Ooh-ma something is picking up.
Never in all of my everydays has my step bounced as it does right now and I ain’t gonna let it stop. Last year this time something white-noisy had my dial jammed up, all stuck, cellular phantoms ping-ponging my brain waves, internet jukeboxing my eardrums from outer space to pocket-piece machines custom fit to every hole in my head.
Ooh-ma today I am hanging up on the TV towers and phone wires’ tranquilizing lullabies, disconnecting the line, stepping my bounce to the la-la-la-laing drugging my mind…
…give me some more…
Ooh-ma something picked me up, something whistled through the smiling teeth of the shoe-shiners, hummed from the back of the bus to the vagrants at the stops, la-la-la-laing hooch-drunk toothless gums to a new kind of placated numbness…
Zoom zoom zoom zoom!
Starving Former-Retiree Sweating Outside of Plasma-Donation Center: “Hey what’s that tune you’re singing?”
“No matter the name just boom boom boom boom it yourself. Give it a try!”
Zing zing zing zing worries are fading away, spirits lifting like trapped helium, shout it out now everybody with a body ooh-ma that thing and sing along…
Drooling Man with Infected Fillings Collecting Aluminum Cans in a Shopping Cart: “Last year this time, I had a Cadillac…”
Three Hundred Pound Diabetic Single Mother of Four: “Last year this time, I had some money…”
Forgettable Foreign Man of Unknown Nationality Working Eighty Hours This Week at Two Fast Food Restaurants for Minimum Wage: “Last year this time, I was in the door…”
Aging Hipster Chain Smoking in Salvation Army Suit and $100 Ironic Throwback Fedora: “Give me some more!”
One Armed Man in Rags Bumming Change for a Coffee: “Last year this time, I had a Cadillac...”
Emaciated Methamphetamine Addict of Indistinguishable Sex: “Last year this time, I had some money…”
Unbelievably Exhausted Former Prostitute Pulling Ancient Fag Ends from an Ashtray: “Last year this time, I was in the door…”
Now Everybody: “Zoom boom zing la-la la-la la la-la-la!”
No need to question the origins of the tune it’s like you wrote it yourself la-la la-la la la-la-la Don’t worry you about their Cadillacs and money and the home of your honey they’re all just singing like la-la la-la la la-la-la We’ll handle those suspicious satellites and ethereal electric screaming just keep your ears peeled for la-la la-la la la-la-la All the dejected masses of the Earth zooming booming zinging into fucking stupid oblivion la-la la-la la la-la-la.
05 August 2009
01 August 2009
Flies
Mooze sits hunkered over his sister's Dell, typing furiously about the most fascinating topic he can think of. He likes dipping popcorn into honey, and he happened to find both in the pantry this afternoon. The fallout is shameful, and two prospecting flies have already perched on the rim of an empty coffee mug nearby. It won't be long before they find the almost-empty honey tray and radio the network for reinforcements.
Adios and Hoffman, the flies, have finished comparing field notes and moved on to small talk. They're not on what houseflys refer to as an 'unofficial official' -- or an unplanned spot of R&R in the field. Adios rubs his front legs, Hoffman rubs his back, and they're watching each other, the sky, and the enormous cloud of CO2 in the distance with most of their eyes.
"I think you have a drinking problem" sez Hoffman.
Adios has been making a name for himself.
"This body's gettin old, hoss. This place is making me heavy and loud. And the dreams flying through that cloud are hitting me harder every time it come around."
"I thought that's why you came here in the first place. You said there was something you wanted from that cloud."
"Not just the cloud, but the boy. That kid's putting more stress on the air than any I've seen in years, and when I lose this body I may spawn too far to reach him again."
Adios has traveled over six miles from his spawn behind a guitar amplifier in a practice space downtown. His brothers and sisters were forced to take to the streets when their roommates the musicians finally found a new bassist. He was sucking up dumpster juice behind a concert hall when he first felt Mooze. Felt him from across 6 miles of static and an interstate highway, for which Adios spent long days collecting lore and tips concerned with crossing.
Mooze came through first as a vibration that gradually transformed into visible waves, repellent to most flies, but to which Adios was tireless drawn.
House-flies don't use all of their eyes for seeing the same light, at the same resolution, as humans. From my understanding, people appear to house-flies first as shifting surfaces of CO2 production, then as shapes moving within clouds of CO2. Upon closer examination, humans become nodes or traps for vector light. People, especially in groups, take on strange amoebic shapes to fly minds, not reducible to a lack of focus. The fly's sight is fuzzy cuz it takes in more, not less.
They're watching Mooze now, panting carbon cloud, planting his sticky index fingers all over his sister's keyboard. Something like fascination is flying out of his face, whirling in the air above him and even forming a translucent film over the spreading layer of honey.
"Well look at that. It was a trap" sez Hoffman. "See the bind on that light? We'd have been toast to set one foot on that mess."
Adios nods slowly. "You mind calling this in? The Network should know the conditions in here, and I need some time to think this through."
Hoffman's not so sure what this means, but figures his friend will be better off if he has some alone time, rather than rolling with some of the undesirables outside.
"No problem. I'll see you tomorrow."
Hoffman flies off in search of a bedtime snack and Adios, big as a zeppelin, floats as quietly as he can to the underside of the mantle behind Mooze's head. He needs the time to think through what he's seeing. These details are fuzzy, of course, but it's important not to label Adios a pilgrim, though he traveled so many miles to find Mooze. Mooze made of fly repellent these days, but not a chemical kind. This makes Adios more of a salmon swimming up-stream, and Mooze is more than a factory. It's worth wondering if the two might be kindred spirits, who've only to recognize each other's cognizance. It's a wonder that a three-month-old fly might work as an ancient boy's sage. I suppose stranger things have happened.
Adios makes himself comfortable and stares, eyes wide as ever, wondering if he won't return tomorrow as a prophet.
*****
"I guess they can't see the blade cuz it's so thin. Maybe they can't see it cuz it's shiny or reflective. I didn't think it would work, either. I figured he'd fly away as soon as my hand came within a few feet, but it didn't. I just brought the knife down, real slow and steady, and sort of pressed it into his back."Adios and Hoffman, the flies, have finished comparing field notes and moved on to small talk. They're not on what houseflys refer to as an 'unofficial official' -- or an unplanned spot of R&R in the field. Adios rubs his front legs, Hoffman rubs his back, and they're watching each other, the sky, and the enormous cloud of CO2 in the distance with most of their eyes.
"I think you have a drinking problem" sez Hoffman.
Adios has been making a name for himself.
"This body's gettin old, hoss. This place is making me heavy and loud. And the dreams flying through that cloud are hitting me harder every time it come around."
"I thought that's why you came here in the first place. You said there was something you wanted from that cloud."
"Not just the cloud, but the boy. That kid's putting more stress on the air than any I've seen in years, and when I lose this body I may spawn too far to reach him again."
Adios has traveled over six miles from his spawn behind a guitar amplifier in a practice space downtown. His brothers and sisters were forced to take to the streets when their roommates the musicians finally found a new bassist. He was sucking up dumpster juice behind a concert hall when he first felt Mooze. Felt him from across 6 miles of static and an interstate highway, for which Adios spent long days collecting lore and tips concerned with crossing.
Mooze came through first as a vibration that gradually transformed into visible waves, repellent to most flies, but to which Adios was tireless drawn.
House-flies don't use all of their eyes for seeing the same light, at the same resolution, as humans. From my understanding, people appear to house-flies first as shifting surfaces of CO2 production, then as shapes moving within clouds of CO2. Upon closer examination, humans become nodes or traps for vector light. People, especially in groups, take on strange amoebic shapes to fly minds, not reducible to a lack of focus. The fly's sight is fuzzy cuz it takes in more, not less.
They're watching Mooze now, panting carbon cloud, planting his sticky index fingers all over his sister's keyboard. Something like fascination is flying out of his face, whirling in the air above him and even forming a translucent film over the spreading layer of honey.
"Well look at that. It was a trap" sez Hoffman. "See the bind on that light? We'd have been toast to set one foot on that mess."
Adios nods slowly. "You mind calling this in? The Network should know the conditions in here, and I need some time to think this through."
Hoffman's not so sure what this means, but figures his friend will be better off if he has some alone time, rather than rolling with some of the undesirables outside.
"No problem. I'll see you tomorrow."
Hoffman flies off in search of a bedtime snack and Adios, big as a zeppelin, floats as quietly as he can to the underside of the mantle behind Mooze's head. He needs the time to think through what he's seeing. These details are fuzzy, of course, but it's important not to label Adios a pilgrim, though he traveled so many miles to find Mooze. Mooze made of fly repellent these days, but not a chemical kind. This makes Adios more of a salmon swimming up-stream, and Mooze is more than a factory. It's worth wondering if the two might be kindred spirits, who've only to recognize each other's cognizance. It's a wonder that a three-month-old fly might work as an ancient boy's sage. I suppose stranger things have happened.
Adios makes himself comfortable and stares, eyes wide as ever, wondering if he won't return tomorrow as a prophet.
*****
"And it just went through? It didn't try to fly away or freak out?"
"Not at all. And it keeps working. If i see a fly in my house I never try to swat it now. I just pick up a knife and slowly cut it in half. I've missed a few times, but once you get the technique down it's hard to fuck up."
Mark is having a hard time believing that Eddy kills flies with a knife, Pitz is in the back seat practicing on Mark's upholstery. Maybe it would work if the fly in question wasn't so eager to find a way out of Mark's car.
Pitz notices the empty seat next to him and calls up "hey where's Mooze at?"
"Dunno" sez Eddy, "prolly dead."
The boys are out foraging tonight. They just finished hitting the big-box stores with nothin to show for it but dirty clothes and a frozen chicken for Pitz's dog. Dumpsters these days have a bad habit of being picked clean by 9:30, and the boys rarely get started on time. Consensus has been achieved to raid the bins of urban and near-urban apartment blocks. They won't find much food, but young-professionals have a habit of leaving some pretty exciting trash every week. Plus we, I mean they, can always roll around behind a pizza joint later and find enough pie to last until tomorrow night.
"Have you ever been to these places, Mark?" sez Pitz.
"Not yet, I got the tip from Bennie. He says these downtown development types are spoiled rotten and throw out all kinds of stuff."
"Aren't there guards or something?"
"No, but if they see you rifling through a pack of papers they might think that you're trying to steal their identity."
In that case, who knows what someone might do. The boys are familiar enough with defending their identity and individuality within their circle of friends. The act of "copping a style" can illicit unpredictable and ostensibly nonsequitorious reactions. "It's all about identity" says Sirus, who wears an Ottoman seal around his neck, hoping to sound versed in what he is not. "I'm Turkish origin, but I identify as Ottoman." Eddy had to tease him - "But no one is Ottoman anymore. Doesn't that just make you Arab now?" Sirus had flushed "no, I'm Turkish." "Ya," sez Eddie, "and I'm a Nordic warrior, but it isn't so hip to call yourself Arab these days, is it." Eddy doesn't think we should invoke ancestors in a shithole like this. Especially not for cool-points.
The boys finally find the dumpster for the first block.
"Alright, everybody in."
"What's another word for pirate's treasure?" Pitz singing into the bags, coaxing treasures from hefty and gladlock. In order: a spinning-dolphin paperweight, deflated balloons, coffee grinds and banana peels, a Russian doll set, a pressure cooker, a half-broken china tea set, one and a half lamps, fancy candles, a computer monitor, two blankets, a brown and red bull-whip, a bag of assorted vests, a dead squirrel, a dirty diaper...
Lena is back to reading when Sal hears the singing from outside. It's not everyday you see 3 men singing in a dumpster.
...a hanging basket, a pair of fake-moccasin slippers, a conch shell, a two-foot tall painted wooden parrot, an aquarium, three croquet mallets, fuzzy hand-cuffs, a DVD-player...
Pitz is reaching for something. A bottle that had been on the surface was swallowed from view when Mark jumped in. It had looked like ranch dressing. He's found it now, he can see the cap trying to nestle itself deeper into shifting trash bags.
He's under a spell now; no one goes shoulder-deep in trash for a bottle of salad dressing, especially one that's probably empty.
Finally, successful Pitz pulls himself from the quicksand.
"Ah, crap. It's just honey mustard..."
ooowwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
...the boys dash for the car as Sal's cry punches through each of them. Tendons fray, knees buckle. Pitz keeps singing but his song has risen an octave and is made of gibberish and slur.*****
31 July 2009
A Tuesday night two-step
I'm curious.
I'm curious because I experienced a strange sensation today without the help of anything stronger than caffeine, nicotine, or sleep deprivation.
I'm wondering if you've felt this too?
It comes after a period of lethargy or general motionlessness. Let's say, for example, if you've been meditating recently for long periods of time, or if you've been wrestling with questions and problems of yours that have no real answers...or solutions...or bandaids, and you've been telling yourself that worrying is useless because it bears no fruit, or if you've been watching some cheesy teen TV drama so you can forget about your own...
Ahem...guilty, guilty, guilty and guilty.
Mea culpa, mea culpa, da dum da dum da dumb.
Right, so you've stirred yourself from this pitiful nest and you take a walk.
It's nighttime. You're alone.
And all of a sudden your pupils dilate and the darkness is full of contrast. Conversations are spilling from balconies and porches, smoke is dancing between teeth, bad music is pounding from passing cars, and in the distance insects are playing assorted strings and sinews. Not only are you aware of this around you, but you feel like bits of you and your consciousness are spiraling off your shoulders like wisps of smoke, billowing behind you as you walk. It's as if you were trailed by a cape of your awareness, and it tastes like power.
I don't know about you, but I smile at this point.
Inevitably, you get a rock in your sandal, or you run into your friends and the cape disappears; but I enjoy this space between isolation and social interaction. It makes me feel that I have my feet ever so slightly off the ground. You?
The next number is one that's hard to tap along to. It's a strange rhythm that I dance to on long-distance phone calls and scrambled text messages. It's a tune about pixels and sound bytes that magically convert to sledge hammers, bruises, tears, and sharing medical records.
Let's break it down to the base.
It's thumpin'.
Thumpa thumpa.
The base is based on ghost kisses and fiery gazes.
On heat and pheromones.
On late-night conversations over wine and sharing a shower.
Yeah, it's rockin'.
But the base fades and all you hear is highs. It's solo time and I haven't tuned my fiddle. It's a contrapunteo with fragments of your tenor punctuated with my broken baritone and a lot of white noise.
The chorus is a cliché, "can you hear me now?". I wish we were saying it in jest. But, we're not. We're looping. Not that I don't appreciate your solo contribution, but sometimes I wish we would start a new track.
Sometimes we just let the noise ride out, but silence isn't golden in this scenario. If I drop out of the track for a few days, you come up with lyrics like, "just making sure you're still alive". If you go off the track and I ask, you were busy. Busy. End of movement. I really wish you could echo some of my lines. But "I love you" seems to turn to static or a sighed whisper.
I guess you're just busy.
Right...busy.
I don't want to break up the band, but I think we need lessons.
I'm curious because I experienced a strange sensation today without the help of anything stronger than caffeine, nicotine, or sleep deprivation.
I'm wondering if you've felt this too?
It comes after a period of lethargy or general motionlessness. Let's say, for example, if you've been meditating recently for long periods of time, or if you've been wrestling with questions and problems of yours that have no real answers...or solutions...or bandaids, and you've been telling yourself that worrying is useless because it bears no fruit, or if you've been watching some cheesy teen TV drama so you can forget about your own...
Ahem...guilty, guilty, guilty and guilty.
Mea culpa, mea culpa, da dum da dum da dumb.
Right, so you've stirred yourself from this pitiful nest and you take a walk.
It's nighttime. You're alone.
And all of a sudden your pupils dilate and the darkness is full of contrast. Conversations are spilling from balconies and porches, smoke is dancing between teeth, bad music is pounding from passing cars, and in the distance insects are playing assorted strings and sinews. Not only are you aware of this around you, but you feel like bits of you and your consciousness are spiraling off your shoulders like wisps of smoke, billowing behind you as you walk. It's as if you were trailed by a cape of your awareness, and it tastes like power.
I don't know about you, but I smile at this point.
Inevitably, you get a rock in your sandal, or you run into your friends and the cape disappears; but I enjoy this space between isolation and social interaction. It makes me feel that I have my feet ever so slightly off the ground. You?
The next number is one that's hard to tap along to. It's a strange rhythm that I dance to on long-distance phone calls and scrambled text messages. It's a tune about pixels and sound bytes that magically convert to sledge hammers, bruises, tears, and sharing medical records.
Let's break it down to the base.
It's thumpin'.
Thumpa thumpa.
The base is based on ghost kisses and fiery gazes.
On heat and pheromones.
On late-night conversations over wine and sharing a shower.
Yeah, it's rockin'.
But the base fades and all you hear is highs. It's solo time and I haven't tuned my fiddle. It's a contrapunteo with fragments of your tenor punctuated with my broken baritone and a lot of white noise.
The chorus is a cliché, "can you hear me now?". I wish we were saying it in jest. But, we're not. We're looping. Not that I don't appreciate your solo contribution, but sometimes I wish we would start a new track.
Sometimes we just let the noise ride out, but silence isn't golden in this scenario. If I drop out of the track for a few days, you come up with lyrics like, "just making sure you're still alive". If you go off the track and I ask, you were busy. Busy. End of movement. I really wish you could echo some of my lines. But "I love you" seems to turn to static or a sighed whisper.
I guess you're just busy.
Right...busy.
I don't want to break up the band, but I think we need lessons.
Afterbirth Defector
Remember:
Peaking heads, first lights, unmuffling of machinery, the stench of everything all at at once...
Delivery room options vanish white sterility giving way to red trouser glares something was delivered something anticipating red trousers over diseased black fur other then that copyright-denied descriptions and silver-screen ambiguities. Horror held by its ankles one gloved hand gets cocked and with one theatrical snap... Time turns over operating table spins out of proportion scene shifts gloved hands now holding their mother's ankles dragged belly-down over white sand drugged on cough syrup to ease the pain of coat-hanger burns only to be aggravated by the sun and the sand and the deliberate negligence of a mother's solemn gaze all too intense to forgive the inevitable rejection born into the eyes of her child...his was a different kind of sadness...feelings that could not belong to her since she forfeited her own gaze when she aborted the birthright...set the trap and it sprung but sometimes they survive...
The boy the one with the burns and the someday, just-you-wait-gloves knew right there on that beach that his mother was no longer his, that abandonment could be execution...this was not only his this came with him. He released her ankles and she crawled out into the water somewhere and died.
Somewhere near the Gulf of Thailand mostly vacant caves chewed the coastline undisturbed for millennia, breathing in and out the tide, sometimes shaky places striking tightrope-horizons...
TECTONIC SHIFT
Lonely arctics half-year's Winter closing in, imagine that last fleeting daytime moment... behaviors possessed by thoughts of calendars obsessed with moving galactic discs, gaps in stellar maps... one slips in from the left...
SOLAR ECLIPSE
Walt Disney's nightmares: that last sun that does not make it from one increasingly shaky horizon to the other... slipping off the disc... no more calendars... that last fleeting daytime moment...
His left lung held its breath in a cooler for three days from lonely arctic vacations until stench of chain-smoking cartoon mice sweeps over the Gulf of Thailand. Believe it or not: the most advanced cancer research known to man was/is/will be taking place in Thai laboratories hidden inconspicuously deep under shaky-plate-mouth-caverns. And it has been this way for millennia. American government appreciation for cold-war cartoon-character-assassins not too mention rodent-themed vacation resorts, tip of the lonely-arctic-iceberg-capitalism... strengthened ties to industrializing third-world checkbooks every Thailander a tourist... too many reasons to not go through with it nevermind shaky horizons and slipping discs...
Current research indicates that cancer cells, under specific conditions, can continue to regenerate independent of the original body, of anybody. The bulbous tumor on Walt Disney's left lung breathing life into the neverborners, neverdiers, unabortables... that kid with the white gloves knew it he saw it in his mother's eyes and there in the operating room... white sterilization... red trousers...
daytime delivery options fade
shaky discs off the edge of the horizon
solar eclipse
or was it an aborted sunrise?
days that were never born others crawl out into the water somewhere and die.
Peaking heads, first lights, unmuffling of machinery, the stench of everything all at at once...
Delivery room options vanish white sterility giving way to red trouser glares something was delivered something anticipating red trousers over diseased black fur other then that copyright-denied descriptions and silver-screen ambiguities. Horror held by its ankles one gloved hand gets cocked and with one theatrical snap... Time turns over operating table spins out of proportion scene shifts gloved hands now holding their mother's ankles dragged belly-down over white sand drugged on cough syrup to ease the pain of coat-hanger burns only to be aggravated by the sun and the sand and the deliberate negligence of a mother's solemn gaze all too intense to forgive the inevitable rejection born into the eyes of her child...his was a different kind of sadness...feelings that could not belong to her since she forfeited her own gaze when she aborted the birthright...set the trap and it sprung but sometimes they survive...
The boy the one with the burns and the someday, just-you-wait-gloves knew right there on that beach that his mother was no longer his, that abandonment could be execution...this was not only his this came with him. He released her ankles and she crawled out into the water somewhere and died.
Somewhere near the Gulf of Thailand mostly vacant caves chewed the coastline undisturbed for millennia, breathing in and out the tide, sometimes shaky places striking tightrope-horizons...
TECTONIC SHIFT
Lonely arctics half-year's Winter closing in, imagine that last fleeting daytime moment... behaviors possessed by thoughts of calendars obsessed with moving galactic discs, gaps in stellar maps... one slips in from the left...
SOLAR ECLIPSE
Walt Disney's nightmares: that last sun that does not make it from one increasingly shaky horizon to the other... slipping off the disc... no more calendars... that last fleeting daytime moment...
His left lung held its breath in a cooler for three days from lonely arctic vacations until stench of chain-smoking cartoon mice sweeps over the Gulf of Thailand. Believe it or not: the most advanced cancer research known to man was/is/will be taking place in Thai laboratories hidden inconspicuously deep under shaky-plate-mouth-caverns. And it has been this way for millennia. American government appreciation for cold-war cartoon-character-assassins not too mention rodent-themed vacation resorts, tip of the lonely-arctic-iceberg-capitalism... strengthened ties to industrializing third-world checkbooks every Thailander a tourist... too many reasons to not go through with it nevermind shaky horizons and slipping discs...
Current research indicates that cancer cells, under specific conditions, can continue to regenerate independent of the original body, of anybody. The bulbous tumor on Walt Disney's left lung breathing life into the neverborners, neverdiers, unabortables... that kid with the white gloves knew it he saw it in his mother's eyes and there in the operating room... white sterilization... red trousers...
daytime delivery options fade
shaky discs off the edge of the horizon
solar eclipse
or was it an aborted sunrise?
days that were never born others crawl out into the water somewhere and die.
one for the dust collectors
the withering roots of a fell tree
buried beneath your feet
in a thriving forest
at the dead end
of a back country road
to and from nothing special
its petrified seed
splintered unnoticed a groove of your shoe
stayed with you for days til
deposited hopelessly
on blacktop erasure
where an old house had been
haunted by hungry rats
and lonely houseflys
years condemned
the home of an old recluse
last of his kin
died alone
meditations rattling listlessly
like the chattering of false teeth
i don't ask anything except
that you feel nothing
buried beneath your feet
in a thriving forest
at the dead end
of a back country road
to and from nothing special
its petrified seed
splintered unnoticed a groove of your shoe
stayed with you for days til
deposited hopelessly
on blacktop erasure
where an old house had been
haunted by hungry rats
and lonely houseflys
years condemned
the home of an old recluse
last of his kin
died alone
meditations rattling listlessly
like the chattering of false teeth
i don't ask anything except
that you feel nothing
30 July 2009
"So we're all together in this, right?
Just tell me now if you don't think that we're all up to this."
Everyone gives some sort of flighty but definite response. Definite not indicating conviction, but the understood consequences of equivocation--get-the-fuck-out-I-thought-we-were-friends-do-you-even-care? Except that everyone does want to get the fuck out, and they did think they were friends, and they don't even care. Because this is fucking stupid. This is probably the dumbest thing that all of them have ever done.
It's not that they even want to do it; but, it's like how you'll carefully deposit your car into a cement wall--tin can carefully accordioned into a small space maybe where a bird had once built a nest--so you don't hit a fucking racoon. Or a squirrel. A chipmunk, a rabbit, a cat, a dog, a kindergartener. All perceived each the other to be more or less as innocent as all of these critters. Even the omnivores. And most of them are vegetarian.
Bad news. Cue the coroner trying to find teeth to see if anyone was actually in the car. Picture a squirrel in a tree overlooking the cameraman and the reporter--whole hoard of teeth saved up for winter. One could argue that teeth are seeds and nuts--they have roots. What would grow if you planted a tooth? A little brother or sister? A new best friend? But roots don't mean things grow. It just means they're hard to uproot.
Things used to be so great. Something outside of all of our controls must have happened to make things be this way. If you thought they were right, you'd probably be right. If you thought they were wrong, you'd probably be right. It's all just so sad that their childhoods, their first girlfriends or boyfriends, made them save so much energy, affection, Feelings, that when they finally sprouted, those roots went fuckin' deep. I quote:
So our characters in this story grew up in deserts. There's no real need for elaboration, but I'll indulge myself. They're human cacti. They grow in small groups, they conserve energy and emotions, and they have really fucking sharp spikes so they don't get eaten. You know, cactus spikes are just modified leaves. Spinach and lettuce, they evolved so you could eat the juicy leaves. Cacti evolved to keep you away. Think about that for a second. So they end up just sitting around and waiting for that thick and fast rain to last them the rest of the year, but end up withstanding dust storm after dust storm.
Don't get me wrong. If you can get close enough to one, everything inside just comes tumbling out. You can make tequila or eat the fruit that's so full of seeds that it's almost not worth swallowing or spitting them out to eat the juicy, delicious emotional ovary. The downside is that if you do get at what's inside, most of it's just going to fall onto the dry-tiled desert floor, disappear into the small caves (remember that this is the Scene). Then the other jealous cacti, after a short time, get to feed on its insides and make themselves feel better. Did I mention that cacti are green with envy? I forgot to mention that. That's an important metaphor.
So out of some fucked up idea of what will help--not praying, or any shit like that, they're sure--they've decided to do something stupid that's just going to make everything worse. Cacti survive the way they survive because that's the only way they can survive. This isn't some rich, thick rainforest. You take what you can get, hold it in when you can, and only try to give back enough to keep it coming.
Everyone gives some sort of flighty but definite response. Definite not indicating conviction, but the understood consequences of equivocation--get-the-fuck-out-I-thought-we-were-friends-do-you-even-care? Except that everyone does want to get the fuck out, and they did think they were friends, and they don't even care. Because this is fucking stupid. This is probably the dumbest thing that all of them have ever done.
It's not that they even want to do it; but, it's like how you'll carefully deposit your car into a cement wall--tin can carefully accordioned into a small space maybe where a bird had once built a nest--so you don't hit a fucking racoon. Or a squirrel. A chipmunk, a rabbit, a cat, a dog, a kindergartener. All perceived each the other to be more or less as innocent as all of these critters. Even the omnivores. And most of them are vegetarian.
Bad news. Cue the coroner trying to find teeth to see if anyone was actually in the car. Picture a squirrel in a tree overlooking the cameraman and the reporter--whole hoard of teeth saved up for winter. One could argue that teeth are seeds and nuts--they have roots. What would grow if you planted a tooth? A little brother or sister? A new best friend? But roots don't mean things grow. It just means they're hard to uproot.
Things used to be so great. Something outside of all of our controls must have happened to make things be this way. If you thought they were right, you'd probably be right. If you thought they were wrong, you'd probably be right. It's all just so sad that their childhoods, their first girlfriends or boyfriends, made them save so much energy, affection, Feelings, that when they finally sprouted, those roots went fuckin' deep. I quote:
The distribution of vascular [read: emotional] plant [read: human] roots within soil [read: the Scene] depends on plant form [read: personality], the spatial and temporal availability of water [read: love] and nutrients [read: affection], and the physical properties of the soil [read: the Scene again]. The deepest roots are generally found in deserts [read: deserts] ... The majority of roots on most plants [read: people] are however found relatively close to the surface where nutrient [read: emotional] availability and aeration [read: exposure] are more favourable for growth. Rooting depth may be physically [read: emotionally] restricted by rock [read: overly Christian parents, stepdads, etc.] or compacted soil [read: you moved a lot when you were a kid, maybe] close below the surface, or by anaerobic soil [read: emotionally suffocating] conditions.
So our characters in this story grew up in deserts. There's no real need for elaboration, but I'll indulge myself. They're human cacti. They grow in small groups, they conserve energy and emotions, and they have really fucking sharp spikes so they don't get eaten. You know, cactus spikes are just modified leaves. Spinach and lettuce, they evolved so you could eat the juicy leaves. Cacti evolved to keep you away. Think about that for a second. So they end up just sitting around and waiting for that thick and fast rain to last them the rest of the year, but end up withstanding dust storm after dust storm.
Don't get me wrong. If you can get close enough to one, everything inside just comes tumbling out. You can make tequila or eat the fruit that's so full of seeds that it's almost not worth swallowing or spitting them out to eat the juicy, delicious emotional ovary. The downside is that if you do get at what's inside, most of it's just going to fall onto the dry-tiled desert floor, disappear into the small caves (remember that this is the Scene). Then the other jealous cacti, after a short time, get to feed on its insides and make themselves feel better. Did I mention that cacti are green with envy? I forgot to mention that. That's an important metaphor.
So out of some fucked up idea of what will help--not praying, or any shit like that, they're sure--they've decided to do something stupid that's just going to make everything worse. Cacti survive the way they survive because that's the only way they can survive. This isn't some rich, thick rainforest. You take what you can get, hold it in when you can, and only try to give back enough to keep it coming.
29 July 2009
false starts
sing songey...homemade winey...paper cup sip sip dissappeary...
ive become lost down the paper barrell of a cigarrette for a sign that all the pretty singing wont break the streak i have going...
just thinking my way through every dream ive had in the past week..waiting it out.
if cataloged it would line up chronologically thusly:
monday-tornado dream. shattering glass. blades of grass cutting paper thin red ropes through my cheek bones
tuesday- moving trucks dust and fruit flies
wednesday- copper wires and tongue rings
thursday- helicopter chase scene through red letter desert sunsets
and here they collide on a friday evening...sketch scenes coagulating to the rhythm of a heart murmer.. pitter pattering through my feet on an old carpet in a friendly living room.
and i remember that dreams are boring. and im very tired of characterizations and their empty projections.
so some action.... i expect the me here to get up at any minute and collide with a friendly meeting on the street. any street in america perhaps or with any luck and with enough wine then maybe a freighter out of dodge into the murky depths and possibility. but it just so happens that im landlocked and i have to limit my scopes. so i sit in place and wait for my lovely singing friends to get the spark to take to the streets. to ramble out for nowhere go...no home close...only further and often...
nothing catelogued
nowhere charted
all the time
these expectations are met with more and more drunken guitar sing alongs and fruit flies cruising low... dodging lighter flames and sudden air currents of shouted 90's.......oh! but wait whats that?!
out the door now. just close enough. in this shapeshifting cobble stone neighborhood. something dark. open. willing. calling out?
is this me?
who is that shadow standing in the door way...?
the gloom of tomorrow's hangovers? promises too excited and shifting to keep up with? worse- my collecting anxieties of sunken bridges across tomorrows possibilities....
oh well..best not mull over it now.... the moon hangs low in a strange misty summer midnight and i havent the courage to contend with its countless scores of destitute phantoms looking to steal my relative sanity...to steal off to a mystery and broken heart im not willing to stare in the eye
so i hold adventure at bay... for some other day...
some waking morning in the grass of a friends back yard... face to face with the death month of summer.. moanful greetings to he broken up dog days...
for all those wilted books on my shelves
and false starts.
ive become lost down the paper barrell of a cigarrette for a sign that all the pretty singing wont break the streak i have going...
just thinking my way through every dream ive had in the past week..waiting it out.
if cataloged it would line up chronologically thusly:
monday-tornado dream. shattering glass. blades of grass cutting paper thin red ropes through my cheek bones
tuesday- moving trucks dust and fruit flies
wednesday- copper wires and tongue rings
thursday- helicopter chase scene through red letter desert sunsets
and here they collide on a friday evening...sketch scenes coagulating to the rhythm of a heart murmer.. pitter pattering through my feet on an old carpet in a friendly living room.
and i remember that dreams are boring. and im very tired of characterizations and their empty projections.
so some action.... i expect the me here to get up at any minute and collide with a friendly meeting on the street. any street in america perhaps or with any luck and with enough wine then maybe a freighter out of dodge into the murky depths and possibility. but it just so happens that im landlocked and i have to limit my scopes. so i sit in place and wait for my lovely singing friends to get the spark to take to the streets. to ramble out for nowhere go...no home close...only further and often...
nothing catelogued
nowhere charted
all the time
these expectations are met with more and more drunken guitar sing alongs and fruit flies cruising low... dodging lighter flames and sudden air currents of shouted 90's.......oh! but wait whats that?!
out the door now. just close enough. in this shapeshifting cobble stone neighborhood. something dark. open. willing. calling out?
is this me?
who is that shadow standing in the door way...?
the gloom of tomorrow's hangovers? promises too excited and shifting to keep up with? worse- my collecting anxieties of sunken bridges across tomorrows possibilities....
oh well..best not mull over it now.... the moon hangs low in a strange misty summer midnight and i havent the courage to contend with its countless scores of destitute phantoms looking to steal my relative sanity...to steal off to a mystery and broken heart im not willing to stare in the eye
so i hold adventure at bay... for some other day...
some waking morning in the grass of a friends back yard... face to face with the death month of summer.. moanful greetings to he broken up dog days...
for all those wilted books on my shelves
and false starts.
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