With apologies to Nina Simone, but I don't even know the color of my true love's hair. But to be perfectly fair, it changes an awful lot. Smiles for miles.
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Friday, May 30, 2008
Irma Thomas, what happened to make your voice so sad? I can hear it crack as your words spill out. I seek your songs out on skip and just listen again and again. It's raining, time is on my side, but nobody wants to hear nobody's troubles. You're always saying that you want to be free, but you're still gonna cry until your tears run dry.
Clarence Carter, how can you sing so happy? You're 15 miles from town with another man's wife. You were so ragged everybody called you patches. Your papa was a great old man, I can see him with a shovel in his hand.
Oh, Tina, you can't miss what you can't miss nothing that you never had. Ike tried all he could to hold onto you, even if he didn't understand love and was a mess and an asshole but who knows. Maybe he loved you. Maybe he didn't. But your old words are haunting.
Sing me to sleep.
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I want enough money, only enough to settle up my debts. Pay off the people who demand to be paid off, the people for whom you can measure years as cold hard cash, and then all my obligations will be done. I'll pay this house off and set it on fire. Pack the dog and cats up and drive in one direction until the car dies finally, then set it on fire too and watch it burn. Then we'll walk until we're too tired to walk and wherever we are, that's where we'll be. I will press the restart button and start all over somewhere that I haven't let anyone down, somewhere where I don't know anyone's name, somewhere without mistakes. I'll cut off all my hair, I'll change how I dress, I'll shave every day, I won't have to carry me any more. I won't be me. I'll leave me in one of those fires so no one has to pay for it any more. I will do the slow dissolve and the fade and the short goodbye instead of saying good night a million times wishing that someone would look my way. Sweet dreams.
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Thursday, May 29, 2008
I may have used this picture before but I don't really give a shit.
The last post reminded me of something I wanted to wax on about, as I tend to do.
I think Between the Bars is the best song ever written. It's doomed love, as most love songs should be, but it's hopeful in the midst of its sadness. "Drink up with me now, and forget all about the pressure of days. Do what I say and I'll make you okay."
It makes me realized that life is sometimes better when viewed through a haze. When you don't forget that all it is is an armor for a few hours and you wake up and its still there, all of it. And it will always be there until one day it's not. I guess Elliot Smith goes in the heroes who were junkies that died category. I mean, he stabbed a post a note that said "I'm so sorry—love, Elliott. God forgive me." to his heart and died.
The songs are so devastating and I wish I could come up with a moral, but that's life. No morals and just some chemicals.
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62 days, 9 hours, 13 minutes and 53 seconds.
52 seconds.
51 seconds.
I am making a list and I've checked it so many times. Pros and cons. Whys and whatfors. Where and how far? It's all being calculated. My abruptness is calculated. I still have an emergency outfit in the trunk from when things were bad. In a different way. This recycled air and recycled life and recycled plots are all starting to get monotonous. As Elliot Smith would say, "Oh, well, okay."
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Sitting here writing subject lines for email blasts is not how I thought it would all end up or where I would be at this juncture. I am really creative at eblast titles. It's what I do. Someday, aliens are gonna come here and see our ruined world and marvel at the tremendous level of skill that I had with polishing shit into gold. Of course, I will be long dead, a casualty of bums on a train. I would maybe like some recognition or at least a reply instead of having to be shivved or shanked and recognized long after my ignoble demise.
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There is a dead bird in the sink upstairs. I don't know how it got there or how it so perfectly ended up in that sink. I've sat on those steps and had the best conversations of my life and I've laid on the floor and wished the world away. And now there is a dead bird up there fucking with my feng shui and I really care less.
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All of my heroes are junkies. They all died looking for something, some high they could never find.
Orson Welles never got close to making a movie as great as Citizen Kane, a movie no one recognized as great when it came out. He ended his life making wine commercials and yelling at copywriters like me. Fat, bloated, unable to get money to finish any of his movies, stuck in Muppet Movies, doing voices for Transformers.
Andy Wood dreamed of being a rock star and when he was close, a week before it would happen for real, he overdosed.
Jack Parsons lost his job, his dream woman and blew himself to pieces trying to create life.
Bill Hicks kicked drugs and influenced people and was never afraid to get in people's faces. He died from cancer that came fast and hard.
James Shelby Downard said this quote that I live my life by: "Never allow anyone the luxury of assuming that because the dead and deadening scenery of the American city-of-dreadful-night is so utterly devoid of mystery, so thoroughly flat-footed, sterile and infantile, so burdened with the illusory gloss of "baseball-hot dogs-apple-pie-and-Chevrolet" that it is somehow outside the psycho-sexual domain. The eternal pagan psychodrama is escalated under these "modern" conditions precisely because sorcery is not what 20th century man can accept as real." His girlfriend was kidnapped or left him or whatever reality was to him and came back as a robot, circuits hanging from her ass, used as a sex doll for the corrupt government that he would spend his life fighting. He was insane, he wrote crazy things and yet, I find so much to love.
Tesla was the smartest man who ever lived and was thought to be a crackpot. Probably because he was. He was more in love with a pigeon than any woman. He hated earrings. He made things that we can't even understand today. The world would be so different if he was followed.
Hank Williams last song was "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive." And he didn't. He was dead in a limo at 29, injected with b12 and morphine, trying to get his life back. I'm not gonna worry wrinkles in my brow/'Cause nothin's ever gonna be alright nohow/No matter how I struggle and strive/I'll never get out of this world alive. Five days later, his illegitimate daughter was born. He left behind the saddest songs ever recorded.
Does creativity come with a price? Does making beauty come with pain? Why don't the drugs always work?
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I wrote something back in my zine days that I would never see someone get old and never know the lines on their face. It was as maudlin then as it is now. My emotions embarrass me and I wish that I could get a knife and cut them from my brain and stomp on them until my ankles were awash in gore.
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This is the first comic book that I saw Nick Fury in. My grandparents lived next to a junk dealer and he gave me a big stack of Marvel Two-in-Ones. In these, the Thing met all sorts of people. Really, any kind of team-up book is a weird conceit, because most comic book fans just want to see fights. So the Thing would fight and then make up and then the two of the heroes would see that by working together they could do anything. As you can see, this is a bullshit concept.
Anyways, I was in Toys R Us and they had all these Marvel collectors sets. And right in front is this one, with Nick Fury, and I remember the first time I read it and wanted to have an eyepatch and be a super spy. Six year old Sam running around pretending he was Nick Fury. Twenty year old Sam. Thirty five year old Sam. Always pretending.
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Every page is blood and sweat and ideas. They sit stacked and slowly turning into yellow in the midst of somewhere they ended up. I used to hold on to everything and my room was stacks and boxes and backing boards and posters and toys. And now, all I have is a radio and a nightstand. I used to feel the need to have everything but now I am slowly realizing that none of us have anything. We borrow it for awhile. And then we all go to a sideways house and sit and wait for someone who wants to read us again.
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My brother was in love with Michael Jackson.
We could not afford the fancy red jacket. But we could get him an unofficial glove at the flea market. He wore that thing all the time. Even to church. He took communion with that glove on, holding his Cabbage Patch Kid in the other hand. I got the shit kicked out of me in school for defending his right to wear a glittery glove and carry a doll.
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When I was younger (which is usually a theme around here), I used to touch everything in every room. It would take me hours to leave places I had never been before, because I knew I would never be there again. So I wanted to feel everything and drink every memory in and hope that tactile sensation would be enough to mollify my loss of never being able to go back. I lost that need in my fingers but not in my heart. But sometimes you just have to forget and kill off your needs and your memories.
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Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
It's ironic, if that's the correct definition.
As a child, I feared the devil with all my heart. I would do everything I could to protect myself from him. I would never think of the number 18. I would do everything even and with only the right side. I would never make bets with the devil and scream that I would not. It obsessed my childhood.
And look at me now.
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Monday, May 19, 2008
Peanut butter, banana, and bacon just go together. I know its an unlikely threesome but sometimes in this mixed up world you just have to throw caution to the wind. I figure if its good enough for a man who's life Motto was "taking care of business" its good enough for me, and you for that matter.
also the photo is of blueberry waffles with peanut butter and syrup. Much like life you have to spread the peanut butter while the waffle's hot. If you don't you have to reheat then your waffles all mushy and no one wants a mushy waffle. do you understand what i'm saying? No, well here it is. that shit is tasty. the end.
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Friday, May 16, 2008
There are things to throw away. And other things to keep. Just because something is broken now doesn't mean that I won't find the part for it in a few weeks or months. Maybe at Marc's. Maybe at Rodgers. I'll scour the aisles of every close out store. I will learn to be patient and slowly work toward making what others see as destris into something magic that can fly through pink clouds and form a perfect vessel for handholding.
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It's nearly dark. The sky is growing dead and the birds have even stopped flying. Now is the time for fireflies and final last games of freeze tag. Tonight, I will listen for the joyous shouts of children and wonder what my own child's play would sound like. Perhaps some day I will learn for myself.
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you can't buy a gun when you're crying
i went down to the river bank and screamed at the trains. i sobbed so hard that i couldn't tell my tears from the rain. i stood there so long i was soaked to the soul. my phone is full of loving texts and my email over flows with creative dreams. but there is not enough technology in the world to fill this hole. i stood there for a moment and contemplated hoping the train and riding it out of town. disappearing into the night. instead i came home and i sit here and pray for a sunny day. i pray to be able to hold on and not fall to pieces and float away. i beg that the wind doesn't gust too hard that you let go of my kite strings. for a moment i would be joyous with my freedom but eventually i would fall to the ground ragged, beaten, and tattered. i ask for the storm to roll on by and for the levies to hold.
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Thursday, May 15, 2008
words alone never could save us
Stuck in trees. Wrapped around poles. Floating off into the air. Just let go.
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I really want you to sigh, never in tune just sigh
Of all the times that it’s happened, these three times were the worst.
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You've never been a good cat. Let's face it. Well, ok, to me, you are a good cat. You make me happy. But you have never had any idea of how to behave when company comes around. Or when food is out. I know the drugs make you ravenous. I get it. And I appreciate that you kept me company yesterday and purred and made the world make sense in your cat way. I guess we're kind of stuck together in this, you, the drug addicted cat with a thyroid condition and IBS and me, the drug addicted alcoholic human with crazy in my head.
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On what it feels like to sit half awake and write
The words flow from my fingers like slowly congealed drops of mustard when you don't get the bottle clean. It used to be so easy to say what I mean and feel it. And now, there are times when the greatest truths of the world move behind my lips and in my head, I have already said them, but in truth, I can't get them past my teeth. The trouble with the greatest truths in the world is that they really don't matter at all.
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On what it feels like to drown
Float and cling to driftwood, whatever crumb I can. Analyze that flotsam and wish that it were a whole ship of my own. But as my legs dangle into the murky depths below, my body grows more and more weary. Or wearier. But some part of my brain urges me to swim on, to grab whatever pieces I can and hope I can assemble them into something from nothing. Survival to me is something I understand as much as God or the fairer sex. And at times like this, I want to know what it is to drown. Some say it feels like sleep; others say that the worst pain ever is when your lungs explode. No one knows but the dead and they keep their secrets well, don't they? I look in vain for a siren, a mermaid, or the sails of your vessel. But all I see around me is water, slowly churning. I'd call your name, but saltwater and exhaustion have claimed my voice once and for all. I dream of letting go. For now, for one more night, I'll be content to float here and watch the stars until my eyes close. Tomorrow will be the day that I finally permit the waves to take me.
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(Note - there is some CL Nazi that took this one down. But you know, maybe it's best in the form it ended up being.)
On what it feels like to burn
Being finite makes more sense to me than eternity. I cannot wrap my head around length. So instead I push my head into other things. I go after things with a zeal and intensity and need that can frighten even me at times. I am a machine. I cannot stop. In the mornings, I regret what has come to pass. But in the midst, I don't mind. Just do what you always do, I always say. Sometimes, I just do things to see if I can survive them. I have not let myself down yet. The failure to success ratio is fine. It's just that both the lesser and greater of two evils seems quite easy to embrace.
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Monday, May 12, 2008
I'm sitting here miles away drinking a too expensive beer and I miss home. I miss icy mugs chilling waiting in cowboy bars, places with chickenwire, places where they serve 17 year olds. I'm tired of the city, sick of the drive, done with work. I just want to walk home drunk holding someone's hand and not have to wake up in the morning.
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