A Weekend Through the Looking Glass

Bowling. 130, 119, 145...satisfied. Work people are crazy. Crazy blind. Anyways. Johnny Cash bar. They don't serve nothin' but beer and wine. The ex keeps rattling off shit about things that don't mean shit. Why did I come here? Some client shows up, I chain smoke mostly cause I'm bored, pop my knuckles, slam beers, sweat in the sun. The ex keeps clamoring about nothin' that shows nothin' ever changes. God, what a waste of time. Good etiquette and charm keep the desire to stab her eyeballs out with a wine corkscrew in check. Drunk and discordant. Try to pay. Credit machine doesn't work. It's 4 million fucking degrees outside. Good etiquette and charm make me walk to the nearest ATM to pay the nice bartender who always remembers my name and never even asks me what I want. She always just has my beer of choice ready when I walk in. I do it cause I might ask her out someday. I do it cause I'm not quite even with my bearings. Swerve home a bit. Shower up...call the buddy...he's already high (of course). Give it a coin flip if he shows. -----------> Head out to meet the sister and her fiance and an old friend. Find the old friend at the bar where we were supposed to rendezvous. See her mom drive off. It's closed. Some homeless vagrant yells warnings to me about the dangers of crossing the road. I tell him to fuck off. See my friend. She crosses the road. Vagrant yells. We both tell him to fuck off. Irish bar. Mexican beers. Sister and fiance show. Buddy sends text as to his whereabouts and estimated time of arrival. I'm gathering info on the caravan proceeding to the concert. GIVE ME YOUR EYES, I NEED THE SUNSHINE. -----------------> Opening band. Not bad. Beer line. Bad. Meet up with the buddy and another work buddy and another work buddy. Someone who looks a little like Harmony Korine (of course) wanders up with the most intricately-rolled weed cigarette I've ever laid eyes on. I take four or five pro-style rips. Pass to the sister's fiance. Back and forth, forth and back. Sky high. Drunk. Music. My 5th to 11th favourite band (depending on the day) launches into their set with new haircuts. New songs. Wolf. Parade. Is. Fucking. Awesome. Texts flying again. Running into people I sort of know. My favourite person from work (she's an angel) sends word that she's here with her husband at the back of the bar. I'm in fucking outer-space. Which direction is back? I spill my guts in a text message to her about the shit-fucked cycle I'm in. Would later rescind those words in a bout of sobriety. Besides...I'm in no shape to put a face to this circus music I find myself in tonight; for I know that she's hanging out with the girl of my dreams tomorrow. The girl who could halt my ramblin' ways. Settle me down. Calm my mind. Go the distance. Float in the ether. Or at least, that's how I envision her right now. She's perfect. Right now. She's her friend. I wouldn't be a very good report if I were to show face right now. I'll pass. Wait till I'm on top of the game. Spring like a cobra in the tall grass. One leaves, another leaves. WHY'D SHE LEAVE??? WHERE'D SHE GO!?!? I yell. I'm told to stop. The ex keeps sending texts. Relentless. I keep drinking more. Drunk girl drives down from Dallas. Keeps sending texts. Some folks float, some are buried alive. Sweaty. It's hot. Beer is cold. Limes are sour. Cigarettes are burning. So am I. --------------> I launch into a diatribe to some poor fool who unfortunately was standing within earshot and who hardly reasons to hear about how Wolf Parade are "transcendent." Or how "their music speaks." Or some shit. I don't remember. Another leaves. I can't find the sister, or her fiance. I squint ALOT. I stand on tippy toes. Someone asks me if I'm high. HA! Yeah man. WAY up here. ---------------> I hear the closer. Satisfied. I leave. Sweaty nights. I respond to the texts. I respond to the pull. I respond to the cycle. She comes over. I take her home. I leave. I turn up the radio and look at myself in the rearview mirror. I lost my fucking glasses. ---------------> It's god-awful late. I intend to scare up some trouble. No answer. The darkness falls over me. ----------> I find myself surprisingly lucid the next morning, and surprisngly adept at exerting self-control, when my intentions may have been nothing but the contrary. I pat myself on the back. GUILT FREE MORNING!! Then I respond to another text. I laugh at self-control. It's literally 7am. Good shit, I just went to bed. She comes over. She cries. She doesn't like the panic. She doesn't like the anxiety. She doesn't like the existential rambling I wrote up on my mirror at her expense. How she didn't see it last night is beyond me. She erases it. Writes "you're beautiful." Whatever. That ain't the tune you were singin' three weeks ago. She leaves again. I erase it. Now there's smears. Fingerprints need to be introduced to Windex. Drunk Dallas girl lets me know she's in town. Great. I lost my fucking glasses. --------------------> I boomerang to all those things I try to run from. Nothin' changes. I rig up the rod and reel. Stop at the grocery store. Fresh shrimp catches the fish. I stop and pick her up. She wants beers. I want beers. Lake Austin is inviting. In some carpet-grass green patch in the shadow of some oak tree in the shadow of some corporate monolith, we sit on a towel in dry swimsuits casting shrimp heads on the end of hooks into the green water and stare at our red and white bobbers. We watch the bare-chested boys and the overly tan girls speed by in their ski boats, pumping the late-90's hip-hop under the Capital of Texas Highway bridge. Wake-boarders carve up the lake. The waves push our bobbers back into shore. I swat ants off her back and legs, she tells me stories about scuba-diving. We walk in chest-deep to pee and cool off. We talk about renting Juno. Renting jet ski's. Drunk Dallas girl secures time with me the next night. I get a text from the ex's roommate. Apparently my apartment complex is on fire. AGAIN!!!! News crews, firetrucks, policemen. Life's cycles completely amaze me. I need my fucking glasses. --------------> We catch no fish. WE EAT SHRIMP. WE BRING RETRIBUTION TO ALL SEA-GOING ANIMALS WITH HUNGRY VENGEANCE. WE ARE TO BE RECKONED WITH!! Cajun spices are yummy. They filmed Office Space here. South Austin's own. We rent Juno. We SLAM beers. We smoke on the balcony. ----------> Dean Moriarty texts me on his way to Monterrey, Mexico. I check his BLOG to see his travels. He's really doing it. He ain't lyin'. I toast him a fair hand with luck to be had, and send good vibes his way. Farewell amigo!! They always said something was chasin' you. Here's to outrunning it. ------------> Juno gets pregnant. Michael Bluth is a dick. Dwight Shrute moonlights as a convenience store clerk. Diablo Cody watches too much TV. -------------> I backslide too much. -----------> We "pretend." Bottle up that feeling for one more hit. I need my fffffffffffucking glasses. Oooooooohhh. Stomach turns. Raw nerves everywhere. Cramps. Thirsty. Drunk Dallas girl texts me stupid drunk Dallas texts. Eyes roll. --------------> Sunday. She looks good in the swimsuit. 7 foot aerials. Hot sun. Tossing each other off the back like Tornado. This fucking jet ski gets up to 42 miles per hour? Is that safe? Lake water is too hot...need a pool. Arms hurt, smiling faces, stomach is showing signs of going south on me. I almost break my wrist and her finger with an olympic-size vault off of the outside of a wake made by a 40 foot house-boat. Serious wicked air. Wish someone had a camera. Her boob fell out. Decide it's time to call it quits. Carlos and Charlie's for a beer and a meal. Stomach is fucking killing me. Drunk Dallas girl is even more drunk. Tells me how much she can't wait to see me. Can't say I feel the same. -------------------> Try to get into The Dark Knight. When the hell did Batman become so popular? Am I missing something? Finally remember where my glasses are. Arrange deal to secure them. Burned cd's. Deal. Stop to get Imodium. Can't. Handle. Seafood. Stomach. Malfunctions. Losing. Fluids. Rapidly. --------------> Instead of Dark Knight we go to Stubbs. Beers and barbecue. Just what the ol' stomach needs. Good etiquette and charm allow me to cancel (politely) on drunk Dallas girl. Start immediately fielding barrage of text messages from a woman scorned. Misspelled words, cursing and damning me through text message, incomplete sentences, inane ramblings, why? She calls me a "deutsch bag." Drunk Dallas girl is brilliant. And mad. Leaves a slurred voicemail where I can hear her call me a "fucking idiot" before she hangs up the phone. This is utterly hilarious to me. Drunk Dallas girl is a fucking idiot. Always was. ----------------> Forego suggested bar time for imperative stomach rehabilitation. Donnie Darko again. Guilty feeling comes back. She leaves. I shotgun medicine. I growl and moan and double over. I try to find sleep. -------------> 3:30am. Someone is knocking at my neighbor's door. Loudly. I'm in cold sweats. I peek outside. David Berkowitz is standing there staring oh so scarily into the lights on our front doors. I think he knocked on my neighbor's door...I think. He walks slowly down the stairs. Turns around. Walks back up. Paces. Then disappears. My deadbolt doesn't work. Hasn't for awhile. You'd think I'd learn, but I haven't. I have cold sweats for a different reason now. -------> I heave my mattress into the living room floor; place the revolver and phone by the side of my newly made bed. Door. Fucking. Knocks. Again. -------------> I'm at the peephole. Different guy. Hispanic guy stands outside yelling "maintenance." I obviously don't believe him. I remember the fires. I hold a weighty revolver by my hip. He pulls out keys. Inserts them. Opens. My. Door. I stop him from doing this in a particularly violent way, and explain to him in a manner completely void of all politeness and taciturn that he is more than welcome to come back tomorrow to fix whatever malfunction seems to be giving trouble, but that he absolutely will not pass through my threshold on this moment in the wee hours of the newly made Monday morning. And if he does so, he may deeply regret it. He walks off. I don't know what to do. Stomach has knives in it. -------> I call the sister. I need a place to stay. I call the ex. I need a place to stay. I pack the six-shooter in a bag, put on the shorts and running shoes, swallow more medicine, and head out into the night to find somewhere convincingly more safe than my apartment. ---------------> I sweat out 3 hours in my ex-girlfriend's parking lot. At least it's a gated community. It's so hot outside, and infintely moreso in my truck. I'm miserable. I have to work tomorrow and my brain does a bang-up job of reminding me of that fact every sleepless five minutes. The backseat of my truck makes a piss-poor bed. She calls as I'm on my way back home. I tell her the events. She apologizes for not answering. I reach my door once sunlight clocks in for the day. Email the boss...I ain't comin' in today. Throw up. Pass out. The shrimp are victorious. Food poisoning. ----------------> "Slow Night, So Long" sings me to sleep.

Parents call. They're in a state of panic. Appears, word of the burnings have reached the little hometown. However, the prairie fire that should concern them is inside their son.

Posturing

Raising swords and waltzing around with four eyes locked in a line was never the best strategy. That's how the cool blade takes off your limbs in a slow painful deconstruction. A blitzkrieg-style, forced attack would've been much more effective...at least tactically. Footwork is the groundwork. There was no groundwork, which means there was no foundation. Which means there was no...

No, there was. But it wasn't. Trying to make yourself more imposing is something that made it across the land-bridge between animal and man. And woman. But it's unfortunate. Everything seemingly gets solved in an untouched foreign land. For fuck's sake. Again? Life is full of recidivist patterns that for whatever reason make themselves so blatantly obvious it's comedy. There's all these geographical solutions for problems that have nothing to do with environment. For the first time, honesty fell from the rafters and dripped all over the floor last night. She tells me, "we're all holding our breath, Cory."

What am I supposed to do with that???

You see, the whole world has seemingly revolved around this for the past year and a half. But it's been shaken from it's axis and now it rolls madly, like a loose marble down a spiral staircase. The only sound being the vacant "clink, clink" as it hits the next step downward.

Sweethearts of the Muse

Ahh hell. Line 'em up so I can knock 'em down old boy. The room is spinning again. Let the fiddle spin that high lonesome sound. Let the pedal-steel wail on into the night.

~Previous Comment From the Previous Night Was Ridiculous ~
I've had my own Joan Baez, my own Audrey Hepburn, and my own Edie Sedgwick.

Seriously. Sorta.

I couldn't be more ffffffffffffffffucking drunk right now. The lights always flicker in Neverland.

"I say ahh c'mon now, you know you know about my debutante. And she says your debutante just knows what you need, but I know what what you want..."

"With her fog, her amphetamine, and her pearls...she aches just like a woman, but she breaks just like a little girl..."

Who am I? Who fucking cares.

Good night, and shut up.

Robot Willingly Accepts Challenge From Gravity, Despite Overwhelming Odds of Victory

Gets punchy.

Hypothesize This!

So I googled myself again (I know) because my Interweb browser was fucking up and the results prompted two immediate responses from me:

1) Sweet. I'm not on the Jew-Love site anymore
2) Wha??? My THESIS is on the interwebs now???

And it is...all 78 fucking pages of it! Someone at Tech took the time to PDF the shit out of my thesis and threw that bitch up on the information superhighway...for whatever reason. Just to cross-reference and see if I was part of some library-wide digitizing project, I googled some of the names of the people I went to grad school with and there was no other thesis present from these people who I know for sure defended. So while my study produced no academia-praised paradigm shift, it's up there for some reason. I'm kinda digging this in a way.

Cory Plays With Theories and Numbers Back in 2003!!

Soooo, if you wanna learn about the theory of agenda setting and how (I alleged) it affects the music industry, have a look-see....I must warn you though, there's no thinly-veiled references to girls, or drunken midnight musings, or bleeding heart whining, or introspective blahty-blah...whatever.

Robot Carefully Weighs Readily Available Hygiene Options

I've accepted it. I certainly didn't ask for him, and for awhile didn't want him, but I don't quite have the heart to part with the furry little bastard.

He's my buddy.

Nacido Sangriento

Assembled. Polished. Branded. Forced. Beyond.

No names. Never names. Arteries, ventricles, veins.

Ropes unwind. Into...

FRINGES. On the fringes. Always on the fringes. Existing on the fringes. Coming off the hinges.

Water washes away.

Go To Bed Tyler Durden

Okay. I'll try.

I've ALWAYS been an insomniac. My Dad used to walk into the living room at 3AM when I was three years old with the TV on and me in the middle of the floor. The TV wasn't on because I was watching it, it was on because it gave me just enough light to see what kind of monolith I was constructing with my blocks.

Insomnia is an affliction some say. It's a friend of mine.

On The Road

I just finished Jack Kerouac's On the Road for the second time. I read it once in grad school, and it's amazing how much I've forgotten about it. I'd rank it as one of my top three favourite novels of all time. It's wild and it's unhinged, and it resonates throughout the generations. It's still so relevant. It's America. I've always agreed with the critic's sentiments that it's the defining novel of the post-war Beat Generation...just as Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (which is what I'm reading next...again) effectively serves the same role for the generation that followed-up...the counter-culture and the hippies of the 60's. What's amazing is that so many of the central characters that you find in On the Road, also played a pivitol role in ushering in the generation that followed their own, and you can see the reverence that many of the central figures of the counter-culture held towards the Beat writers and their comrades.

But one thing that makes me identify so much with On the Road, was something that I completely forgot about until my recent re-read of the novel. It's such a treat and in some way, it's a connection to me, no matter how slight. As their final trip unfolds, Sal, Dean, and Stan head to Mexico City to meet up with Bull Lee. On the way, they pass through Texas from Denver, and the way Kerouac describes this journey he goes into great detail about the Texas landscape and the towns that he passes through. The fact that in 1949 Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady passed through my hometown, on their way to meet William Burroughs in Mexico City, on the highway that my house sits on, even referring to Brady (my hometown) as it's fitting colloquial dressing (the heart of Texas), taking notes for his masterpiece, brings a smile to me. I mean, my hometown...which is so small and so lost...it received a fitting description in one of the great American novels of all time, and it's author passed literally yards from where my house sits en route to his greatest journey. Nothing's ever from Brady. Nothing ever goes through Brady. Sometimes, it seems that nothing ever leaves Brady. But for once, I can identify with Brady and feel pride, because it is so exclusive, and it is so unique, and it is so tangibly small. It's mine.

It's nice to know that about the place you sprang from.

Be Still

INVICTUS
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

~ William Ernest Henley

Wikipedia's initial explanation of Existential Crisis:
Existential crisis is a concept in existentialism describing a state of panic or feeling of intense psychological discomfort about questions of existence. It is presumably more common in cultures where basic survival needs have been overcome.

No fucking shit.

If you know of this place...this forum for my self-described peaks and valleys...where I document the particulars of this little life I own, you are amongst a very small handful of people who've been invited into the long hallways of my mind and the courtyard of my heart...and for whatever reason, there's a certain amount of trust given with that, I suppose. I say that because I have a fully aware cognizance of the shit I put up here. Sometimes it's awkwardly embarrassing, and not meant for my entertainment, but rather to help me fucking cope. That should speak about my feelings towards those people that I've allowed into this personal realm. Hell, I couldn't even bring myself to permit my ex-girlfriend (of a year) admission to whatever this thing is, and I guess that probably speaks volumes about all of that...and all of this. So if you read, you mean something to me on levels that I can't possibly put into well-conceived, or carefully chosen words...levels that I seldom reach with most people I interact with in this world. Oh how fortunate you must feel! Even as self-serving as this palette of words might be, it still doesn't do any justice to uncovering the things that confront me...or anybody in this life, in any of their internal experiences and the way they deal with them.

I feel strange in these moments. Being in the ownership of underlying optimism, serving as the foundation of stressful chaos is some beautiful poison. Even at 29 I still find myself locking horns with angst at times, as it wraps it's hands around my neck while I brandish my knife...tossing and turning, pitching and rolling, dirty and polluted at the end of a bloody scrape...dead to rights. We always dance in the ring and tap gloves.

I guess I'm in a transitionary period again where I can see the opportunities in front of me, despite existing in the face of a certain amount of sorrow and a great amount of uncertainty. I've always desired to truly feel every emotion and thought that I've ever produced with every single fiber of my being, no matter the struggle, or despair, or euphoria, or infinite joy that rides shotgun with it...it's somewhat akin to creating a sterile environment for being everything I ever am. I see it as a certain type of metallurgy that my conscience induces, and sometimes it feels like a curse, but sometimes it feels like a complete blessing. Someone of utmost importance to me (who I regard as one of the most intelligent, in-touch persons walking amongst us) said something very recently that resonates to my very core, "The world seems to be making itself into someplace that is not meant for those who are self-aware."

I just don't know how else to be...and believe me I know how this sounds. Also, you can trust that I constantly plead with myself to somehow become one of those people who passes these things like an elementary spelling test, or floats it down the river like a newspaper sailboat to let ride, wandering into it's destination unknown. But I don't do that. I analyze, and I dissect, and I peruse, and I diagnose, and that's the only way I've ever been, and the only way I know how to be. At times, it's been a mightily uncomfortable undertaking. Because essentially, it's looking directly at yourself in the mirror and seeing what truly stands in front of you. I've seen the hellish side of holding yourself accountable to this inspection, but I've also envisioned the boundless existence that it might bring to the table. I just want to OWN it. I feel myself growing more into myself, and the day that I actually stop feeling the desire to grow is the day that I'll be more than alarmed.

I can tell you this with a pure heart; if you're selling me tomorrow, I'll buy it. Because we can be strong.

The All-Nighter's and the Sunlight That Follows Close Behind

Hot damn!! Haven't done that in awhile....

When I hung up the phone, I went out to my balcony, and saw that the crested Tuesday sun was peaking it's waking eyeballs over Southeast Austin, ready to usher in the day, in total disregard of the lack of sleep that I struck out on. I'm still (as I type this) in the same clothes I was in when I met up with these cats at Doc's around the stroke of 9:30pm for one beer, where I promptly left after the final sip of that single beer...heading home by myself to dig in chasms...or something like that. So I just got back from the Shell station where I put the necessary gas in my tank (of the ghost white truck) to get through the day, and bought 3 Red Bulls which are going to be a nice compliment to the final effort that I can muster for the next 12 hours; which I can only hope will at least get me through lunchtime in a state of mind that hopefully avoids any utter physical and mental collapse. If I can make it through the first half of the day, I'm fairly confident I can soldier through the remainder on cruise control...with much needed sleep following very, very close behind 5:30pm on a lazy early-summer Tuesday evening.

So as far removed as Sunday night's sleep is, I hear my shower calling my dirty-ass name, with a much needed shave to follow closely thereafter, only to greet the day about half the man I was yesterday....with no regret's...an effortlessly fluid conversation, all things considered...and possibly an inspired story from my hard-wired brain under my belt.

Geez man....I've been listening to "Handshake Drugs" (Wilco)NON...STOP...ON...REPEAT...for about 2 hours now.

And it's never made so much sense...but it has absolutely zero to do with mas drogas...but rather because of quite literally everything else. I'm so unapologetically insomnia-ridden.

Oh and go Celtics.

It's Tuesday.

29.

Fuck Just About Everything

No...I had a shit day...I'm allowed that. One day, when I come to the realization that being a rich, patronizing fucking shit-blazing asshole benefits me better, I'll make the paradigm shift. Trust me, you get further along in this great race of madness it seems. No rest for the weary. I'm too Godamm, mother fucking, ass-raping sensitive for my own good...why did God curse me with that BULLSHIT response to the inane? You try to appease people and the shit that they fling at you on a day to day basis, when the realization of it all involves the complete disregard for anything humane and rational. You do something for someone, and it comes flying back in your face as the penance for your under-performance in areas that you skinned your ass for, it's quite disheartening. I've only obversed through experience, that this world is only out for itself, and it conditions each and every one of it's creatures to do the same. One of my favourite movies tells a great tale. In Trainspotting when young Renton is spouting about his mate Tommy, he says, "You could always get the truth from Tommy. That was one of his major weaknesses." I've no patience for clarity right now. This is my intense existence I should embrace. I know how to handle my meltdowns. I plow right through, and wait.

Fuck everything. Just plain mother-fuck the whole damn lot.

Nails. Eat. Fucking. Nails.

Don't. Turn. Your. Head.

Blood-stained days...

Sunny skies ahead.

Voltrons

Yip. Mother fucking Voltron.

Made of cats.

Singular

Again.

Was a Bad Man From California

And all the leather kids were loud.

Loud like the sun is yeller.

= ME

"They rushed down the street together digging everything in the early way they had which has later now become so much sadder and perceptive, but then they danced down the street like dingledodies and I shambled after as usual as I've been doing all my life after people that interest me, because the only people that interest me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing...but burn, burn, burn like roman candles across the night."

~ Jack Kerouac

Necessarily Considering Proposals

...you spent the first five years trying to get with the plan
And the next five years trying to be with your friends again...

I spent most of the day behind the bottle, and the open glass, and the orange and the champagne. I spent the cloudy day relaying how humid it was to everyone, and how the atmosphere is bringing more of that recipe to the table. I spent 4/20 listening to the reggae music that filled the air at Auditorium Shores, and the masses of people passing thinly-rolled masterpieces, hand to hand. I spent the day with those who make me feel warm, and high, and quite like a masterpiece.

Sometimes I'm an abandoned book sitting on a picnic table. Sometimes the wind blows me open and it lands on certain pages that tell a completely different story than that which the cover lends itself to. Sometimes I'm written in sanskrit, hard to understand and jarring in context. Sometimes I'm written in blood, bloody and unhinged. And sometimes I'm written in braille, where the words can only be felt, not read. I like to look back at some of the chapters. Revisit some of the characters, the arc of the stories, the denouement and the fringes left in their wake. The morals and critical analysis that is all that I'm left with like a silhouette on the side of a wall after a nuclear blast. I miss some of those characters. I miss them for the roles that they played and the dialogue that we shared. I miss them.

There's an unspecified number of blank pages that still remain before the back cover of this book. I can only speculate how the story goes...wanting to skip chapters to see if this is worth the read. But I hope against hope that it is interesting and fulfilling, and poised for fluidity.

We're all continuing to write those stories, and interacting with those people, and hoping for those people, and wishing for those people, and missing those people, and loving those people. My little sister now wears a ring from a boy who wants her to wear it like she'd wear it around her heart. He wants to write pages in her story, and she hands him the pen. An unexpected character who found his way into the tale and became more than a footnote.

This story has been a good story so far. Sad at times, elation at times, boredom and vitality, Winter and Summer, loud and silent, wet and dry, near and far, sand and grass, foggy and clear. This story has been a good story so far.

You've got to try to understand where you came from before you understand where you're going. I've been a lost long shot.

My Light

My light wakes me.

My light differs from the sunlight.

My light does not raise the plants to full bloom, nor does it evaporate water in the puddles of the world. But my light can outshine the sun. Blistering white. Warming red.

My light can not be turned off. Electrical currents and voltage, watts and fuses are unworthy cages for my light. My light elevates above these things. There it hovers.

The rising sun greets me as each day adjusts in my sight, brushing off the fog of my sleep, collecting my thoughts.

I hear the voice and I feel warm.

Rolling over to the side of the bed puts me at ease and gives me strength for the day standing before me.

I hear my name called.

I see her busying herself for the world.

She holds conversations with the cat as he looks up trying in vain to respond.

I put these things in my pocket and carry them till the moon replaces the sun on the clock. Punching in to take over the celestial duties.
The sun closes its eyes. The moon has coffee. Black as night.

My light is a little girl, and my light is a strong woman.

I tire of the civil war that is fought behind my eyes. It exhausts. It penetrates. It drains.

My light fights for the good guys in these skirmishes.

I employ my light like a mercenary-for-hire to ward off the demons and hell hounds that pursue me.

My light is sharp as blazes.

My light is soft to the touch. Like hanging my name on a cloud.

This town sets backdrops, and it makes scenes. Silver scenes that feel and touch and breathe...they come alive.

I found my light in this town.

The skyline is brighter because my light radiates. Overt and undulating.

I want to stand atop the structures and yell with beautiful resonance that I have this light accompanying me on my journey to wherever it is that I am going.

My light stands like a monolith in the plains and valleys of uncertainty.

I use my light as a directive compass. I point direction towards my light when I'm lost and confused. Finding my way home is walking a beaten path now that I have my light.

When a scared boy calls out to the empty space that surrounds him because he's haunted, the light appears to calm his fears.

My light sends fire to my skin. My senses are acute. When I touch my light, my blood pulses like a churning river of red. My veins open up and my fingers pulse. I feel like a man.

My prayers for light fell on listening ears, because He has illuminated the dark corners and unknown chasms of uncertainty by sending light to the doorstep of my life.

My light is a blessing brought to me that I can't repay.

This is a debt that can never be paid in full.

My life's work, and what is to be added to it, is brighter because of the light at my side.

God waves His hands. God gives and God takes away. My light was right on time.

I would journey through the trenches of Hell, armed with only my two fists if my light was waiting on the other side.

I have foresight. I can foresee how powerful and beautiful light can burn. The colors that surround me beam with more fluidity when reflecting my light. I beam when enveloped in light like a blanket that transcends time and the bindings of mortality. Minutes, and days, and weeks...months and years...they hold no power over me. Moments are the units of measurement that I record my light. Moments that pass, but continue to last.

I stand outside the realms of touch and consciousness and sight.

I stand because you are my light.

Virtute Means Strength

Okay...I decided to check out this song by The Weakerthans.........so I just got back from the bathroom where I've been crying for the last five minutes. I couldn't be more serious, like some pretty serious tears. I had to tell someone that I got the sneezing fits, and it was making my eyes water.

I remember one of my earliest memories of music being sitting on the living room floor and one of my parents records was playing on the record player. It was some sad 70's love song and I was too little to comprehend any of what was being said, but the melody and the tune were enough to make me feel sadness. I just felt raw emotion. I started crying in the middle of the floor. I just had that exact same reaction again, and I was sitting at my desk (at the age of 29) listening to this song on my headphones. When I read the lyrics, I had to excuse myself to the bathroom.

This is the saddest song I've ever heard in my life.

Anyways...shit man.

VIRTUTE THE CAT EXPLAINS HER DEPARTURE

Song

Lyrics

The Depths

I feel like our brains are sometimes like a CPU hard drive. Saving and copying and backing-up information. Always writing and adding new shortcuts to memories and policies, and dress-codes, and prayers, and recipes, and pains, and ecstacies, and profanities, and eulogies, and sports stats, and calorie counts, and whatever the fuck it is our eyes, ears, nose, and touch process to fill up the database. I think the everyday American fills their hard drive up to the brim with shit. Meaningless, meaningless shit. We've been programmed to think that even that which is perceived as important is important when it's really just shit. What does it matter if you move 15 units of SoBe Life Water from the shelves at HEB? What does it matter if you form two new engine parts for the transmission on the new Toyota Tundra? What does it matter that you inputted 4,000 client contacts into your company's sales server? What does it matter that Tide came out with a new Febreeze scented fabric softener? What does it matter that your tortilla soup had too many corn kernels at Cantina Laredo?

It fucking doesn't. But we're told it does. We're programmed to think it does. I think these things own space in our hard drives, and I think there's a limit to that hard drive. I also think this is scary.

I wish I had enough time to do shit like this....to think like this, in frame-of-mind-day-to-day-streams-of-conscience....to roam freely and get scary....


F.Y.I. from Ryan Adams on Vimeo.

Lucky fuck. Lucky insane fuck...

Colours

Colours make paint...paint makes pictures...pictures make walls...walls make homes...homes make lives...I don't know. It was fun to make.

BREEZY







Mixed Media

How do you like your SXSW?

Drunk and euphoric.

I've been battling the fevers and the flus since SXSW wrapped up. It drained me good.

From the dirty hipsters pouring into the Driskill, to the corporate-badged executives, to the indie-film pirates, to the struggling bands, to the next big thing "hype machine" bloggers, 6th Street and the rest of downtown Austin offers a cozy week-long home to the festival that offers so much of what is great about Austin.

Armed with a badge from my company (the highlight of my employment there) I sought to take full advantage of my "all-access" status, and did so with admirable diligence. Knowing full-well that I would never drop the requisite $600 for a badge at any point in the future, I decided to let it be a badge of honor and adhere to my musical curiosities. I won't play music magazine correspondent, or indie-blogger and give you a detailed rundown of each and every band I saw, but I will let you in on some of the things I witnessed with my own eyes, and give a few highlights...

~ MGMT
~ Lou "Fucking" Reed (as he ascends up the ladder of legend)
~ Moby
~ Cut Copy
~ Thurston Moore
~ Joseph Arthur
~ Lucero
~ The Black Angels
~ The Cribbs
~ These New Puritans (who were hands down the shittiest band I've ever seen in my life...only worth noting because of said shittiness)
~ Kate Nash
~ My Morning Jacket
~ Hymns
~ Chester French
~ Man Man
~ The Vines
~ The Airborne Toxic Event
~ Sea Wolf
~ The Von Bondies
~ Be Your Own Pet
So on, so on, and so forth...

I also stood eye to eye with Billy Crudup outside of a 6th Street Bar (not as tall as I thought), watched Tom Morello give an interview to SPIN Magazine, and I walked under a crane that held a two-ton Matt Pinfield as he conducted an interview with quite possibly the hottest girl I've ever seen in my life...no fucking clue who she was or how scared she might have been that Matt Pinfield probably wanted to eat her. I'm about 98.5% sure that I saw Caleb Followill walking (sauntering...I guess the Kings of Leon saunter, don't they) down 7th Street. I worked a party at Lance Armstrong's house for a benefit he hosted for the film portion of SXSW and met (a still unbelievably hot) Morgan Fairchild, an aging Dan Rather, Paul Mitchell (the hair guy), Lance Armstrong of course, and my personal celebrity highlight of SXSW...one Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top at Lance Armstrong's party and then again during SXSW drinking a mojito in the fucking Brown Bar (the most unlikely of places to see Billy Gibbons, or anybody associated with ZZ Top).

Some friends came into town and we went nuclear for lack of better phrasing. Sneaking in and out of shows. For a more detailed explanation of the underbelly of the week, you can go here.

The great thing about SXSW that separates it from other music festivals (such as the notably more top-heavy ACL) is that in it's truest form it's meant to launch the "next big thing." It's a mecca for industry execs, A&R reps, bloggers, filmmakers, and hipsters, to be a part of and/or witness the showcase of unknown talent. Obviously, it's become a bit more than that, but at it's roots it still serves as the record industry's largest event (worldwide) for uncovering new talent. Austin swells to become the hipster-music-snob-indie-entertainer capital of the world for one week, and I think it's quite lovely.

Massive hangover and week-long battle with the flu from the fallout aside (wasn't helped by being kicked out of one of my favourite bars for almost fighting the bartender which resulted in my night-long slumber in the backseat of my truck in the basement of a parking garage to wrap up the week), I was impressed with the spectacle...no matter how far it's strayed from its origins. Late night stumbling down 6th in a drunken-dizzy haze, you can feel a sort of energy. I think it stems from the hunger that drives the artists...you can feel their desires and aspirations tangibly. It's an excitable energy. I think it's a great garment that fits well in the wardrobe that dresses Austin.

I'll be impressed if Vampire Weekend can sustain a lengthy and healthy career, as they were the darlings of the festival. Asking anybody though, you were told that they were "played out." The modern age is a cruel age.

Reflexive Terminology for the Inveterate Past

A wise man once said, “Going to bed with a woman never hurt a ballplayer. It’s staying up all night looking for them that does you in.”

I concur.

Hypnotized

I still find myself reading my Scorpio horoscopes first when I open up the paper, and disturbingly, I find that I read your Libra explanation immediately after. I like to think that it gives me some insight into what you might be doing or thinking, or feeling in your little world. I imaginatively create a panoramic scenario where you're fitting your life's duties, and callings into whatever your Libran horoscope reads. I see you shuffling around, trying to bring order to your life when the moon is in whatever, or wherever. I picture you making changes, advancing careers, finding lovers, discarding failures, taking time to smell the roses, giving thanks, praying, letting people down, propping people up, forgiving, maintaining your health, and all the million other actions and events that weave a life. I've read it when I probably should have been reading someone else's at that present moment in time, but I always gravitate towards you.

I wonder if maybe you might do the same thing with anything, and remember me. Do you?

Although they're getting fewer and far between, I still have moments when my stomach turns over in knots, like it's doing a backflip off a cliff. It doesn't take anything concussive...it's mostly simplistic moments when you come rushing back into my head and heart, and my brain releases some chemical akin to adrenaline that makes my stomach feel like it was hit with lightning. A song, or a smell, or a certain line from a movie that we watched together.

I wonder if I'm still madly in love with you?
or
I wonder if maybe I'm madly in love with the idea of you?

Thank the Good Heaven's for Folk Heroes

I CANNOT STOP listening to this guy (Josh Ritter). His lyrics, man. Especially this song:

"TO THE DOGS OR WHOEVER"



Or this one:

"GIRL IN THE WAR"



I'd give my right foot to write two songs that good, and on some plain I feel like I maybe could've written them.

I turned a few friends on to him. I explain it by saying that I think he's the kind of guy who probably drinks rye-whiskey when he reads the Bible.

That's about all I'd need to know.

California Dreamin'

All the leaves are brown
And the sky is grey.

Drive, drive, drive, drive...
That song on the radio, perfectly ringing note for note in my head. It assists in painting the setting. It is cloudy and it feels cold.

Around the corner where the houses on the cliffs sit watching the ocean's waves break. I can tell this is one of those where you know you're aware, but I won't wake up because I want to see what happens.

For some reason, my brain decides to initiate that sequence. It'll open that file by hacking the security code and bring these images to life. The cinematography in this one is always spectacular. The colors are surreal and the dialogue is intense. I can even hear the waves break on the beach. I can even hear the break of other notable items. I should change the code again.

The song keeps playing as the soundtrack until the very God-forsaken-unresolved end.

California dreamin
On such a winters day.

The Edge

There's something to be said about raising a flag. It symbolizes mobility, I suppose. I've just never had the foresight to find out what my flag displays...or so I think on this day. There's been times when I've said to myself that I'm at my best when I have something to fight for. But what becomes of us when the fight leaves? Or the reasons to fight disappear?

In a cradle of comfort, you can lose your edge and things start to dull. I guess the acuteness of your surroundings keeps you sharp. So if you are fighting for something, like say an ideal, or a dream, or a person, the wetstone is always present. Your head stays on a swivel and vigilance is something that comes natural. I've always bought into the line of thought that contentment was good and complacency was bad. But I think it's incredibly easy to get those two confused. Because contentment means that you're satisfied with the situation at present, no matter the situation. It could really be shit, but if you're finding contentment in all that surrounds you, you're carrying some sort of self-awareness for whatever that's worth. Complacency however I think is synonymous with laziness. Idle hands and idle minds do what they do. At least I know what mine do and I sorta shudder at that thought. But inertia gives you an open door out of complacency.

My greatest fear in life is to be caged. Caged by relationships, caged by a wheel-spinning career, caged by finances, caged by material possessions, caged by my own actions in which I seemingly put myself in checkmate in certain regards, caged by leases, or deadlines, or expectations (from myself and others), so on and so forth. Caged by anything really. It has shown itself to be a detrimental personality trait in several circumstances, but it has also kept me from entirely melting down. Ironically, I think the thing that cages me the most is fear itself. Afraid of this, afraid of that. I'm not afraid of anything tangible. I'm not afraid of the dark, I'm not afraid of dying, I do not fear the reaper. But I AM afraid of failure. I also think I may be afraid of success as a direct result. My biggest fear is that I'll look back on my life and see that I didn't accomplish all that I could have, or at least something meaningful while I had the chance. I suppose nobody ever really does, but I think we have a certain sense, like an untapped sense, of the heights we know we can attain. In being fair to ourselves, I think we really do know just how much we're capable of, and with that, what we're incapable of. I suppose it rattles you a bit to truly stand face to face with these realizations, but I can see it as being a fairly useful weapon in your arsenal.

I guess I'm just blabbing about how I feel like I've lost an edge, but somehow feel like I'm more focused right now. Does that make sense? Not really. I just took on a second job, and I start tonight. Sometimes I want to stand up very monkey-like on top of a building or large rock, or something of considerable height and beat my chest like Kong. But I don't really know that I would be proclaiming anything important. Maybe I'll just raise a flag, and wildly beat my chest underneath it proclaiming no fears except those of failure....and rattlesnakes.

Hold on Cory Will, this ain't gonna be easy.

ANOVA

I'm sleepy.

Slippery.

Silver.

Due Diligence

As a man, I find it my instinctual born duty to pee the shit flecks off the back of a white porcelain toilet. We're like those cleaner fish you see in the world's aquariums. Except with the gift of logic, reason, and the capacity for humour in awareness that strategically peeing, like an expertly trained assassin, on something of substance that came from someone's butthole is terrifically amusing.

Life truly is a circle, and you niggaz is crazy.

Easy Tiger....

There is an interesting dynamic unfolding right now as we speak that involves one of my creative heroes, Ryan Adams. Apparently, he's just been through a punishing break-up with his model ex-girlfriend Jessica Joffe...

This girl:



Now apparently, in stories and interviews Ryan Adams has claimed that she helped him, through their relationship, ween himself off of hard drug usage and alcohol abuse at a time when he wasn't sure he was going to live another year. Plus, he apparently "loved" her dearly. Otherwise, explaining this in some rational fashion isn't going to be easy. What's interesting to note is seeing how this break-up is unfolding in public. It seems as though Mr. Adams, through maybe some fault of his own, has damaged the relationship, or was the victim of the break-up, but whatever the case may be, he's trying exceptionally hard to secure that pre-break-up status. He's sent in poems, and has made several videos apologizing and swooning for her return. Even subjecting himself to scorching criticism (www.gawker.com). Man he's a martyr.

Now I've been in this situation before and I've done embarrassingly public things to try and facilitate the return of my love. So when I see this happening as it's happening, I can remember that familiar stinging cringe of, "shit man...it's awful." But this time it's from the guy who helped me get through some of that shit. It's classic Ryan Adams and it's unfolding right under my nose to watch. It's like a little "interactive hero game!" I get to root him on and as an added bonus I get to hear some new shit as a result of it. The following is an email I wrote to my friend Robert today who first alerted me to this unfolding melodrama...

*****

Chuck Klosterman has another short essay about Billy Joel in IV. I just read it last night and some of it kinda strikes me as a parallel to what Mr. Adams might be doing...if I can play pseudo-psychiatrist for a moment...plus, I'm blisteringly bored at work today...so you're the victim and supplier of my thesis....

Klosterman interviews Joel at a point in Joel's life when he's depressed, and lonely, and disconnected from inspiration or excitement. He's drinking a lot. He's bored and he's sad. In the interview he keeps telling Klosterman how he wants the same things that "normal" people want (as opposed to filthy rich, famous people) in that he just wants to be loved, and to be able to give love. Billy Joel once tried to kill himself over his first wife when things went sour by drinking a bottle of furniture polish. He's had numerous failed relationships and at the end of his life, Klosterman makes the observation that he's just now realizing the obvious truism that money and success can't buy your happiness.

But as Joel's bad luck in love goes, his good luck in creativity goes in the opposite direction. Critics have said that Joel's most noteworthy material has come from his most intense pain. I think he's aware of this and that's kind of the point that Klosterman is making in his book...that Billy Joel knows that he's at his best in one area of his life (which will be his legacy) when he's hurting, but at the cost of the most important part of his life (the part he only really cares about). He also makes the point that Joel suffers from this on the career side of his life. He may not outwardly and continuously say it, but he desperately wants to be taken seriously. He wants to (and by record sales, has every right to) be mentioned in the same breath as Dylan, or The Beatles, or Elvis, or whoever the fuck, but critics can be harsh on him.

Where I (singularly) differ from Klosterman on this observation is that I think Billy Joel fucking sucks. I even think Piano Man is overrated. However, I can appreciate the story because I think the same kind of "emptying yourself to be yourself" shit is going on with Ryan Adams. We live in a different time now, so he can make it cringe-inducing, embarrassingly public....but the same context is still there. He has to stay relevant. He knows when he's at the top of his game, and let's face it....as prolific as Ryan Adams is (I usually tend to agree with that statement) he's only at his very best when he's singing slit-your-wrist-sad-fucking-bastard-break-up-songs. This type of art is not easy to come by and is more than likely inspired by intense emotional pain. If Ryan Adams never went through this type of gut-wrenching he'd be a Pete Yorn clone. Heartbreaker is widely regarded as his finest piece of work, and Love is Hell is his most introspectively violent record. The former was written after his departure from steal-happy Winona Ryder, and the latter was written after his longtime girlfriend, Carrie Hamilton (daughter of Carol Burnett) succumbed to her battle with cancer. So in effect, Adams separates himself and reaches his zenith when he's at his downright worst.

That's probably an uncomfortable dynamic, I can imagine. Some people say sad is genius, and for the longest time I kind of agreed with that line of thought, but now I just think of sad as being sad. I think Ryan Adams along with Billy Joel who've both publicly admitted that they are not the most stable of intimate partners to be involved with have some subconscious ability to sabotage any relationship they're in for the betterment of their work. And when all the bright lights and accolades take a precipitous drop, the important shit that we all desire is long gone. It's a push/pull battle to stay critically relevant and happily stable at once. That becomes difficult when instability fuels one and drowns the other.

I really identify with Ryan Adams mostly because I truly like his music more than anything else. I grew up in and around Americana and a south western zeitgeist, but I also ran like the wind to distance myself from that frame of mind and frame of perspective to carve out my own. I kept with me the parts that I've found attractive and timeless about that type of lifestyle and the Texas rancher/farmer/small-town/three Church/one restaurant/football is everything/God is more/family is true/life is hard/men are men/women are sweet/Teddy Roosevelt lexicon, but I've tried to insert the most attractive parts from the urban, or the technological, or the diverse and foreign, unfamiliar parts that I wasn't privy to just from my experience. I think he may typify that for me as an artist. Didn't stray too far from his past, but did so just enough for people to call him crazy. I like that. I see the same weaknesses in him that I see in myself and sometimes they're fucking ugly.

He may be more of a glutton for punishment than I am...which is scary, but I think that's why he is who he is. I once heard a wise person tell me that, "I think you have to be half crazy to be successful. You have to be crazy to punch back when they tell you it can't happen, and you have to be crazy to get over the fear of succeeding." Well, I think he is crazy....as a grilled barn rat. But I think it's served him well on a few fronts. However, it has also seemingly turned into his own prison chamber as well.

Now who knows...she may have been a huge cunt, or maybe she was annoying, or maybe she hooked up with one of those models she is constantly working with (although I can't imagine a high percentage of them being straight), or maybe she really did get tired of his obsessive desire to destroy from within. Whatever the case, he is putting things out there (harsh criticism and all) that is making his life relevant (be it complete shit or not). He's got enough fans to keep that afloat, and he may sincerely be trying to win her back. But that's where the problem lies. If he does win her back, he's going to have to give up the one thing that keeps him alive. His pain.

PS - He also did this video....not a big fan, but the guy is obviously a bit grief stricken so it's passable. Trust me, I've done worse...



...and not gonna lie....I kinda like this song on the other video:



He's completely unraveling. C'est la vie....

Also, I think I'm going to start using the word "svengali." A lot.

The Devil Don't Sleep

...but he don't plan well either / up three flights of fright / but I'm sorry my brothers / I'm too quick on this night / the fox down his hole / teeth bare in sight / through my peep-hole, there it is, the typical stereotype / trying to break down my door / two blacks and a white / just like you'd think / it's happening to me / inches / about two / and some fear in between / six-round cylinder feels like a cold axe in my hand / I'd rather not swing it / though it instantly up's my odds / and brings heat with it / not such a huge underdog / fools trying to fool / drinks were on me / conveniently found me on our busy little street / he points, "there he is, be on your way, put your nose to the ground and you might get paid" / in a heart full of evil / unfulfilled need / someone snaps on the inside / dangerous greed / I slide right on by / throwing odds to the side / my security's a virgin / and oh how he beat her / indeed the Devil don't sleep / but he don't plan well either...

So when he miscalculated as he did on Saturday night, I can envision him having his postgame conference disappointingly mumbling phrases like, "outfoxed," and "unprepared," and "he executed a better game than we expected," because I did outfox and possibly better prepare and execute. I don't eagerly say this as some conceited son of righteousness (because God knows I've done my fair share of chalking up negative tally marks in His world), I say this as one who has been greased up a million times and thrown into a sticky situation; surprised to have found the ease at which sliding out occurred; I say this as someone who was scared out of his skull; I say it as luck smiles at me. Each time, someone has activated their right hand, oiled me up, and said, "squeeze out of this one son...if ya can," and I have time and again with my little world and personal brain idiosyncrasies intact, if perhaps more sharpened.

Each time a circumstance such as this presents itself, and there are more than a few to name, I keep thinking of the times I've been told I lead a charmed life. I'd be hard-pressed to disagree with the boldness of that statement as the years roll by...especially on the cusp of this weekend's happenings. An aquaintance also told me that I can never file a complaint with the fates that my life was boring. Normally, I'd find that within the boundaries of complimentary, but in this case I take no such pleaure...quite frankly, I can do without that degree of enlivenment. But why? I mean, WHY have I recently assumed the role of cheater of death? Why? I wouldn't encourage anyone to stand too close to me in the interim while I try to put together a streak of placidity.

So I'm reminded (yet again) of the issue of control and just how much we're given lease over. I just don't really know what to say on this matter anymore. It feels like I've been having the same epiphany on a monthly basis lately. And lately, it feels like someone's been hammering home that point to me.

Recently, life has taken up the consistent hobby of delivering "best mornings of my life."

If you are reading this, know that I love you.

Keep Me Higher

Sweatin’ all day, but the Lord can’t keep me hired.
I lie awake cause tomorrow I’ll be fired.
You’ve got your cocaine, it always keeps you wired.
There’s got to be something in this life to get me higher.

Put it down by the neon sign and watch all the thieves.
Fade out in the crowd tonight as it crawls out of reach.
Can we ever be anything else than fools on the run?
I guess we could come down, but that don’t sound like fun.

Hey, Hey said the fine day....

A few things:

A) "Silver City" by Ghostland Observatory is the zenith of machine music. Never will there be a better song written with the use of a machine or computer. It is completely perfect and cannot be improved upon in any way. The pinnacle has been reached. ANYWAY....

2) No matter how old you are, your parents' perception of you will ALWAYS be as your 12-year-old self, and you will have to accept this. Despite any efforts at relating to them how old and wise and mature you've grown, you will still have to endure treatment in some form or another as if you were 12 years old. Even when you deliver to them an excrutiating point-by-point narrative breakdown that explains how you are, presently, at an older age than they were when they gave birth to you. Doesn't matter. You are twelve and helpless...and you always will be.

C) Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

D) Life is one big super-acid-freak-fucked-awesome-love-hate-hot-cold-eye-popping-curse-filled-lazy-Sunday-afternoon-in-the-park.

E) Christmas wrapping-paper is my kryptonite. It. Fucking. Owns. Me.

Should've Been In Love

I find out how drawn I am to you when I wake next to you and you're still asleep.
You're side of the bed is always warm.
Alarm clock is too loud.
At all times.
I used to yank it across lanes without minding lines.
Trying to cross the road,
Getting blasted at 70 miles per hour...
I didn't see you coming...
Blindsided and totaled like a blind man.
A blind boy.
A blind child.
Running free and flying wild.
So you say, "Your eyes tell more about you than anything else."
I suppose that's flattering, but that's never how I've seen myself.
Moving back and forth, mind racing through thoughts.
So selfish for the betterment of all that we caught.
When time wastes away, I don't mind wasting it with you.
Maybe we could change the world, but my time gets wasted too.
Wasted on you.
So I'm destined for greatness, you're destined for purity,
Singing all the songs that are inside of me.
A chorus of plans, a chorus of doubts,
A chorus of all the things we've lived without.
Little whispers rock me to sleep, prepare me for the night.
All those little whispers throughout the night,
Stand alone and ease into the light.
You act as an eraser, wiping away all the doubt,
Blank slates erase the screams and shouts...
For things in the past have let me down,
I don't want to let you down.
No iron walls, only doors open.
Serenity falls and fate calls.
An egregious expectation stalls.
I don't know what to expect from you.
I don't know what to do.
Everything in this is new.
I think of boredom as an enemy, but I can see that we've killed that beast.
Turned our heads to the West and our backs to the East.
Only standing over what we could be.
Blazing eyes like a prairie fire,
I can only give into my desire, and turn like an orb within the words of cryptic steadiness.

My heart stands in readiness.
Bleeding just the same.
But it rests when I hear you call it's name.

Also...

...I have a grown a beard, the likes of which have never graced my face. It would take a chainsaw to bring it down, and with it, I could bring a bear down. Because I am a man. A man with a beard.

Smoke Rings of Transcendence

In being recently and involuntarily forced into evaluating my mortality (yet again...not to mention on my birthday), I think I may have realized something. Not "realized" it in the way of knowing a life lesson exists and having some silly-ass reaffirmation that lingers a few weeks to fade away and be "realized" again, but moreso in the way we see contrasts between light and dark, hard and soft, wet and dry. I see it to be fact and foundation. My realization has something to do with being alone and surrounded at all times. My realization is that our life is shaped by events that we have little if absolutely no control over, and that condition makes for a feeling of helplessness and empowerment simultaneously. It seems much of my life (much of OUR lives) has been the consistent and all-consuming act of throwing shit at the wall just to see what sticks. Taking the shotgun approach and casting pellets out where they may strike to find some relevance within the spread pattern.

It's been the whole of my life that I've been moderately convinced that I'd die before 35. On the day of my 29th, I came uncomfortably close to fulfilling my morose prophecy. I've been told I live a charmed life, and so it seems. But the validity of such claims has made me pause with abject indifference...until recently. Sometimes, I think I couldn't be more boringly normal, but on the other hand, there's times when I glance in the mirror and see one wildly interesting fuck, with one zestful fucking experience after another. So instead of wretching on the tarmac, I gathered my peristaltic wits about myself and decided to drive home from the airport with the windows down and listen to my favourite song of all time over and over and over again until I got home; where I drank a bottle of something, kissed the ground, and embraced all the beauty and foulness of my life.

I don't know, really. How many times do we make promises that we don't keep? Or how many promises are made to us that are either forgotten or swept under the rug, like they meant fuck all to begin with? Then again, how many times have we evolved towards apathy to the point that we just don't bother with caring one way or another anymore? I think that we'd all like to believe that when we offer up that verbal contract of whatever it is that we intend for deliverance in the future, it's going to stick. Signed, sealed, and delivered. I've made promises to people I haven't kept. I've also had promises made to me that I thought would physically kill me and emotionally cripple me if they weren't fulfilled. Yet neither happened when they didn't happen. However, there are promises that I know are to be fulfilled. I know this with some certainty that only resides in the breathless altitude of the ether...in the peaks of the Heavens, and they rest easily in their parcels.

I've had a few "prayers on a ledge" experiences. Each one of them left me with some sort of profundity. It always sparks my recall memory, and delivers a few handpicked memories that are the perfect fit for situations such as these. I know we're all connected. I know that life throws signs at you, some with more subtlety than others, but it happens...I'm certain of it. I'm always reminded of a few minutes that I stood outside in the hallway of my high school when I was heading down the path of mediocrity, an apathetic kid, fucking up incessantly, who was more interested in raising hell and setting off alarms to those who had a vested interest in my future behaviors and successes. Not that I've measured up to become some fantastic success in any regard, but it definitely shifted my sails to catch a more productive wind. I was imparted wisdom from the only teacher I ever felt to be "wise" in the truest meaning of that term...words to set a motion on a path that would prove to be much more bountiful than that which I was currently traveling. Being headstrong and stubborn has done more than it's fair share of causing myself trouble, however it has seen me through times that were shaky ground at best. Those words, spoken with sincerity, drove home one singular message that I will never forget. "Don't waste your life. You have too much to misuse."

I'm no prodigy. I'm no savior, and I'm certainly no measure of what a man is to be...but those words, from that man, meant that I was something. And the journey to finding out what that is, is not to be wasted. It is to be cherished. It is to be owned fully and completely. Squander should hold no place on this quest, and neither should lack of heart or determination. They are enemies of this experience. They are the assasssins of completeness. The good and the bad.

I saw him for the last time that year. In that classroom. His pipe smoke filled the halls on the cold Spring mornings. And when you breathe in that scent, it holds a place in your head, in your heart, that takes you to something that either the universe, or fate, or God placed in each of our unique and signifcant experiences that lasts. Like the words, I can go back and remember the weight of what that meant. And as it is...years later, I can still recognize the scent. The smell still sits in its pipe reminding me that we all float up and become something new when there is a fire inside of us.

And while girls with the middle name of Marie, or any derivative thereof (Mary, Mariah, Maria, etc.), populate my life like a redundant tarot symbol in my deck of cards, holding resonance over the casual acquaintances, like some innocuous sign in some pyschic abyss, owning some prophetic signficance...I can assure myself that there is reasoning and patterns behind and beyond everything we can possibly understand. I can't possibly understand.

Charmed life...you just have to be faster than the hell hounds that trail you. In a smoke ring, I am in the twilight of my youth.

"...the unraveling of the grand design, you felt so alive at 29."