a dead bank robber is dying on the fourth floor of a hospital where good men go to say goodbye. he is delirious and hugging me, and it is difficult to understand what he's saying because the teeth are rotting out of his mouth. i start telling him over and over again:
"it's all okay, it's all okay..."
he calms some and becomes lucid. i leave him in the waiting room and begin to cry as i walk to a steel metal door on the back side of the building . i turn the handle and walk out onto the balcony. there is no railing, only a slab of concrete jutting out over the parking lot below. the door closes behind me, and only then do i realize that i do not have a key to get back inside.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
the wise skunk saw...
the wise skunk saw young lovers sitting naked in the hot tub, looking up at the stars unending and silent, swimming in an ocean of fireflies. they spoke of collaboration and future collaborations, and each word traced an arc across the sky before disappearing back into the void... even with his glasses off, the wise skunk could see the Big Dipper overflowing in the sky above.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
under the influence of Lloyd Dobler
i'm leaving for New England in a few hours, and unlike the last time, no juggling is involved. instead i'm preparing with a healthy dose of Bob Dylan, a mild helping of separation anxiety, and a pile of chapbooks i plan to pepper from Cambridge to Woodstock.
but this is beside the point.
the point is i plan to run an experiment while i'm away, deviating from my obsessive journaling routine, and embracing a more stream-of-conscious approach. i imagine it will be reminiscent of the method i employed on the subways and buses nearly a decade ago, squeezing in as much as i could between 181st Street and Columbus Circle.
i was looking through those journals this time last year, and they gave me a new appreciation for how forcefully my surroundings impact the thoughts i call my own. among the unfinished starts and random tangents, i found cryptic rants about consumerism, the final grapple with my own racism, and absurdist treatises on polyamory. all were written under the influence of Lloyd Dobler, and my youthful romanticism made me blind to the importance of time and timing, of place and placement.
the coming two weeks are an attempt to traverse these worlds and bridge the gap between lyricism and minutia... as ever.
but this is beside the point.
the point is i plan to run an experiment while i'm away, deviating from my obsessive journaling routine, and embracing a more stream-of-conscious approach. i imagine it will be reminiscent of the method i employed on the subways and buses nearly a decade ago, squeezing in as much as i could between 181st Street and Columbus Circle.
i was looking through those journals this time last year, and they gave me a new appreciation for how forcefully my surroundings impact the thoughts i call my own. among the unfinished starts and random tangents, i found cryptic rants about consumerism, the final grapple with my own racism, and absurdist treatises on polyamory. all were written under the influence of Lloyd Dobler, and my youthful romanticism made me blind to the importance of time and timing, of place and placement.
the coming two weeks are an attempt to traverse these worlds and bridge the gap between lyricism and minutia... as ever.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
tempting fate
it's been overcast all day, and i embarked upon a somewhat tedious project in an attempt to battle the ennui, scanning photographs of an art project i completed while moderately deranged one rainy Manhattan day in September 1999. there are no overhead lights in my living room, Elliott Smith was playing on the stereo, and i couldn't help but feel the moping teenage thrill of indiscretion and melancholia.
among the photos was a (self-)portrait of the artist as a young man, aged 22 years and covered in red paint, focusing a hand-me-down Canon into a reflection that refused to look back. this young man in the picture was one of the li(v)es, that day was one of the deaths, although i did not recognize or embrace it then.
the survival of the document is impressive, that of the artist likewise, but most astounding of all is the unflinching courage of mirrors as they bear witness, watching us stumble through the lives we leave behind.
among the photos was a (self-)portrait of the artist as a young man, aged 22 years and covered in red paint, focusing a hand-me-down Canon into a reflection that refused to look back. this young man in the picture was one of the li(v)es, that day was one of the deaths, although i did not recognize or embrace it then.
the survival of the document is impressive, that of the artist likewise, but most astounding of all is the unflinching courage of mirrors as they bear witness, watching us stumble through the lives we leave behind.
Monday, June 22, 2009
(day after) Father's Day
[rabbit hole]
i peered inside myself, looking to recount the previous day, and saw instead the mouth of the void opening wide, half yawn, half laugh, all devouring, all beautiful, the death of self in a thousand sideways glances cast about in coffee shops on a Monday afternoon, day after Father's Day.
[genealogy]
i wonder about my father's father, drunken and dying and 53 years old in a hospital bed on the side of a mountain somewhere in North Carolina. i was two years old, and the only memory i can claim as my own was that of him feeding me chocolate cookies while i sat diapered on the arm of a cigar store Indian... a childhood spent listening to whispers in empty kitchens, constructing a romance of a man i never knew.
i wonder about my father, sober and broken hearted and 56 years old, watching his eldest son die in the passenger seat, driving up the side of that same mountain in North Carolina. he watched a stopped clock feign hypnagogia for 6 ½ years, biding his time, not knowing what to do, and crying to himself at night... two decades spent wishing he had it to do all over again.
[coda]
the wheel of karma spins neither quickly nor slowly, but it is relentless, one score and seven years. there are more lives than this one, and every life has more deaths than we can imagine. may we embrace them all.
i peered inside myself, looking to recount the previous day, and saw instead the mouth of the void opening wide, half yawn, half laugh, all devouring, all beautiful, the death of self in a thousand sideways glances cast about in coffee shops on a Monday afternoon, day after Father's Day.
[genealogy]
i wonder about my father's father, drunken and dying and 53 years old in a hospital bed on the side of a mountain somewhere in North Carolina. i was two years old, and the only memory i can claim as my own was that of him feeding me chocolate cookies while i sat diapered on the arm of a cigar store Indian... a childhood spent listening to whispers in empty kitchens, constructing a romance of a man i never knew.
i wonder about my father, sober and broken hearted and 56 years old, watching his eldest son die in the passenger seat, driving up the side of that same mountain in North Carolina. he watched a stopped clock feign hypnagogia for 6 ½ years, biding his time, not knowing what to do, and crying to himself at night... two decades spent wishing he had it to do all over again.
[coda]
the wheel of karma spins neither quickly nor slowly, but it is relentless, one score and seven years. there are more lives than this one, and every life has more deaths than we can imagine. may we embrace them all.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
MANicure
yesterday afternoon my yin took me for a manicure, and i was greeted by a nail technician named Cassandra. although she speaks no Spanish, she is prone to psychic translations of expletive utterances made to her co-workers. upon hearing this, i spoke (vaguely) of Trojan prophecy and the Apollonian curse of lovers scorned, but my own Cassandra was more interested in comparing our own mythologies.
i soon learned about her service in the first Gulf War, where she dug Kuwaiti sand pits and filled them with kerosene and human feces, a small stinky pyre polluting the arid desert winds. but this is beside the point.
the point is that she asked me if i had ever had a manicure before, to which i responded no. she looked me deep in the eyes and smiled.
"don't be scared. it's called a MANicure."
i soon learned about her service in the first Gulf War, where she dug Kuwaiti sand pits and filled them with kerosene and human feces, a small stinky pyre polluting the arid desert winds. but this is beside the point.
the point is that she asked me if i had ever had a manicure before, to which i responded no. she looked me deep in the eyes and smiled.
"don't be scared. it's called a MANicure."
Friday, June 19, 2009
Gonzo, part deux
[re/cap]
i finished reading a biography of Hunter Thompson yesterday, about the sad final days of a man who crumbled under the weight of his legend. he spent thirty years spent trying to be the man he invented.
[re/flect]
do we not live sufficient fictions already? are we not born into a world of label and definition, of endless shifting forms on the cusp of the void? of staring into mirrors at night and grasping blades of grass in the morning when sun fractures the horizon? what is this compulsion to layer one deceit on top of another until it becomes impossible to remember who we truly are?
[re/turn]
last year ago, Saylor, Tarah, and i watched a documentary on Dr. Thompson, and i remember the melancholy i felt on the ride home. my Augusts seem to serve as requiem, and this book brought me to that place, the screaming nostalgia of hospital parking lot infidelity, the desperate rage of answering machines, and the asphyxiating love of the saddest girl in the world.
i finished reading a biography of Hunter Thompson yesterday, about the sad final days of a man who crumbled under the weight of his legend. he spent thirty years spent trying to be the man he invented.
[re/flect]
do we not live sufficient fictions already? are we not born into a world of label and definition, of endless shifting forms on the cusp of the void? of staring into mirrors at night and grasping blades of grass in the morning when sun fractures the horizon? what is this compulsion to layer one deceit on top of another until it becomes impossible to remember who we truly are?
[re/turn]
last year ago, Saylor, Tarah, and i watched a documentary on Dr. Thompson, and i remember the melancholy i felt on the ride home. my Augusts seem to serve as requiem, and this book brought me to that place, the screaming nostalgia of hospital parking lot infidelity, the desperate rage of answering machines, and the asphyxiating love of the saddest girl in the world.
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