1-2-3 red light. Instead he lives across a wicker furniture store waiting for a slow day so he can run across with a bottle of liquor to have a drink with my father. One thanksgiving we invited him over since he had no family of his own and he must have had a little too much eggnog. He rambled on and on about the government and how they brain wash people and how elections were rigged and how a black man will never become president for another 100 years. Stuff that you normally wouldn’t discuss over turkey and mash potatoes. He was right for most of his arguments. He had his points and they all seemed to make sense and that’s when I realized that Stanley was borderline genius and retarded. It all made sense, all of it. This poor boy was so smart, had grown up in an intellectual family and have never experienced a normal childhood. All the time spent in a room studying was one less hour spent playing wall ball with a friend. The competitions they entered him in were a replacement for a girlfriend who still to this day hasn’t had the privilege of having. That was what made Stanley retarded. Not that he had any physical or mental damage but that he’s never experienced a proper childhood.
I was down at the old neighborhood one weekend when I asked of Stanley. Hadn’t seen him around so I asked my mother and that’s when she had told me he hadn’t been around for a good two months. Turns out that Stanley had visited his mother in Florida who was dying of lung cancer and hadn’t come back since. Time passed with or without Stanley and so did my life. I since then had gotten married and out of love for my wife, told my parents I wouldn’t be able to go down to the old wicker furniture shop every month but I let them know I’d try whenever time allowed. Well, time didn’t allow and I would end up going down just on major holidays. It wasn’t that I loved my wife more than my parents, but the love between my wife and I was a different kind of love. A love that needed special attention. The love between my parents and I had developed over my whole life. It was unconditional and would never go away. The love between newlyweds must be well kept and requires a lot of maintenance at first. And so that’s what I did, maintain our love.

The second winter of our marriage I decided it was time for a career change. I quit my job and told my wife I needed some time to think some ideas through. She agreed and so to clear my mind of any other irrelevancies, I decided it was a good idea to spend some time down at the old wicker furniture shop. I had packed some of my clothes and towards the end of winter, took my Saab and headed down the turnpike to my parent’s place. The whole ride down I couldn’t help think about good ole Stanley and the life he could have had only if he had a normal childhood. Not to say he’s having a shitty life now, he’s probably sitting outside his mom’s porch in Florida with a beer in one hand and that’s not bad of a life. Not bad at all. But just imagine the potential of his mind and how nice it would have been for the rest of the world if he had put it to good use. Maybe we would have had the cure for AIDS by now. Maybe an entire new system of social order could have been built to eliminate discrimination and injustice. All these maybes but now I should take my mind off these frivolous things.
This had been a hard winter for my parents. The economy was changing and wicker furniture wasn’t of much interest to the new home-owners in our surrounding neighborhoods. I told my parents it would be wise to change the store around, maybe add some furniture that wasn’t entirely made out of wicker. Being the man that my father is, the idea was thrown out along with the hopes of sustaining the shop much longer. I knew this would be the last year we ran the store.
It was the first day of spring when a car with a Jersey license plate number drove into our parking lot. This lady, probably in her mid thirties, was passing through on her way to Ohio and decided to check out the store. Why she was going to Ohio was beyond me but it had turned out, she was on her way to a dog show. I guess she really loved dogs. So much that she would drive a days worth just to see some Jack Russell Terriers run down a field and jump through a couple of hoops. But who am I to judge what someone does on their free time?
This lady looked around for a while and then finally introduced herself to my parents. She went by the name of Rebecca. She asked if they knew a place she could stay the night. She had driven all day and was in serious need of some rest. My parents offered her their shed which was converted into a guest house to accommodate passer bys who were looking for a cheap place to stay for a night or two. I showed her to our place and offered her a drink. She didn’t respond but instead kept saying “cooold…cooooold.” Now it was the first day of spring and an incredible day at that and there was no breeze or winds blowing, not to my knowledge. In fact, this whole winter, it had probably dropped below forty degrees once or twice. Most of the time, the temperature was around fifty degrees or so. But never mind what I thought, the farmer’s almanac had said this would be the warmest spring in the last seventy five years and this lady was saying it was cold. I took her over to the guest house and handed her the keys. “We haven’t had a guest here for a while so the place might not be in the perfect condition” I told her. She told me not to worry, she said she was probably going to leave early the next morning.
The next morning, thinking she had left, went into the guest house to clean up whatever mess she might have made. Instead I heard the cries of a little girl. On the bed she just sobbed and continued to sob and probably didn’t even realize that I was in the room watching her. I didn’t bother say anything, instead I kept backing up until I was outside of the door. I went to the store and never thought twice about the incident.
A week had gone by and this lady was still living in our guest house. My mother told me she had paid us a weeks worth, and on top of that, given us two weeks in advance. Now for someone who was suppose to make it to a dog show, she’s sure taking her time. I didn’t really mind it though, for the week straight, she was always hanging out at the store doing the little things like taking out the trash, sweeping the floors and making coffee. Not the best coffee, not something that you’d actually buy, but I didn’t expect too much from her. On the first day of the second week she asked me if I was cold? I looked outside and saw kids riding their bicycles and other kids with ice cream in their hands. It must have been at least a warm sixty five degrees and no sight of rain or showers. I just looked at her oddly and continued to move the furniture around.
The next morning the whole neighborhood woke up to seven inches of snow. No one expected it, nor did the forecast tell us of any such predictions. It was just there the next morning. My father started cursing the mess and told me to grab a shovel and head over to the store. The parking lot at the store needed to be cleared so I started digging away at the snow. Ten minutes go by and I see a figure in the distance carrying a shovel our way. It was good ole Stanley. “Long time no see Stanley” my dad mumbled. Stanley kept digging away at the snow and between the two of us, had the parking lot cleared in less than two hours. The lady, Ms. Rebecca brought out some coffee and that was the moment of sparks and all sorts of fireworks. Stanley couldn’t take his eyes off of Ms. Rebecca and Ms. Rebecca seemed to enjoy being drooled over by Stanley. Now, for anyone just reading this, this moment was far more special than how I just described it. It doesn’t fit any cliché description but at the same time, fits all of it. Eyes connected, souls met, hands locked and in this moment, we had our retarded love. I call it retarded love because to me, the two of them were farthest from any normality I’ve come to realize. The fact that they can experience any kind of human connection just belittles me. Stanley is this suppressed child killing off his days. Ms. Rebecca must be the loneliest lady in the whole eastern side of this country yet all she ever does is talk gibberish. The two couldn’t be any better for each other.
That night, my father invited Stanley over for dinner and sure enough, Ms. Rebecca was there helping out with the cooking. About ten minutes go into our dinner when Ms. Rebecca asks Stanley if she wants to go with her to the dog show in Ohio. Now, I’m not much of a dog show person but I could have sworn this dog show was two weeks ago. How many possible dog shows could there be in the same month? But either way, she asked him to the dog show. Stanley stared at his food for a little bit looked at my father who gave Stanley a fatherly nod and started eating his food again. Not another word about this dog show was mentioned nor did Stanley verbally agree to go with Ms. Rebecca.
The next morning, I noticed Ms. Rebecca’s car missing. She must have left for Ohio and a cool calm flew down my back. It was just awkward to have her around. She seemed like a really sweet person, but just strange to have around for the amount of time she stayed. A week went by and no sign of Stanley either. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen Stanley since the night we all had dinner, my parents, Stanley and Ms. Rebecca. I had the feeling the two of them left for Ohio but I’m sure the dog show was over by now. I don’t know much about them, but I’m pretty sure a week is enough to see a couple of dogs jump through hoops and such.
Three months had gone by, and I had finally realized what direction I wanted to take my life. I knew what I wanted to do so I told my parents I was leaving in a week. They gave me their blessing like they always have and God bless them for they are the best parents any child could ever have. No complaints from my end. Up until the time I had all my things in my Saab, I was hoping to see good ole Stanley one last time. I even went over to his house and knocked on his door but no one replied.
That year, my parents had to close their store down and now lives off the money they received selling the property. As for me, every time it snows in New York, I wonder about Stanley and Ms. Rebecca. I wonder if they finally did go to that dog show. I wonder if they’ll ever be back. Then I start thinking, maybe they never made it to the dog show. Maybe they just stopped somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania and bought a house with a white picket fence and maybe have two or three kids running around playing 1-2-3 red light. Yeah, Stanley would have liked that. He would have liked that ending…

The Rain and my Brother

2010-11-11T06:10:00.000-08:00

This morning I woke up to crackles of rain drops hitting against the window pane of my second floor apartment. I considered two options. Take my dog for a walk in the rain, only to walk around for ten minutes, unable to get the shit out of him, or just wait for him to shit inside the apartment. Me being the complete neat freak that I am opted for one and grabbed the leash and rushed downstairs with my dog chasing my heels. Exactly ten minutes later I was back inside my apartment but luckily the dog had serious urge to shit. I opened the refrigerator to hopefully find something to fill my stomach before lunch but nothing. No left overs, no instant breakfast, nothing. I boiled some water to make instant coffee and sat at my desk to check my email. No one had written me. No one had written me for two months now but I still feel the need to check every morning.
Today was a saturday. A saturday filled with rain showers that gave me an excuse not to do anything. What was I suppose to do? I couldn't go out and look for a job in the pouring rain. I might as well make the best of it and watch one of the films from my dvd collection. And then I'd pick up the old Kafka novel that I'd stopped reading to read the Murakami novel which I still haven't finished. Why I choose to jump between different books I don't know. That's just how my brain functions. I get bored with one, so I start another. I get bored with that one, so I get back into the first. Then maybe I could surf the internet a little bit and see what's going on the world today? Another rise in gas prices maybe. Another town destroyed by terrorists or the forces against.
I sat down to play the movie I'd grab out of my dvd stack but the damn player was jammed. It wouldn't spin the disc. I became frustrated so I just picked up the Kafka novel and started reading from where I had left off. Strange, I couldn't remember at all what happened in the previous pages. Had I read up to this point at all? Nothing seemed to be working out for me this morning, so I just stared out the window. What can you really do on a rainy day but stare out the window and hope the rain will go away and come back to play another day just like the song suggest. Look out the window like a little kid back in Kentucky. And that's when it hit me. I once had a brother.

It wasn't that long ago. I could probably count with all of the fingers and toes I have. Back in Kentucky, we had a country house on a 20 acre lot of pure land. No trees and hills and unusable land nonsense. 20 acres of vast land space and our house plumped right down smack in the middle of it all. We had so many friends and relatives that came over, we'd use up all that land space to play our little games. There was cousin Louis and all her friends. Cousin Ralph and his brothers Simon and Texan. Junior and my best friend Robbie. My next door neighbor Terry and his brother Tracy. My mother's best friend's daughter, her name was Tracy too, who used to come over at least once a week. David and Coral. June and her friend Dana. When you live in a small town and you've got the only swimming pool, you're bound to have a lot of friends. Oh yes, there was my brother. My brother Kevin was 8 years older than I was, but he treated me no different than his equal. When he was sixteen and I was eight, he drove me around town, we went to the market together, he'd let me hang out with his sixteen year old friends. But when I did something wrong, like let one of them chickens out of its cage, he'd show me that he was the older brother. That's what amazed me so much about him. He was so many things to me, all rolled up in a 165 pound package. Kevin since he was eight years older than I was, didn't do anything much when the local kids were over. He'd be there to supervise, but other than that, he'd sit on his little rocker in his room and read his novels and write in them journals he always kept with him wherever he went. When something happened, I'd yell out "KEVIN," and he'd come running to rescue me like he was Clark Kent.

When it rained, he'd stay in his bedroom, lock the doors and didn't come out. Why he did this I never knew. It could be a lot of things but my best guess would be that he missed our mother who died during a storm that wiped out half this town several years back. I really don't have memories of my mother, just pictures. My father is always reminding me how much I act like her and talk like her but I think he just says that for kicks. My dad had turned into a belligerent drunk for a couple of months after her death and continued to drink on those moody mornings especially after a night of rain. When I was twelve my brother took me on a trip to New York City. He'd told me that one day he was going to live here and that he was going to become a famous writer. I asked him why he just didn't move up here now and just looked at me and rubbed my head. So many things I didn't know about my brother. Fourteen years I had lived with him and for fourteen years he had taken the time to help me with my homework, learn the names of all my friends and classmates and knew when it was pizza day at school so he'd be sure to give me an extra dollar for lunch.
I'd never thought that Kentucky was a place for a smart individual like my brother. He had top honors at his school and was enrolled in so many after school activities but our family didn't have the money to send him out of state. My father had practically lost all our money on random things and events after our mother died and all we had left was this house and this land and several mouths to feed. At this point, our economy had gotten so bad, my cousin Louis and her family moved in with us and sold their home, thinking that they'd invest in something. Well that something had turned out to be a fraud and they'd lost all their money. Such a pity what money makes people do. So to bare the brunt of living conditions, my brother had to take up two jobs. One to support his education at the community college and the other to help with the mouths that needed to be fed and the bills that needed to be paid. With this much said, I'd just like to add that not once have I not gotten that extra one dollar from my brother on pizza day, not once had he'd forgotten.

Couple years past and it was time for him to graduate from college. All our family members were there. He was the first to graduate from college and we congratulated him until his damn hands fell off. At dinner that night, my father had asked him what his plans were now that he'd finish school. I don't know what my brother's reply was but my dad was furious. He'd picked up his plate and thrown that sucker against the refrigerator and later on that night, saw him chugging down a bottle of Jack Daniels. Kentucky's very own.

That summer was the last time I'd seen him. He walked me over to Robbie's house and patted me on the head. They say he'd walk into the tracks of an on coming train but no one found a thing. There should have been blood everywhere and parts stuck in other parts, no? Well nothing was found that was for sure. No one thinks he'd ever just take off on the family but I knew better. I'd like to believe he left to come back one day with arms full of raisin bread and a bank account to get our family back on our feet. Maybe he's in New York, the city that he'd always wanted to live in. That's who I think of now, looking out my window through the rain. Looking for my brother Kevin to pass by. Hoping he'll give me some lunch money and an extra dollar when I want to have pizza.

Age Outline

2010-11-10T06:47:00.000-08:00

after reading some of ginsberg's journal entries and notes, I was inspired to outline my life throughout the ages:

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age 15/16: feeling rebellious and wanting to take on the world, I meet my first girlfriend and TUPAC's BONNIE AND CLYDE blast out of my tiny car speakers.

age 18: desperate to become someone great, I move out to newyork to study film. I see a whole new world of experiences and begin to immerse myself into the arts.

age 20: for the next couple of years, I fall into the material world. My credit card debt surpasses 10 thousand dollars.

age 22: feeling miserable and lonely, I spend most weekends doing drugs and partying.

age 23: I feel as though I am the most intelligent person in the world. Nothing is above me/ but at the same time, I'm always contemplating the way my life is going.

age 25/26: I meet my wife. We're happy. We figure out our life together. There is no more need for endless nights of wandering.

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age 12: I am a born again Christian. I go to church every sunday and most of my free days are spent doing church related activities.

age 16: I am too busy spending time with my girlfriend to worry about GOD.

age 19: I start going to Church again. At a church meeting, I blame my ex-girlfriend for leading me away from Church. This is what I tell myself. A chance meeting with someone from church makes me angry. I despise her and make a film about my feelings on GOD.

age 21: I'd been attending church off and on. I read more on other religions and never spent time without pondering the meaning of my existence.

age 23: I'd been trying to feed as much knowledge into my brain as possible. I'm hungry for truth and information. I go to church as a routine but ultimately despise it.

age 24: I read Geneology of Morality by Nietzche. It opens my eyes but in some ways, I regret ever opening its pages.

age 25/26: I have found my own reason and logic. I consider myself an agnostic.

An Old Man Dies

2010-11-09T06:12:00.000-08:00

I've been a prisoner here long enough. My bones are too brittle to withstand the gravity of the world any longer. I've seen my children grow old and go away. They tell me stories of their adventures but their visits become less frequent until they become non-existent. My life partner left me many years ago. Left me to lead this world by my lonesome. She took everything we had with her, my life, my happiness, and my will. I am now stranded here, with no direction home.

Its been almost a year since I haven't left my home. Solitude in these later years is all I have. My friends have all gone and families are no longer available once you've done them wrong. My skin is dry, my mind weary.

We dreamed of growing old together but now, its only me who narrates our life. The weather is cold, and its been raining for several days now. I don't remember the glow of the sun nor the warmth of its rays. I sit alone on top of my bed, the news is on the television set, I don't have the remote in my hands so I leave the television on till the morning.

I awake to static and white noise. My dreams have come a full circle and are now repetitive. The pleasures of nights are now dull pastures into an array of already selected imagery and nonsense. My sense of belonging has long escaped me.

And now I must clean myself. Rid of the dirt that has stained my being. I scrub until my skin turns red. The blood trickles down into the drain and leaves my skin pale. Useless are my breathes.

Sometimes its best to leave the world, exactly how you entered it, naked and cold.

2010-11-08T22:09:00.000-08:00

Take Me (poem)

2010-11-08T21:36:00.000-08:00

the pigs have gone off to sleep.
and i'm so happy it's right.
i grasp for my final breath
and to no one's despair.

i reek of sympathy and lost
for I lied on my father's chair.
the chains are rusted now.
and unable to break away.

I wait for my magic princess.
to come and rescue me from this tower.
one pill should do the trick.
now i just need some water.

liar liar all but lies.
what's right and wrong deciphered.
and i'm the only one at gone.

take me not her.
take me I'm tired.
take me i hate.
take me no one loves.

The Shoebox

2010-11-04T23:38:00.001-07:00

Its a little frustrating that it all comes down to a couple of things. My life in a shoe box is where I stand. There was a light drizzle which turned into flurries which then turned into a blizzard, and all I had to protect me from the weather was a shoe box full of old mail and some spare cash. I went to the bus station and told the clerk that I wanted a one way pass to the furthest the buses went. With the little cash I had, I purchased that ticket and with the change left over, I put it back into the shoe box and considered it a savings. I looked out my window and the blizzard had turned into a mild down pour but the voice from the speakers announced that the buses will be delayed in departing. I curled up in the last row of seats and saw an almost empty bus. The rain was still pouring outside and as I looked to the city that I had spent nearly half a my life in, I asked myself why I hadn't left sooner. Why did I wait for this to happen before realizing I needed to get out? I remember coming to the city when I was still a teenager. Full of hope and energy. Now I leave exhausted and still on the search for something I can't fully understand. I dreamed of 24 hour parties and endless row of buildings as a youngster but now I yearn for a quiet town with endless row of grass so I can possibly raise a puppy. I sit here with a shoe box full of old mail and some change. The old change is my savings to get me started in my new town. The old mail is to remind myself of the life I've left behind.

Walking Pot

2010-11-04T22:33:00.000-07:00

Many things react differently to the different situations when you're high. We smoked a joint and walked over the cinemas. Along the way, the neighborhood had changed from back when we last use to roam. The 99cent store had relocated or was unable to be seen. Sneaker stores had cheap knock offs that they were selling at a discount price. I remembered the word "board" being used in a video game but now I know what it really meant. It was a completely different meaning from the one that I thought was correct. We had seen ruben studdard trying to sell cell phones. "No credit, bad credit, its OKAY." One guy seemed like he was threatening people to buy his cell phones. "Get them now!" I thought it would be funny if someone asked him if he had the IPHONE. Not having one, he would try and scheme up something, in order for him to take the sucker in. I recognized this only because I was high. We walked and walked and became thirsty. The clerk was giving us attitude because he probably knew we were high. Why else would we both buy the same drinks and stand there trying to find change? He knew. Of course he did. People stared and we talked seemingly loud. It had been a long walk and our destination was still even further. We told jokes to one another, racist jokes, jokes that we were saying all too loud.

We bought the movie tickets and found a mexican bar to waste time before the film started. We ordered nachos and some beers. We waited in the back as the smoke rose out from the kitchen and latin music was blasting through the small speakers they had. We looked at each other and said that we were in Mexico at the same time. I tapped along to the music as he looked over trying to see if our nachos were ready. The nachos eventually gave us both stomach aches as we climbed several stairs to reach our theater. We found seats in the back and laughed at the ridiculous ads they had before the film started. The movie was not very funny and I had fallen asleep two thirds of the way through. We walked back home but by this point, the pot had worn off and the trip back wasn't as eventful.

Elephant's Trunk

2010-11-03T20:01:00.000-07:00

I was robbed this morning. I wanted to yell at the world. Scream out my lungs that a wrong has been done. Take to the streets and hunt down the enemy in charge of possessing my expensive gift for a friend. What was I to do? And then I collected my thoughts and energy into a solution. Or more a less, a resolution. I was going to give my friend, out of my own pocket, the sum cost of the gift. I was going to fix the window of my car tomorrow and I was going to file a police report in the case of any fortune arising where I was able to reclaim my lost. With that being said, I was content. I was going to lose maybe up to a thousand dollars, a large amount for someone like me, but any kind of misfortune hasn't happened to me in quite a while and I was becoming anxious of its arrival. I felt it coming up anytime now. I was waiting and waiting and then it hit me. Now this misfortune isn't something of grand nature, a death, sickness, etc etc but something worth noting in my daily log, which I at this exact moment, tell myself I will be doing every morning.

I have become lazy. And this has been the worst feeling in the world. A feeling of content. An ease, a period of calmness is just the same as nothingness. A feeling I've almost never had. No real financial worries. No personal in terms of relationships. No career worries or frustrations. I've accomplished what I wanted to do this year, I'm sure of that. Now I was just sitting around, feeling good about myself, and find myself with no motivation, no determination, no feeling towards anything but just to sit around and do nothing with myself. I've always been driven toward something. Knowledge, wealth, personal gain, something. It was just a stalemate in my heart. Stillness, REST. And it bore me. IT REALLY BORES ME TO BE STILL. I don't have the patience for it and I acknowledge it. I can change every bit of myself if I wanted to. My personality, my way of expression but for me, it is not necessary anymore. I will do no such thing. I've always wanted the meaning of LIFE. But the meaning was never to be found except it was sitting right in front of me. I was just unable to notice it until I was able to see it from afar. I grabbed onto an elephant's trunk, thinking it was a rope for me to pull on. And it wouldn't give way. It pulled back, so I began to think it was a snake and so I let go. But it attacked me and killed me. Then I was able to float away into the heavens and realize that the snake was actually an ELEPHANT'S TRUNK. I was damned. The trunk of an elephant had taken my life. Now if I knew it was an elephant, I would have never fucked with it. What man in his right mind would fuck with an ELEPHANT. But I'll be damned if I had ever figured it to be an elephant. I thought it was a rope for me to tug on. Now I know. And the realization of everything had come into my thoughts. Now I was content and that is the same as being still. But I have died, so this stillness feels different for me now, than when I was living. So I can withstand this boredom which is not boring what so ever anymore. This boredom in fact, is very interesting to me now. (And this is my second life.)

During my second life, I'm a street thug. I have the same girlfriend, the same parents, but I'm a street thug and I happen to steal something. Something of mine from a former life. Now everything makes sense. I stole this shit, from myself. I am my own thief. That's the only way I can connect myself to the rest of human kind. Otherwise, I would really be lost I thought to myself. So I steal now because I'm a street thug. And because I'm a street thug, I need street credibility. For this I will KILL for. So I take this man's life, which happens to be my own. Now I've died for a second time but the physicalness is only once. Follow? And this is the meaning to the life long question and I just say to myself, "THIS will all end soon, this cycle of repetition." But it doesn't, and hey, I'm happy with that. We will all be alright sooner or later. When we are kids, we are fine with everything. Nothing worries us and we are nothing but balls of innocence. Oblivious to the outside world. We drown in our own sorrows from time to time but we know that, hey! Tomorrow is a new day. Full of opportunities. Chances and ways to be anew. Then we grow old and something happens, but we aren't so sure. So we make rules, regulations, changes, pacts etc etc and then we are fine with everything.

I Was, I Am, I Want

2010-11-03T19:53:00.000-07:00

I AM 26 soon to be 27.

I was never 100 percent, carefree.
I was once a youth with limited responsibilities.
I was a student at Pratt Institute. I can never go to grad school because I still owe Pratt a lot of money.
I was a used items dealer, once in my life. I ran a flea market stand every weekend for a year.

I am an assistant editor working in post production.
I have written three scripts which I hope to either make or sell.
I make experimental video/film and video art which I showcase from time to time in
small art galleries and shows across the world.
I take photographs as a hobby. Sometimes for money.
I write all the time, whether poetry, short stories, essays, ideas for world peace.
I display my works through my website which I design and change very often.

I am a father, a brother, a husband, and a son. A friend, a cousin are all second to none.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

I want to make an impact. Change things. Volunteer.
I want to direct music videos.
I want to make a hollywood movie.
I want to make an action film/ horror film/ romantic comedy.
I want to write a novel and have it published.
I want to open my own boutique shop. Featuring cool clothes and stuff.
I want to learn how to blow glass.
I want to make my own magazine.
I want to become a sculpture.
I want to become a philosopher.
I want to design a toy every child would want to play with.
I want to make just enough so I can afford to keep my family satisfied. My family meaning HYEJU/ASHE/MOTHER/FATHER/AH/GEORGE/LAWRENCE/JOANNE/AUNT/MOTHER IN LAW and ALL MY CLOSE FRIENDS/ ALEX/CHAN/JOE/PETER/RYAN.

I WANT TO SELL MY SOUL TO THE DEVIL AND BUY IT BACK. AT A BARGAIN DISCOUNTED PRICE.

I want to live in solitude for a short amount of time. Maybe as a monk.
I want to design and build my own house from scratch.
I want to design a chair for me to sit on.
I want to distribute art and independent cinema.

I want to move this side of this list, over to the top side of the list.

Its December After All

2010-11-03T07:14:00.001-07:00

my birthday's gone,
the christmas season has just blown away.
No one bought me gifts
I am the social misfit,
the ugly duckling no one wanted to play with.

flurries didn't fall from the sky
instead it rained all day.
all my family had flown away
down to somewhere warm.
I spent the time on my couch, listening to old hit tunes.

I heard no one outside my door.
no carols sung by church kids.
no christmas lights from our next door neighbor.
no reindeer games were played.
its December by the way.

no melodies on my radio.
a fire place without logs to burn.
the snow didn't fall this year.
something strange with the climate.
i know it may be false, but its December after all.

so I'm just waiting for the new year to start.
another lifetime waiting.
this year was all a big blur.
no christmas came for her.
and it'll never be december again.

Email Junkie

2010-11-03T07:07:00.000-07:00

I have the habit of checking my email every 4 minutes. 0 items in "INBOX."

3 items in "SPAM." I delete the mail in my junk mail box and resume my four minutes of otherness. 0 items in "INBOX," 0 items in "SPAM." I have nothing to do for another four more minutes. And my day goes on and on, just like this.

What am I waiting for? I think to myself. I don't know, yet I still have the urge to check my email every four minutes.

Who am I? An Email Junkie

These Walls

2010-11-03T07:00:00.000-07:00

It had been six months since I left the confides of my apartment. What kept me inside? I still wasn't sure. The only thing I knew was that I needed to get out before the walls closed in.

My morning routines were established by the two-month point.

Wake up at 9, Use the bathroom, drink a cup of coffee and smoke a single cigarette. Eat half a grapefruit and stare out the window by 9:30. For the next thirty minutes I would just stare out and dream of the day that I would leave my apartment.

Now most people have no problem leaving their apartments. They do it everyday, to get to work, to meet their friends, to take a walk, to go out to eat. But for me, none of those were possible. I stayed in my 400 square feet apartment and for 6 months now, have been limited to this space and this space alone.

For the first few weeks I searched for a way. Wall to wall, floor to floor but to no avail. The first month was the hardest but everything came easier at the two-month point. With the development of my routine, my days would pass without ever wondering what I should be doing or how much time was left in the day.

So hmm, at 10 I would put the Beatle's White Album on my record player and listen to that for about an hour. I would close my eyes when listening to Revolution 9 as the melodic noise seeped through my ear canal; through the nerves; into my unconsciousness:(id). Images: Part Fellini, Part Lynch. Transcend this world: ZAP. Foreign planet. Maybe Andromeda? I heard the tourist scene is pleasant there.

At eleven, I would prepare for lunch. Now this preparation was more than just a routine, it was a ritual. The only ritual that I practiced. Didn't need Buddhism, Judaism, didn't even need Christianity; all I relied on was my afternoon ritual. Now I can't go too much into this ritual for I believe it to be sacred, but it involves a knife, some skin and masturbation.

Now practicing this ritual alleviated a lot of the pain but reminded me of much more. Reminds me of the memories of my past, reminds me of what I could have had, the faces that I've run into and the faces that I've loved. The faces that I'll never see again and so the pain is brought back to life.

Around one or two depending on how quickly I finish my lunch, I fill up the bathtub and drown myself in it. Oh the hurt that feeds off the salt. (I never want the wounds to heal so I pour salt into my bath) The wounds remind me of where I've been and how it felt when I received them. I fall asleep sometimes in the bathtub, only to wake up with blisters from the salt grinding up against my wounds. At this point the wounds would be torn wide open and touching it only irritated it, but the irritation slowly led to numbness and the numbness led to pleasure and the pleasure would turn itself into self satisfaction. At this point, all the loneliness went away and I needed no one but myself.

So at around noon I find myself staring out the window once again. I remember of the times I spent in the playground, throwing a red bouncy ball to my friends, now they are probably just lying away. Wasted and used. What is the point of throwing red bouncy balls anyway if you're just going to end up in the morgue? And what's the point of life if it ultimately ends up in death? And when you die is nothing really nothing, I mean, how can you describe nothingness? How do you see the blackness of the hole in the center of your mind?

I dig around and see an opening to my apartment. It's the front door. I am free. But do I want to get out?

LOVE IN THREE PARTS: Part 3

2010-11-01T19:06:00.000-07:00

PART THREE: ADULT HOOD

Do you believe in miracles? I wouldn’t too if I were you but let me tell you a story. You see, I’m not a misguided soul. I don’t fall too easily for these modern day trickeries or give in to superstition but when something is so evident that it smacks you in the face, it’s just too hard to turn the other way. I guess I wouldn’t really call it a miracle but more or less something of extraordinary fate.

It was a lonely autumn when the remnants of my last girlfriend loomed in my thoughts. It had been about a year but I was still in that pain that comes after a break up. My life had become a routine. Wake up at 7:45, head off to work at 8:30, arrive at the office by 9:00, leave the office at 7:00, come home by 8:00, eat dinner, smoke some pot and be in bed by 11:30. The same thing the next day and the following and the one after that until the weekend arrives. And then it was time for extracurricular debauchery. Indulge in a few types of drugs and the weekend would go just as fast as it came. I needed a change, some type of a happening to happen to make my life new. That’s what I’ve been wanting. Something new to bless my life, my life that was now plagued by empty happys and momentary bliss. (if you would call it that)

When I took the train some mornings, I would notice this girl. Oh, yes, this is a story about love. Not a love story but a story about two lives coming together for some kind of rare purpose. So yes, this girl caught my eye. Not because she was the most amazing piece of human I’ve seen but maybe because she just struck me and the more I saw her, the more interesting she became. I would wake up a little earlier now to prep just a bit more in the mornings, to look just a bit extra nice. I would wait for this girl in the station and if she hadn’t come by the time my train came, I would feel incomplete for the rest of the day. I would hope to just get a glimpse of her, just a single glimpse it would take to make my day all the more enjoyable. I would come home and rant about her with my roommate and she would eventually become my “subway girl.” My fantasy girl who I saw only in the mornings at my subway station, I knew nothing else.

And it just stopped. She was nowhere to be found in the mornings anymore. I would try leaving a little early and other days I would leave a little late but no luck for this poor soul. God gives and God can surely take away I thought.

It was a late night I had at work, a rarity at this time of the year when things were so slow. Coming home I have to transfer trains, just like in the morning but at night, the train takes forever to come and so sometimes, you have to wait forever. I dragged myself down the stairs onto the platform when I saw an old acquaintance from my college years.

She hadn’t changed a bit but that is beside the point. The girl sitting right beside her was the one I was interested in. I didn’t know what to say. My words just froze as it made its way through my lips. I was actually more shocked to see her, yes it was my “subway girl.”

SUBWAY GIRL: (This is the information I would later find out)

Fact 1- loves Wong Kar Wai films. I was actually indulging myself with films by Wong Kar Wai around this time.

Fact 2- lived in the same apartment building. She actually lived three floors below me.

Fact 3- (not so much as fact but…) she was nothing like I imagined. In that cliché way, she was something more. (that’s the only way I can say it)

So you would think, yeah, he met the girl he was in love with and again, the story of love is taken way out of proportion and exaggerated as much as the stories found in the bible. Not true. I like to think of myself as a the type of person who lets things happen. To a certain extent, I don’t even try. I believe the perfect love is something that falls right into place. And so I was still in a crazy dilemma. I’ve now been formally introduced to this person but how was I suppose to get closer? See, meeting the person is easy. Hi my name is __________. It’s the way you approach her again and again that’s important.

A week went by and I had created every possible conversation in my head in the chance of another encounter with this “subway girl.” To my bitter disappointed, another week had gone by and I wasn’t able to use a single one.

It was 9 in the evening and I had just finished work. It was miserable taking the train back to Brooklyn at such a late night in the evening during a weekday but “I might as well make the best of it” I told myself. I sat down at a bench and dreamed up another scenario with this “subway girl.” I think I actually held my hands together and prayed that she appeared tonight. The train came and I walked in as usual, leaned on the door on the other side of the train and closed my eyes for a few seconds. I looked up and saw her stumbling in. HER = SUBWAY GIRL.

We talked about the building that we lived in. Why she was here in NewYork and by the time we knew it, we were at our stop. We walked to our apartments and eventually went our separate ways.

More time passed and I hadn't seen this person for awhile.

I would linger outside my building, smoking a cigarette hoping to see her. No luck. I had become desperate one time and went to hang out at the grocery store, hoping she was hungry that night and needed to buy some food or drinks. The moment I walked into the store, I noticed her in line to buy her things. I didn't want to tap her on her shoulders and if I had gone to the back I was sure to miss her when she left. I stood right in front of the door pretending to examine some soft drinks. She eventually saw me and we made light conversation.

I went to have a drink with my friend that night to tell him about the incidents that had occurred. While in the midst of our drinks, she had called. She wanted me to help her on a project she was working on. Okay so I won't bore you with more incidents on how we met and such and such. Her, her roommate and I were to watch a movie together when her roommate bailed on us, leaving us by ourselves. She intentionally did this because she knew how much I liked her roommate. We watched an old wong kar wai film that was playing at an art theater. We had dinner and spent the whole night, skipping around to various cafes and such to talk about our lives. The next morning I had woken up and found myself on my chair with the girl on my bed. We looked at each other and then I knew, I had found the one.

change your clothes

2010-10-28T20:09:00.000-07:00

have you seen those people who constantly wear the same piece of clothing and you wonder to yourself if that's their uniform? Uni meaning One like they have one piece of clothing and that's it. Clothes more or less define who we are.

It defines our looks and our appearances. It makes us look rich, poor more or less attractive. And that's what I thought to myself as I threw all my clothes into the garage.

I thought to myself, why did I need to put on clothes and live this life to give other people the satisfaction of seeing me a certain way. I was disgusted of the amounts of vanity this world had and given all my clothes but a white t-shirt and a pair of jeans to the garage and decided I would wear this like my uniform. UNI representing ONE. My one piece of clothing and I was going to wear it forever.

Day 3 and I was already becoming bored with my outfit. I work at home doing various things to keep me occupied during my slow hours and all my creative juices had run dry. Cliche after cliche, I would type into my typewriter as I tried various wordplay, none of which worked within it's context. Had these clothes taken hold of my creativeness?

Day 5 and I was having trouble getting out of bed. I laid and as I laid there, I had thought up of reasons to get out of bed, none of which gave me the motivation to. I had looked at the ceiling for the last four hours until I told myself I needed to use the bathroom. I had become aware of one thing. These clothes took away my livelihood. I was a wreck but I was even more determined to stay in these clothes.

Day 25 and I have become the same man as the previous 24 days. A man in a t-shirt and a pair of jeans. I did my grocery shopping in these clothes as well as mow the lawn and other household errands. My life had magically become a repetitive zone that I was constantly in and I knew that this t-shirt and jean took a hold of me and wouldn't let me go. I knew I had to buy some new clothes and change before all this would come crashing down.

The Burden (Never Finished...)

2010-10-20T21:12:00.000-07:00

It sure wasn't the times we've all expected after a good run. Economically, it was the lowest since I've been around. I couldn't remember it being much harder than this. None of my college grad peers had their jobs anymore and I was on the verge of losing mine. The rent in the city only grew and the gap between the rich and the poor slowly increased. In school, they would prepare us for the real world, but nothing could prepare us for the overpriced fuel costs and the cost of living was just too unbearable. After losing my job, I had no choice but to go back home. And with my tails between my legs, after all the commotion I've caused, claiming the right to my own existence, after all the boast of becoming a free man, I've been reduced to crawl on all fours and beg for my room to be returned to me and clear out the vacancy sign.

My brother had picked me up from the airport and we gossiped about the daily happenings at the old Charleston household.

My Secret Window

2010-09-09T11:46:00.000-07:00

she peeps her head through the window to examine what's on the other side.

Black.

she continues to stop by the empty window and wonders what could possible be on the other side. It must be better than this she thinks to herself. Better than any possibility on this side of the window.

Now the window is gone and the building destroyed. She will never know what was beyond the window she loved so much.

Eternal Lonliness: Jack In the Box

2010-09-09T11:35:00.000-07:00

Manufactured: 5/16/67. I was the product of a destructive time, so I sat and watched the walls cave in until I was trapped inside it. I've never asked to be who I am but never thought I would hate it this much. The minutes and hours and days and months and years and decades that pass before anything really happens, so I just sit, sit there and watch the walls. There's nothing I can do really, and it's been so long that I've forgotten how the outside world looks like. The glorious days of my youth are long behind me. The playful years of my past. Now only the walls sit in front of me. It stares right through me and occasionally gives me the smirk of a devil child. Have you seen a devil child before? I didn't think so.
Yeah I put on a smile and an occasional chuckle but does that mean that I'm happy or even content? Hell no, and don't listen if someone tells you otherwise. I'm a confused being underneath all the colorful exterior and the chimes of the wind up. And that really bothers me. No, not the wind up but the misinterpretation of my presentation. I look one way, yes, but does that make me so? A man in a gorilla suit, is he really a gorilla? No, he's just a man inside a gorilla suit.
So I pop my head out my box and give a good chuckle and laugh to amuse you but does anyone feel my pain? The reality of it is, my existence many times seem meaningless. Okay, enough with the pity, let's get down to business. I popped my head for the last time. I'm demanding that you cut my wires and release me from this spring attached to my bottom. I've got too much to see and not enough time on my expiration date. The expiration date is the date they'll put me to sleep and that's not enough time. I've mapped it all out, the shores and coastlines to the exotic destinations I've always wanted to see.

:(you said no): and that really hurts. The years I've been in here, only trying to please you and only you. So now I've got to sit, sit and stare at the walls again. Why can't you just let me go? It's lonely in here.

Spaghetti and Monk

2010-09-09T11:32:00.000-07:00

8:00am: last night I went to sleep hungry. Not because I didn't have any food, not because I lacked any kind of nutritional desire but because I was too focused on finishing the twenty pages left in my essay on man's instinctual behavior versus social behavior. I had fallen asleep after ten pages and this morning, woke up unable to think of the next sentence to finish up my essay. I sat in front of my coffee table until 9:30 to try and come up with something to write. I usually do my writing on my coffee table because my work desk is usually too cluttered with mail and miscellaneous magazines but this morning, I didn't have the patience to move the laptop over to the desk so I just sat in front of the coffee table, trying to figure out the final ten pages of my essay. I stared at the computer monitor as my stomach alerted me that I needed food. Not before I finish this paper I told my stomach but my stomach wasn't on the same wavelength and kept with its annoying way of getting attention. I ignored it and continued staring into my monitor. Nothing was coming out and my eyes were feeling drowsy once again, very similar to the moments leading up to my slumber last night. I needed to keep awake and finish the final ten pages but my body told me to lie down and sleep. I had written the first 90 pages so easily and fluidly but was halted at the final ten. So hard to finish what I started and most of the time I would just put it off to the side but this paper was different. It was something that I had worked on for the last year to make the deadline which was later on in the day and something which was bound to put me in a league above the one I was in now. I gazed above to a poster hanging up on my wall of the great jazz pianist, Thelonious Monk, and decided to put a record of his on. Bebop, doowop, ting bat, debop. The music motivated me to make something for myself to eat. I looked in the refrigerator and found no leftovers to fill my annoying stomach with. I opened my food cabinet and took out some angel hair spaghetti noodles and a bottle of marinara sauce. Debop to dop. Bing bat dong. Dadadada do da. I started chopping away at the onions and threw them on the fry pan. I mixed the sauce in and waited for the water to boil to throw the noodles in. Monk was going up and down on the 88 keys of the piano and I was lucky enough to enjoy it. Padowap. Dingdong bat dap. Yeah, that was it. The water was done breaking down the carbohydrates in the noodle to make it soft and sticky and I was ready to mix it in with the sauce that I had prepared. I laid some napkins on my coffee table and poured myself a glass of orange juice. I emptied the fry pan onto a nice porcelain plate and sat down, ready to eat. That was when I realized that Jazz and spaghetti went so well together. So well that I found myself, twirling my fork in the noodles to the beat of the drums. After I had licked my plate clean and the record came to a halt I was left in front of the monitor same as I had left it thirty minutes ago. I put my hand on the keyboard and finally was able to type away at it. Monk and Spaghetti had given me the strength to finish something I had started, and put me in a class above what I was that day.

I was Che Guevera

2010-08-25T08:22:00.000-07:00

I was che guevera in my former life. Or that's at least what my psychic told me. She's not one of those tarot card reading psychics, I went to one of those back in college and everything that she said will happen either never happened or the opposite happened. And she's not one of those palm reading psychics either. I didn't really know what kind this psychic was but she sat me down and told me of my past lives. Did I believe most of it? Probably not, but it was an interesting story.

10 min Freewrite: April 25, 2006

2010-08-25T08:17:00.000-07:00

so another day has come and its become an exercise, a daily exercise to jot down an entry each and every morning i'm in new york because why spend a lousy 10 minutes doing nothing when i can be just writing, even if the bloody thing don't make any sense. Who says bloody? The english or the australians? Andy milanokis was making fun of the australians yesterday. That show is funny because of it's low grade and dark sense of reality. I love it when an artist uses different ways of sensing something. Something something, something something: Note to self_ why use the word "something" when it can eliminated all together or use the word hmm i don't know any replacement words. Why doesn't this damn typepad have a spell check. Everything is coming up fucking red and i mean everything. well, the word "fucking" didn't come up red which means it's inside the computer as an actual word. Have the started putting slangs into the dictionary. If i put in the word narly or radical. i guess the word radical was an original word that had an original meaning. Let's get to some creative writing. how about this as a short poem:

let's say when
when do we cry
when do we learn to cry
when can we or are we
allowed to cry.

i can't bear the pain all by my lonesome.
let's write down messages for the president
for he will take our burden away.
oh sweet leader of mine.
When will i not cry.
when can i not cry.
and when am i allowed to not cry?

the tears i have drowned in taste like sea water.
maybe i'm just floating away into the nothingness
of the world which i can't imagine myself freeing from.
free from what, free from where? free from who? and free to do.

just about anything, anything who wants? You want me more than ever.
i can feel it in your voice, but i'm sorry, for I am too sad to love another.
I am to sad to love another person but myself. I cry and cry alone.
No one can join me for this is a lone operation. A lonely operation. everything in this world is one big empty lonely house that we think we've met somebody but they just happen to be another extension of ourselves. The stranger self. Because she in fact is a stranger. She's lived thirty years without me. will i even live for thirty more? That is the question i ask and she replies: " i am not thirty, but twenty eight." what the fuck difference does it make woman, just tell me your weight and the size of the diamond your husband bought you, those are the questions you're not suppose to ask a woman from what i've heard. Fuck all that. that is completely and utterly ludacris. Just craziness. You should have known from the start what kind of complete moron i would be or become. because anyone with you knows that you are so much smarter, so much happier, so much wiser and so much more philisophical aabout nietzche and schepenhour and kant and the marxism nonsense with your proudhons and what nots. who can count the endless volumes of britannica you have read out loud when you're trying to fall asleep. YOu only sleep because the voice of your own voice bores you. You are easily bored and easily you will leave me. That is why i sit here, crying a river. the river is now an ocean and ocean has become my bodily fluids. Trying to crash to the shore to find home. That is all we ever want to do. Find our homes.

The Waiting

2010-08-24T13:40:00.000-07:00

i remembered today. It was the first time in a very long time since I did that. I sat in front of the fountain and let the music seep into my ears. And slowly, it would trigger thoughts of the past. The ear is where it all started and made it's way into my nose. The breath of life and all its glory as the falling leaf landed an inch away from my sneakers. The fountain stopped pouring its water and was soon draining itself. The leaf turned brown and a snow flurried down onto my head. It dripped and the water dropped onto the floor. The water droplet I noticed was a tear from my eye which I wiped away immediately. I couldn't let the girl sitting next to me notice I was engulfing myself in past sorrows. The music made another attempt to soothe my soul but the initial impression was overwhelming. I was on the floor on my knees at this point and begged for my life back. The girl next to me must have wondered what in the hell I was doing. She must of thought crazy thoughts and who would know how crazy I actually was. The snow stopped and all the leaves blew away. The clouds formed overhead and the rain would soon pour down. I made my way to the nearest subway station and grabbed a newspaper along the way. I read about the uncertainties and the worries of the common man and this gave me a good chuckle for a couple of minutes. I laid down on the bench at the station and waited for her to arrive. The time was twenty five past the hour and twenty five past the time we were to meet. She would not show up I know. But even though, I waited.

Song Titled: The Road Back

2010-08-24T13:37:00.000-07:00

D C G
back when all this hadn't changed
only cared about the life
no need for money or the fame
just a ticket back to town

Em C G
sorry I had to go
couldn't stay a float

Am C G
never cared about the rules

Em C G
in the back it was cool

I can't explain the ride out town
it was for my own private mind
couldn't take all the rules
the piano just played the blues

How a baby is conceived

2010-08-24T13:23:00.000-07:00

When a man is aroused, blood flows through his penis and is trapped which causes an erection. The penis is then inserted into the vagina of the female. After an average of five minutes, sperm is secreated from the penis and the little critters make their way through a long passage into the female uterous. The egg is then fertilized by this sperm which in turn creates life. Now before all this happens and before the magic of birth, there is the magic of love. Now we live in a society where LOVE is a lost ideal. Gone are the days where you write to a woman for years at a time only to see them for five minutes before holding hands in matrimony. We are so far from the ages where romaniticism means flowers and candy. We are overruled by sex and the image. Consumer marketing and development in frivolous technology made it possible so we could let love linger away. I once held it in my grasps but it withered away. It felt like silk, or was it velvet? It smelled of a French fragrence and would overwhelm the senses. Now the only thing I smell is of rotten meat and dying corpses. I stand in front of love's tomb, only to drop pedals of dead roses and then crush it with my feet. I mourn no more for the love I once felt. I am at hate's disposal.

I sent myself to the prison upstairs. I kept myself in a hole with a couple of books by Nietzche and the dreams of nihilism. I watched horror films, films of death and soon, I was the embodiment of a mime who is unwilling to talk of past lives. I cried a single tear which was then tattooed on my left cheek as a reminder but soon I will forget what the meaning of it was. I worked in repetition. The tasks mediocre and the chores were meaningless. I tackled each assignment with the emotion of a zombie. I was a drone, set off to live a life like how I was programmed to live. Then I saw her....

The morning I saw her--------------

She had on a denim skirt with golden brown boots that came up to her knees. She waited a good couple of seconds after the subway stopped to enter the train. I slowly followed her in, making sure I wasn't making myself obvious. I sat right in front of her but tried not to make eye contact. Now I wasn't sure what it was about her that caught my attention but a trigger in my mind had gone off. A memory or an engram maybe that had responded to maybe what she was wearing or the fragrance she had on. Whatever it may have been, it took my interest and fixed it on this woman. My stop had come and I prepared to exit the train when she got up and exited the train as well. I followed her to the furthest extent without allowing myself to fall ridiculously off my course. She went off onto 16th street. I had to go further up. The course of the day seemed excruitiatingly long. All I thought about was the woman I saw on the subway. LOVE and all its ideals were suddenly entering my system once again.

The next morning I forced myself to awake just a little early, so I could possibly wait around long enough to see this woman again. One subway train had stopped and left. I thought to myself, when the second one came, I would take it. There was no point in going totally insane. The bell rung to claim that the train was approaching this station. Part of me was disappointed, another part of me relieved. Relieved that the tragedies of LOVE and all its fallacies wouldn't come and haunt me once again. The train stopped and as I was about to enter, the woman unlike her former calm, collective self, rushed into the subway train just as it was closing its doors. This action on her part further caught my attention. She was a person of many different traits I thought to myself. Not only was she cool and calm, she had the carefreeness of a gypsy who didn't mind not having it all under control. The rest of the day was the same as before. Staring at a computer monitor, pretending to do work when in actuality, I was day dreaming. I couldn't shake the image of this woman off of my mind. She had me confused and I was actually petrified of the thought of diving head first into a mushroom of dust that will strangle me until I am weak and weary. Oh well, I was never the rational type and my emotions always had the best of me in any situation. I never had proper logic nor did I felt the urge to control myself from irrational behavior. I always thought that a man's natural instincts were the only thing he had when he was born into life. That was the only thing that I had left to make my life livable.

My life rewound about three years seemed much like how it was now. I could have sworn it was true love. LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT and all the magical happenings of cupid's arrow now only realize that LOVE plays no role in life. It happens in cycles. And I could precisely point out the occurences of what seems to be random events but actually, the strings of points that gather to form life and all its glorious happenings.

Point One, I've always been the passive type, I know a girl that I like, we become friends and we do what friends do but I'm secretly trying to lure her in. Point two occurs when someone that I equally like enters my life but in this case, she's rather interested in me as well. Leaving the person from point one, I enter a relationship with the person from point two. Exactly three years later, the love fizzles out and she wants to leave. I try and hold on telling her things that my father would be ashamed of me for. I cry and weep and tell her how much I love her, but none of that matters. No matter how many times we get back together, the feeling just isn't the same after she tells you for the first time that she wants to leave. Feeling alone and sometimes desperate, I go out and sleep with the first girl to let me into her pants. I fall into a state of trance. I know not who I am. I need time to collect myself, to remember who I was before anyone entered my life. That is the end of POINT THREE. Which brings us into point four, the meeting of the girl from point ONE. Its all a repetitive cycle. Something that I've endured at least three times around.

And here we are again, I would have liked to have that cycle broken but its not under my control. It never was. No matter how I would like to think I have all the power in the world, my fate's already been decided. Nothing is the same and nothing is different. It all happens in a nasty cycle.

Eternal Lonliness: The Train Ride

2010-08-24T13:14:00.000-07:00

I don't remember what made me get on this train. I think I was just lost, probably hoping to start something new. I approached the clerk and said, "one ticket to the farthest destination I can get to." Or at least that's what I think I said. But who really cares why someone sets off, its really how you get there that matters. Life is a distance between two points. Birth and death, how you draw that line is the crucial, most significant part, don't you agree. And now, I'm sitting on this nice velvet seat with my feet up on the seat in front of me and I'm just enjoying the ride. How long have I been on this train anyway? Oh, who really cares.

I was born to get away from it all. They only held you back, that's why I didn't tell anyone I was leaving. Actually, it was sparatic on my part. No planning had been done what so ever. That's why my last girlfriend had gotten rid of me. I told her I had quit my job and she went bonkers. I mean, literally, she started bouncing off the walls. She said something about me being "unreliable" and that I needed to "grow up." I showed her the middle finger and we parted ways. A very undramatic part may I add and if she hadn't thrown my things out of our 2nd floor apartment window like a stereotypical psycho bitch, it would have been almost forgettable. But I do remember and maybe it's partially why I'm on this train.

I'd decided once and for all to leave this miserable city I'd called home for 95 percent of my life. I was born in winnipeg and that's where I'd spent the other five percent. Just imagine yourself living in one single place your whole life. I can't. That's why I'm taking off. But maybe I should have said something to my mom before leaving. Well, there's no use wondering about it now. We weren't that close anyways. She was constantly bickering about my father who deceased when I was eleven. She had taken a liking to one of my high school teachers and I suppose I never forgave her for making me the end of so many cruel jokes. We never spoke much about anything. She was always working anyways. I guess this is a good time to explain why I had quit my job. It was the people I worked with. The most irritating individuals you will ever meet. This one girl, Julie, constantly crying over the phone. She might as well have the phone surgically attached to her ears and have the number 3 key speedial to produce tears. I would sit in front of my desk, simply tending to my work and sirens of cries would penetrate my thoughts. How many times I've fantasized about strangling that bitch: (17 times) including the one time at our christmas party.
Maybe I'm just not a people-person. I don't like them. Given, I am one but frankly, I don't like myself sometimes either. Okay, all the time. Is that why I'm on this train? All alone, talking to myself? How long have I been on this train for anyway?

My Girlfriend's Beard

2010-08-24T13:08:00.000-07:00

It was late night when I had the urge to pee. I was sitting in front of my laptop, researching extraterrestrials on wikipedia.org. I stepped into my bathroom and left the door opened. My urine was neon yellow. Strange I thought out loud but remembering an article I read on multi vitamins producing neon yellow urine, I hadn't the need to panic. I rubbed my hands together under the running water as I spotted my girlfriend's razor. A razor that had mold on it's handle and had rusty blades. A razor that didn't deserve the life it had in my bathroom. My distilled, impecable bathroom with its impecably white bathtub. I threw the razor away, unknowingly taking my own life as the razor went into my trash bin. This is where it all goes to hell.

A month goes by and my girlfriend and I had finally gotten a night alone together. The last month were filled with birthdays, get-togethers, family dinners and endless amount of overtime at the office. I tickle her belly a little bit and run my fingers down her zipper. I pull her jeans past her ankles and I rush to unzip my own. She pulls my polo tee over my head as I stood there with my penis pointed north. She unbuttons her blouse and at that moment: JESUS CHRIST stares right at my kisser.
My girlfriend said she wasn't able to shave her underarm and at that moment, my penis sank below it's testicles. She rushed to the bathroom but comes back to announce that her razor is missing. I told her to use mine but she said that a man's razor only cuts the underarm and so that night, we made love with our shirts on.

A couple of days go by and we are at it again. The same routine. She unbuttons her blouse and this time, a slight hint of funk rises through my nostrils. Her underarm was unshaven and longer than before. It had almost appeared to take on a life of its own. It really did look like JESUS CHRIST it was getting long. This was it, I put my clothes on and rushed out the door. I got into my Saab and took off to the nearest Duane Reade. CLOSED. I swore this was a 24 hours Duane Reade. CVS wasn't too far from here. I raced down the lane. SOLD OUT. How was this possible? All the women's razors were out of stock. I was out of options. There was nothing to do but just go back home.

The next morning I sat in a chair watching my girlfriend sleep. She slept like such an angel but under her arms laid the devil himself. JESUS CHRIST I was horny. I decided to grab some scissors and give them a nice trim at least. I lifted my girlfriend's underarms but by this point, her underarm hair was a wild beast. It even had horns. Fucking horns, just like the devil himself. The bearded devil took the scissors from me and stabbed my hand. It held me down and aimed for my penis.

At this moment, I knew I had to break up with her.