The front door's frame was swollen, the hinges rusted, so we stopped closing it. The shingles were rotten. On those rare occasions that the rain briefly stopped, and the sun had the nerve to show its face, the attic floor became a night sky under our feet, complete with overflowing bucket galaxies amid our secret constellations and ruined book asteroid belts. The windows on all floors, the mirrors in every room, the crystal glasses, and every last piece from the china cabinet: we smashed it all. The Macassar Ebony hardwood was littered with glass shards and rotting food, empty bottles of imported wine and beer, cigarette filters and their washed-out packs all floating or sinking in sickly brown standing water.
I taped an m-80 to the television in our room. It was the first time I had laughed in months. You took a sledgehammer to one of the guestrooms and found asbestos. We waded it into balls and threw them at each other in a malignant snowball fight. We razed the room with molotov cocktails and then tore our hair out in frustration. Everything was so saturated, and the asbestos so effective, the room refused to burn.
Before the rain started, we bought matching designer rainslickers; dayglo yellow numbers with matching boots for his and stilettos for hers. We thought it would be cute. Weeks after it had started and we came to accept that this deluge wasn't ending, "not now, not never," she said. Seeing her in that microfiber hood and her stilleto rain boots made me uncomfortable and self-conscious. I started staring at my boots when we were in the same room.
It's been six months since we last spoke, eight months since the rain started. Stuck in this decaying mansion, the water up to our waists. We, beyond words, so sickly stuck, with nothing left to break, and nothing new to yell. No more ways to say "I love you", "I hate you." Absolutely nothing that can rekindle a flame in this marriage, with so much water and stagnation and destruction. We are complacent to the point of madness now. So here I will sit, strapped to this bloated recliner with the water at my chin. And here I will wait for the rain to stop or the world to end.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
This is a rap song.
This is a dedicated dedication
a literal and lyrical assassination
a criminal's declaration
my critical examination
You asked me what was missing I realized its my voice
You gave me two doors to pick from I realized it's no choice
You wanted us to hope for change, I hoped for a bang, whitehouse black smoke and flames
won't vote for a name, politicians the same, federal incorporated this fucking country's a shame
you think it's a game?
They're playing people like poker chips in a hat with some shades
Shouting out “all in” bluffing full out now there's 8,000 corpses in shade
Lobbyists lounging, podium pounding, 8 million bucks to senator in trade
They're running around like beheaded chickens, and this is the only time I'll thank charles dickens
Because darkness is cheap, and these Scrooges are liking it
So let's lock and load the guns and then we'll show them our fun
This pen's still a sword that'll make them want to run
I'm talking revolution show them that we're still number one
We're more than just some
demographic tenants with some beer-goggle lenses
green smoke renters with some high high costs and
pill popping people with some low low hopes
This broken body that's surrounding me can still perform a crude lobatomy
9 millimeter tweeter and a 50 caliber speaker to blow the brains out of
those who chose to try and control we
Supposedly you're watching my back, but I'm watching your front and
I highly suggest that you get off of me with those sparkling promises, no armistice, this is all out war
Bombs drop buildings civis caught dumb luck no
this is fate its too late for repentence these tenants should of known better
like letter head of lead addressed to any motherfucker in way
because it's war, all out, automatics are okay when they're no choke full throttled on a baby on a bottle if it's working for they
And what do we do?
Bumper sticker picket protest, catchy slogans, bring them home
But their hollow points beat hollow words and their batons beat hollow domes
Hallowed grounds running red with our own empty voices
This is where the unions fought, and this is where the music stopped,
and this where the canary dropped
a couple of trivial bars like shit on cars
a literal and lyrical assassination
a criminal's declaration
my critical examination
You asked me what was missing I realized its my voice
You gave me two doors to pick from I realized it's no choice
You wanted us to hope for change, I hoped for a bang, whitehouse black smoke and flames
won't vote for a name, politicians the same, federal incorporated this fucking country's a shame
you think it's a game?
They're playing people like poker chips in a hat with some shades
Shouting out “all in” bluffing full out now there's 8,000 corpses in shade
Lobbyists lounging, podium pounding, 8 million bucks to senator in trade
They're running around like beheaded chickens, and this is the only time I'll thank charles dickens
Because darkness is cheap, and these Scrooges are liking it
So let's lock and load the guns and then we'll show them our fun
This pen's still a sword that'll make them want to run
I'm talking revolution show them that we're still number one
We're more than just some
demographic tenants with some beer-goggle lenses
green smoke renters with some high high costs and
pill popping people with some low low hopes
This broken body that's surrounding me can still perform a crude lobatomy
9 millimeter tweeter and a 50 caliber speaker to blow the brains out of
those who chose to try and control we
Supposedly you're watching my back, but I'm watching your front and
I highly suggest that you get off of me with those sparkling promises, no armistice, this is all out war
Bombs drop buildings civis caught dumb luck no
this is fate its too late for repentence these tenants should of known better
like letter head of lead addressed to any motherfucker in way
because it's war, all out, automatics are okay when they're no choke full throttled on a baby on a bottle if it's working for they
And what do we do?
Bumper sticker picket protest, catchy slogans, bring them home
But their hollow points beat hollow words and their batons beat hollow domes
Hallowed grounds running red with our own empty voices
This is where the unions fought, and this is where the music stopped,
and this where the canary dropped
a couple of trivial bars like shit on cars
Monday, June 28, 2010
Here and Now
I should really open the window and air out all this cigarette and weed smoke. But this a/c is just barely combating the setting sunshine pouring through these dirty blindless windows. The big box fan humming away underneath my windowsill helps a bit, but I don't like the way it blows around these piles of books and papers littering my floor, or the Blackbeard flag hanging from the wall opposing me.
I should really get a chair. The way my back is resting on this under-inflated air-mattress that takes up a good forty percent of the room is less than pleasing, to say the least. But its such a pain in the ass trying to inflate this ungodly large bed (in an ungodly small room) with nothing but a manual bike pump. As I sit on the carpeted floor of my room, pecking away at my keyboard, I take a drink from an almost cold beer and replace on the floor beside me, my pipe, ashtray, cigarettes, lighter, and cellphone...the necessities. The beer helps to combat this humidity and stagnant almost cold air.
When I stand up, there will be grass clippings stuck to the back of my extended legs, all the way up to the ass of my pants. Its a little hard to see the layer of grass that follows me from work back home and upstairs to my room everyday because of the similar green it shares with my carpet, but walk on it barefoot and you can feel it. Look on your socks and you can see it.
I really should clean this place up. I would unpack the rest of my stuff from those cardboard apple boxes sitting in the corner next to the bookshelf, but where the hell to? One corner is already devoted to this unnecessarily large bed, another to cardboard boxes, dvds, and the empty cd cases leftover from a stolen book of cd's, a shoebox full of my important financial papers (student loan overdue, overdrafts, debts, and the occasional confirmation number from a payment made), and my bookshelf.
Which happens to be filling quite well. I had to sell a good portion of my collection a few months back to stay afloat, but with working two jobs and one of them being by a used book store, its growing and evolving. I can honestly say that I am not trying to create a visually impressive collection though, I just really like to read.
The Blackbeard flag hangs between this corner of literature and the next corner: a sewing table posing as a desk.
The desk is entirely wood and well constructed. You can tell someone put a good deal of time into it, and I only wish I had a better use for it. I have a desk in my room, but no chair. Therefore, even though I call it my desk, and that is even though I only call it a desk in the first place, it mostly serves the same purpose as any other horizontal surface to me: it prevents things from falling. My desk keeps gravity at bay for empty beers, pocket knives, a picture of Shadow, some pictures of friends from years past, an unplugged alarm clock, a broken pipe, a rolling machine...I could keep going but I suppose “refuse” about sums it up. Except for the photos, of course.
I had almost forgotten my box of photos. I horde photographs. Most of them are my own, snapshots of a family of four in California, a family of four plus one dog in Overland Park, pictures me and my brother and my dad, or me and my brother and my mom, my 16th birthday party, Japan, then Maui. There would be a 35mm camera in my room if I hadn't gotten it stolen on Maui. I hold on to pictures of my parents before my brother and I were ever born. One of my personal favorites is my dad, no older than 25, standing on the side of the highway in front of a sign for the town of Tightwad, flipping off the camera.
Anyways. The empty space beneath my desk is the area I like to call “Billy's Shit”. Billy's Shit is the leftover random items left behind by room's last rent-payer, Billy. When I look at this area, I see no individual items. Its a solid mass, an intertwining, enmeshing, somewhat cube shaped pure abstraction of items.
A few small high school print making pieces adorn the walls along with my flag, a Ralph Steadman poster, and some empty canvas bags that used to hold 50 lbs of green coffee beans before we roasted them at my evening coffee shop job. I am astounded to find that there are no cobwebs in my room. Maybe its the way my walls bend inward about five feet up from the baseboards at a forty-five degree angle and then flatten to form a ceiling parallel to the carpet, giving the room a trapezoidal shape. Maybe spiders hate trapezoids.
My room is clutter. Its slightly overwhelming, but at the same time this is my clutter. There is a certain comfort to be found in that. I couldn't really say I cherish most of these things, besides the photographs and a handful of books, but all these individual items in this mess of a room together create a picture of who I am. Looking back, I am not necessarily proud of this picture, but it's mine.
I should really get a chair. The way my back is resting on this under-inflated air-mattress that takes up a good forty percent of the room is less than pleasing, to say the least. But its such a pain in the ass trying to inflate this ungodly large bed (in an ungodly small room) with nothing but a manual bike pump. As I sit on the carpeted floor of my room, pecking away at my keyboard, I take a drink from an almost cold beer and replace on the floor beside me, my pipe, ashtray, cigarettes, lighter, and cellphone...the necessities. The beer helps to combat this humidity and stagnant almost cold air.
When I stand up, there will be grass clippings stuck to the back of my extended legs, all the way up to the ass of my pants. Its a little hard to see the layer of grass that follows me from work back home and upstairs to my room everyday because of the similar green it shares with my carpet, but walk on it barefoot and you can feel it. Look on your socks and you can see it.
I really should clean this place up. I would unpack the rest of my stuff from those cardboard apple boxes sitting in the corner next to the bookshelf, but where the hell to? One corner is already devoted to this unnecessarily large bed, another to cardboard boxes, dvds, and the empty cd cases leftover from a stolen book of cd's, a shoebox full of my important financial papers (student loan overdue, overdrafts, debts, and the occasional confirmation number from a payment made), and my bookshelf.
Which happens to be filling quite well. I had to sell a good portion of my collection a few months back to stay afloat, but with working two jobs and one of them being by a used book store, its growing and evolving. I can honestly say that I am not trying to create a visually impressive collection though, I just really like to read.
The Blackbeard flag hangs between this corner of literature and the next corner: a sewing table posing as a desk.
The desk is entirely wood and well constructed. You can tell someone put a good deal of time into it, and I only wish I had a better use for it. I have a desk in my room, but no chair. Therefore, even though I call it my desk, and that is even though I only call it a desk in the first place, it mostly serves the same purpose as any other horizontal surface to me: it prevents things from falling. My desk keeps gravity at bay for empty beers, pocket knives, a picture of Shadow, some pictures of friends from years past, an unplugged alarm clock, a broken pipe, a rolling machine...I could keep going but I suppose “refuse” about sums it up. Except for the photos, of course.
I had almost forgotten my box of photos. I horde photographs. Most of them are my own, snapshots of a family of four in California, a family of four plus one dog in Overland Park, pictures me and my brother and my dad, or me and my brother and my mom, my 16th birthday party, Japan, then Maui. There would be a 35mm camera in my room if I hadn't gotten it stolen on Maui. I hold on to pictures of my parents before my brother and I were ever born. One of my personal favorites is my dad, no older than 25, standing on the side of the highway in front of a sign for the town of Tightwad, flipping off the camera.
Anyways. The empty space beneath my desk is the area I like to call “Billy's Shit”. Billy's Shit is the leftover random items left behind by room's last rent-payer, Billy. When I look at this area, I see no individual items. Its a solid mass, an intertwining, enmeshing, somewhat cube shaped pure abstraction of items.
A few small high school print making pieces adorn the walls along with my flag, a Ralph Steadman poster, and some empty canvas bags that used to hold 50 lbs of green coffee beans before we roasted them at my evening coffee shop job. I am astounded to find that there are no cobwebs in my room. Maybe its the way my walls bend inward about five feet up from the baseboards at a forty-five degree angle and then flatten to form a ceiling parallel to the carpet, giving the room a trapezoidal shape. Maybe spiders hate trapezoids.
My room is clutter. Its slightly overwhelming, but at the same time this is my clutter. There is a certain comfort to be found in that. I couldn't really say I cherish most of these things, besides the photographs and a handful of books, but all these individual items in this mess of a room together create a picture of who I am. Looking back, I am not necessarily proud of this picture, but it's mine.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Cheers to Kansas City
Disinterested , disaffected adolescents idolozing demons
Pentagrams and crucifixes six six sixs
Pent up rage at distant church steeples
Wishing lightning bolts at angels so said steeples topple
Drug dealers doling dope in dimes
Its a life style baby no emotion no excuses
Its a get by life through guile and guns
Keep us fucked up, keep us thinking this is fun
Dissatisfied drunks dropping out of school
Discombobulated drunks dropping off of porches
Like live fast, die young dreams to fruition
Like I've seen the best minds of my generation...
A city lacking substance, a scene lacking cause
Pentagrams and pot, beers and bongs
Spray paint, crumbling curb, twisted tweaker, vulgar bum, stray cat, and a blood smear
Stay not or you will rot like abandon hope all ye who enter here
A city mind numbing, back breaking, drunk biking, blacked out then sleeping
strung out and hungover, bummed out and looked over
Bracing themselves for another night drunk over
Pentagrams and crucifixes six six sixs
Pent up rage at distant church steeples
Wishing lightning bolts at angels so said steeples topple
Drug dealers doling dope in dimes
Its a life style baby no emotion no excuses
Its a get by life through guile and guns
Keep us fucked up, keep us thinking this is fun
Dissatisfied drunks dropping out of school
Discombobulated drunks dropping off of porches
Like live fast, die young dreams to fruition
Like I've seen the best minds of my generation...
A city lacking substance, a scene lacking cause
Pentagrams and pot, beers and bongs
Spray paint, crumbling curb, twisted tweaker, vulgar bum, stray cat, and a blood smear
Stay not or you will rot like abandon hope all ye who enter here
A city mind numbing, back breaking, drunk biking, blacked out then sleeping
strung out and hungover, bummed out and looked over
Bracing themselves for another night drunk over
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Down by Law(s of Nature)
aka "New twists on old ramblings"
“It's gone on like this, for three years I guess.
We're drunk all the time, and our lives are a mess.”
-Mountain Goats
Grandparents drown in nostalgia, wondering where their heros went, while kids drown in drugs trying to keep up with their heroes. Dad is stranded in an ocean of debt, treading water, while mom dives and searches for the bottom after the sinking of their marital maritime vessel. Her lung compacity is astounding. She holds her breath and swims down and down. Down through Zoloft, through t.v., pop culture, debt, and her son. Always and forever downward. The son will be gone soon though. He has given up on money, pop culture, television, Zoloft, divorce, marriage, heros, parents, and grandparents. His faith remain in drugs, beer, sex, doomed relationships, and the friends that make it all possible.
Paint a rose on my nose and hand me my rightful crown. I'm the King of the Pits and I can't be usurped. Ruling over my kingdom of the disowned tar-eyed citizens with utter apathy, nothing will change. If it did we'd be refugees and somehow worse-off than before. How do you kill a hermit? Banish them to society.
While I'm at...
Grant me the slumber time contentment
that escapes me in the day
And the waking hour happiness
that we all deserve
“It's gone on like this, for three years I guess.
We're drunk all the time, and our lives are a mess.”
-Mountain Goats
Grandparents drown in nostalgia, wondering where their heros went, while kids drown in drugs trying to keep up with their heroes. Dad is stranded in an ocean of debt, treading water, while mom dives and searches for the bottom after the sinking of their marital maritime vessel. Her lung compacity is astounding. She holds her breath and swims down and down. Down through Zoloft, through t.v., pop culture, debt, and her son. Always and forever downward. The son will be gone soon though. He has given up on money, pop culture, television, Zoloft, divorce, marriage, heros, parents, and grandparents. His faith remain in drugs, beer, sex, doomed relationships, and the friends that make it all possible.
Paint a rose on my nose and hand me my rightful crown. I'm the King of the Pits and I can't be usurped. Ruling over my kingdom of the disowned tar-eyed citizens with utter apathy, nothing will change. If it did we'd be refugees and somehow worse-off than before. How do you kill a hermit? Banish them to society.
While I'm at...
Grant me the slumber time contentment
that escapes me in the day
And the waking hour happiness
that we all deserve
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Sitting outside the Half & Half cafe, just off the Damen stop in Chicago. Drinking a red-eye, coffee and espresso in one glorious cup of pick-me up, and its the first thing I've been able to buy myself for a week. Seeing this city without a pot to piss in, a window to throw it out, or a single dollar to pay the fine for improper disposal of waste has convinced never to move here.
As I sit contemplating the events that lead me here I look up from my cup to see a male to female transvestite walking by, designer from head to toe, the clothes and the body, heading toward the train stop. Some fixed-gear freaks sitting next to me, surrounded by mirror images of himself: chrome bags, tight shirts, and rolled pants, ventures to call out to him/her "What up, man?" I couldn't help but smile to myself at his impeccable execution, both consanants of his accusation drawn out by a fraction of a second and the slightest increase in pitch on the n made sure no one could miss the attack. His goony friends began to chuckle and without missing a beat, niether startling nor turning to face her attacker, she began to give a Vogue worthy strut down the strip of crumbling concrete that was her runway. As she reached the stairs leading up to the trainstop, she pirouetted in true supermodel fashion before continuing up the stairs. If it was an afterthought or the finale of her original master defense plan I couldn't say, but half through her ascent she stopped, turned the group as I observed from my cooling cup of coffee, and her hands grasped the sides of her skin-tight black shirt. The hands, still gripping, began to move toward the sky and the shirt followed, exposing a chiseled six-pack, ribs visible beneath the skin but not so much as to look unhealthy, and as we watched wondering when this display would have run its course, the shirt continued up until her too perfect breasts failed to drop from beneath the shirt but revealed themselves, too proud and too full of silicone, too big and too firm, to us and the laughter of the gear-heads stopped, jaws dropped, and she walked off to finish her day a winner.
As I sit contemplating the events that lead me here I look up from my cup to see a male to female transvestite walking by, designer from head to toe, the clothes and the body, heading toward the train stop. Some fixed-gear freaks sitting next to me, surrounded by mirror images of himself: chrome bags, tight shirts, and rolled pants, ventures to call out to him/her "What up, man?" I couldn't help but smile to myself at his impeccable execution, both consanants of his accusation drawn out by a fraction of a second and the slightest increase in pitch on the n made sure no one could miss the attack. His goony friends began to chuckle and without missing a beat, niether startling nor turning to face her attacker, she began to give a Vogue worthy strut down the strip of crumbling concrete that was her runway. As she reached the stairs leading up to the trainstop, she pirouetted in true supermodel fashion before continuing up the stairs. If it was an afterthought or the finale of her original master defense plan I couldn't say, but half through her ascent she stopped, turned the group as I observed from my cooling cup of coffee, and her hands grasped the sides of her skin-tight black shirt. The hands, still gripping, began to move toward the sky and the shirt followed, exposing a chiseled six-pack, ribs visible beneath the skin but not so much as to look unhealthy, and as we watched wondering when this display would have run its course, the shirt continued up until her too perfect breasts failed to drop from beneath the shirt but revealed themselves, too proud and too full of silicone, too big and too firm, to us and the laughter of the gear-heads stopped, jaws dropped, and she walked off to finish her day a winner.
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