Saturday, December 12, 2009

Foundation in the Snow

Me and Bryan shook hands and then I left down the street to smoke some kind bud.

When in reference to the winter, most people's first response is to bitch. It's understandable; The winter makes it difficult to do things like walk down the street or drive to work. You have to pay more in utilities for heating. The days are shorter and you get cabin fever.
Sure, it's all true. But there are redeeming things about winter too.

Last night was Bryan's last night in Kalamazoo. Or at lest it was the official day to say farewell. He's always been a nice guy. Knows alot about coffee, too. So I went up to the Strutt to say goodbye and good luck and all that. Luckily he was still up there even tho it was pressing on 1am.

I was broke and couldn't afford any beers so I asked him to join me outside. I came prepaired with a half pint of Popov. I took a pull and handed the bottle to him. I tried to say something nice and wise. I think whatever I said just boiled down to 'worse case senario, this will at lest be a fun adventure for you'.
I don't know how wise or deep it all actually was, but the cold winter night made it seem profound.

Winters are good for making things outdoors seem theatrical.

The cold that blows in during the Fall is blunt. It's the kind of cold that's wet, sluggish and makes your teeth rattle.
But the dry, pure cold in winter is sharp and precise. It dosen't hit you, it cuts you all up and makes you numb.

I looked at Bryan, he looked at me. We shook hands. It was as close to something mushy as two guys would want to get. I looked him in the eye and wished him luck. He had a giant lip stick kiss mark on his cheek.
It was subtly funny, like something out of a Wes Anderson film.
That being said, there's nothing more that can be done. If it were a move, the camera would swoop up into the sky as the credits would roll.

But it was real life. I went to smoke some weed. Life moved on.

On the way home that night, like I usually do, I cut threw the lot by the apartment building on Academy. That building has a big ol' florescent light. Walking away from it, going up a hill I thought how it reminded me of Mars, the eerie orangish-yellow light casting long shadows on the bumps and divots of the virgin snow.
Then I pretended like it was the apocalypse, and I was walking down a barren landscape with my back to the exploding super nova.

Did I mention I was high?

Then something interrupted my rock-n-roll fantasy. It was all this stuff in the middle of the parking lot. But it wasn't trash like you'd normally see. It was a bunch of make-up and stuff.

I walked on but in the morning I passes back threw for reasons simulare to that of the night prior.

After only a little while of walking in the cold I kinda detach from myself. Everything that is exposed to the outside is senseless. It's just my thoughts floating down the street and December slightly kills me with numbing slices.

It reminds me of something that I can't put my finger on.
I think and remember the pile of make-up, it's still there. I examine it as I walk by again. This time I can see everything. There is lip gloss, an empty pill bottle letters, and a couple of used hypodermic needles.

I was intrigued because you usually dont see something like that in Kalamazoo. Well, at lest not in this area.

I felt like I was finally on the other side of the looking glass. I could only imagine the events that lead up to the junkie girls purse getting poured out on the lot. I could only imagine, but whatever it was I'm sure I've been in a simulate situation. Now I am the normal square looking at the aftermath of capitalist-cultural turmoil.

I pick up a hand written letter and take it with me. It was a letter from her man talking about having a family and better days ahead and all that. It must have been written from jail. Given the content, the type of guy the writer was would never write a letter that long, by hand, with that nice of penmanship unless he had to AND had some time to kill.

There was also some paper work from the hospital stating that the girl had anxiety problems and instructed her how to take her script of Xanax.

Keep On Rockin the Free World.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

On the Subject of Fall Cleaning

Yesterday I took on the task of a Fall Cleaning. I know that Spring Cleaning is what most people do but I prefer Fall Cleaning because Fall is the time that things die off and all that. I tend to let trinkets, notes, fliers, all sorts of things of that ilk build up thinking at the time that I will want to hang on to them. It's in my blood, ask my sister. But fall is a good time to let somethings die, that's why it's best to clean then.

When furniture is left idle things tend to accumulate.

The things I found:
6 pairs of white tube sox
$3.25 in change
notes and memorabilia from various woman I met over the past year
Lots and lots of dust
A bag of gift wrapping bows left in the closet from the previous tenant
CDs over a decade old with outdated Linux programs
Old desktop, old harddrive in that desktop.

Some things stick with you over the years, move after move. Like that movie about that little wooden toy ship that some how sailed across the world. What ends up making it is most surprising.

A various artist album that my japanese pen pal sent me 11 years ago.
Johnny Thunders shirt that Canadian Dave stole (from Canada)
A flier for a Blanks 77 show dated 1998
Socket set with no matching socket wrench I bought from a yardsale when I was 7

But the most interesting to me was the harddrive. It's been with me, for whatever reason, sense my early days of Linux. We're talking about RedHat before it was FedoraCore. Just like any other avid Linux user it is partitioned with a number of Linux flavors.

I have and external harddrive adapter (via USB) so I was able to search threw a bunch of files from back when I first moved out of the parents house on to 813 Oak st. It was really cool to go over some of the old programming projects I had writen and it was nice to refind some forgotten about music too.

Today I will share with you an account I had written at the time of the incedent about my misadventure to Moscow. Cringingly, I will post it with out editing it at all. It's nice to know that my spelling and typing skills have gotten a bit better over the years.

It's pretty fucking long, so I would recommend just skimming it


==================================
when I was exiting the JFK airport a man whom I was passing asked if
I need transportation in Russian. I told him that I might later.

From there I looked for a place to buy a calling card and I asked if the rest of
my round trip ticket was still good. They said I'd ahve to ask customer service
and the machien vending the calling cards ate ten of my dollars. A man that
worked in some sort of possion at the airport told me it was merly out of $10
cards and I needed to insert another $10 to get the $20 card. His logic was
that when I pressed the button to select the ten dollar card the number ten
would appear indicating that i needed to put ten more dollars in, I kept trying
to point out that when I tap the twenty dollar card button the number twenty
comes up. I didn't feel like risking ten more dollars so I gave up the
argument seeings how it wasn't getting me anywhere. Then I noticed a pigeon
walking around inside the building, I took a picture.

I now faced the fact that I had nothing else to do but find a place to hang my
hat, at lest for the day. I needed to figure out just what I was to do with
myself. I wondered back outside in deep concentration. Suddenly the Russian
spoke to me again in english becuase my Russian was so bad the first time we had

spoke. I told him how I needed to find a calling card so that I could call home
and he let me use his cell phone. The reseption was very unclear but I spoke to
my step-dad, Mike. I let him know that I was in New York and I was OK. After
that the Russian pressed me again about needed a ride. I was more inclined to
take a ridefrom him simply becuase he let me use his phone and I knew cabs were
expensive anyhow. We walked to his car in a near by airport parkinglot. I told
him a little of my story and I got a little of his. He wasn't Russian, but
Georgian. As we were getting to his car I asked how much he wanted for the ride
to what he said was the cheapest place he knew of. He told me whatever I
thought was fair. The closer we got to his car the more I kept thinking of that
one traveling tip I seemed to read about over and over again: NEVER TAKE GYPSY
TAXIS.

I told him outright that I felt susspicious, that no one resolves on what one
thinks is "fair". So I asked him to set a price. He wouldn't. "Fine" I said,
"$20". "My friend," he said, "the normal Taxi would cost at lest $40 to get to
Brooklyn". Then I started to wonder if he was married and had two children like
he said he did because he had no wedding ring. He told me that in Georgia they
didn't use wedding bands, and this may have been true but I had decided not to
trust him. When i first told him that I was feeling suspicious, he told me that

I could of cource trust him and so I offered him my had. It was a quick and
undefined handshake that he gave me. I looked at his car- it was an everyday
Ford... Purple. I wondered if the doors opened from the inside. I declined and
took a normal taxi.

I wanted to go to the comfort inn, and the nice man that was incharge of hailing
cabs for the airport assured me that he could get me there. Of cource once we
were about a mile out the cabbie asked for the address of the comfort inn. I
told him that I didn't know the address and that he knewwhere it was. After all
if he didn't, he should have told the man that hailed the cab and araneged where

to go for me. Well I was being either being scammed or very unlucky because he
said he still didn't know. He sugested the Holiday Inn. $130 after taxes...
For being New York it wasn't totally bad. After all, it came with this nice
wirting desk filled with stationary and stuff. There's also a coffee pot in
the bathroom.
I feel lonesome now, sitting in thehotel room. $130 just to get by for the
night. So as long as I had a ruff over my head and I'd be happy, but they brougth
me here.

I walked around the surrounding naghborhood. It reminded me much of a a given
residential area in Flint. Oh yeah, but alot better. I felt only in danger
because I was about the only white guy walking around, i never been to New York before so I really didn't know what to expect as far as social segeration was concered . I didn't get messed at all, even when I started to play my harmonaca while i walked down the street. Now that I think of it New York is probebly one of the most integrated spots in the world, so everybody is used to seeing everybody else.
I'm gladed I decided to walk around despite the door mans concernse he gave me when I left. I got a chance to see a completely different naghborhood.Like in flint there were many small houses almost built on top of each other. Unlike Flint every two thirds of the houses wasn't either burnt,caved in, or borded up.

It was a nice walk. Saw a new najborhood and now I wathc the sun set over
Queens,or where evere the fuck I am and wiehgt for my friend Rich to show up.
Thank God I know some people here in New York, else I'd have to pay like twenty
bucks just to go to centeral park.
--
Me and Rich went to a near by white castle shortly after he arived. There, the
whole staff was latino and the best english speaker who was also one of the
youngest and by far one of the most beutiful took our order. Rich complained
about white castle food keeping in his cinical charactor. There have never been
any white castles in Flint that I've known of and this was the first time I
actually ateat one. By the time i hadmade it to the 5th and last burger i could see why
people make fun of white castle. So we decided to save it to throw at something.
We got nice and toasted off some 40s of Steel Reserve back at the room at talked
threw out the night. With out knowing it i feel asleep, was I that drunk? One moment I remember watching TV and now Rich is currled up on the floor and I'm face deep in a pillow. I told rich I could share the bed, noticing that my spraw was dominating most of it. I consolidated my self to one portion of the bed and went back to sleep.
It was a slow event wakking up today. Outside was an overcast, it was a dim blue morrning. It's almost noon now, and almost time to check out. Rich was kind enuff to ask me to stay at his place, so I guess we're gonna check out New York today. See what the big deal is.

It was a long day. People here keep to themselves more. And why not? People here are a dime a dozen. There is no need to go out of your way to know somebody because the chance of encountering someone that one would concider to be werth meeting is high just by keeping on with ones own normal rutine, or so I would asume.
We drove down the express way wich seemed to be just more organized but not that much faster than street traffic. On the way watched, as I ussually do when I'm riding shotgun. I watched the senery, building after building of occupied space. I watched the things near to me zip by while the tall buildings in the distance slowly krept by. While driving in a car speed fluxuates and even appears to be different relitive to what you judge it with, but the constant that I can find is speed its' self. No matter what precices measurement of motion, it is true that there is motion. Everywhere I looked i could eventually be, no matter how slowly coming it may apear to be.
All around Richs' car is New York lincense plates (ofcources). There were a lot of local commercial trucks and road repair vehicals that in some way indicated NYC, be it address of “property of”. Rich pops in the new NOFX cd, which was not quit yet out or just recently releced. What dose that do to your head... your opinion when you live in NYC? You see your city in movies, TV shows, the news. I mean I know Mayor Julieoni better than the mayor of grand blanc, I dont even know who the current mayor of Grand Blanc is. Does knowing your city is important change you relitive to knowing that your city is a dot on the map?
We got back to Richs' place. He lived there with his Grandma, who is a very nice lady. Rich's room is much like my sisters. Every spot on the floor occupied by something. To get around you have to look for the lowest mounds with a bowlegged hop, like stepping on stones to get across a stream. A utility shelf holds most of his gamming stuff, among wich is a modified XBOX, that is networked to his PC via samba. A spindel of DVD-Rs each holding anywhere from one to four bootlegs XBOX games. Keep in mind he has not every system but just about every system including the likes of a NEO-GEO. But by far the XBOX has the greatest access to hacked and bootleg stuff after modification among all the other current generation gamming consoles and it was the only one we played all night.
Ahhh, I'm pulled into a gamming rant. We drank a few cups of coffee and played the soon to be released “Enter the Matrix”. A Max Pain type of game done really well. For that breif moment I was happy that Atari put out such a good game, “way to go Atari!” but then I remembered that Atari's name as been bought and sold so many times through out the years that Atati, Atari games.. whatever, has little if anything to do with the company that we all so adore. Infact Infogrames had the rights to do a matrix title for years now (which is probebly why its so well done) and had just recently bought the Atari name. (*cor america effect)
So after playing games for a bit we venture off to see New York. Rich, who was born there originally and moved back about three or more years ago, tends to play more games then get to know his city of residence so we really didn't have set destination besides “go to central park and stuff”. Last night I talked Rich into smoking pot with me if we could find some. He had never smoked before and agreed. So on the way we stopped at a corner store to get a blut wrap just in case. Rich blew is month long streak of not smoking and bought a pack of Newports for something like $7.50 and I got two big ol' cigars.
We caught a bus going to the subway station. It was filled to the brim. Not just of fat, depressed and poor people as I am acustumed but of people from about every walk of life. After a few stops I had the chance to take a seat, and was sitting by a cute Asain girl who was wearing pink and blue Converse AllStars with opposing colored laces. After a while I look to her and say “That's cool, I like that” indicating her shoes with my fingure. She agrees and thanks me for the complement. But the conversation dies there. Pleasant sounding and not rude, but indeed with no disire to continue the conversation. And why not? There's so many people around that the slight moment that we had and the slightly longer moment we could have had are a dime a dozen. Is that why? Or perhaps some people are not as socially out going as others?
A couple stops later the girl gets off and a few after that we do and walk some yards to the subway station. This is the big time here. Every move or TV show that is placed in NYC has a subway scene it seeems. To me this is the most popular subway system in the world and i was about to ride it sitting inbetween a tattooed freak and a pregnet mother of ten on welfare, and hopfully get muged!
While Rich was figuring out the route I called my cousin on a payphone. I told her that I needn't stay at her place because I had Rich's to stay at. But we plained on eating somewhere or something like that later. After all was figured out we swam through a sea of people and peoples, one of which I noticed speaking French, and got to a subway train.

The ads that lined the over head we all at lest bi-lingual. A few having as many as five different languages. I sat in silance, absorbing all around me, while my friend stood across from me. The train would rush along the tracks and the site given from the windows would suddenly brake out of a sheltered station area to expose a vast tundra of man's touch only to crash back into an enclosed area where old faces wereexchanged for fresh faces. I no longer had the jones to make new aquantances, just to sit and watch the ruff tops float by. I kept refering the question “I wonder what it would be like to live there?” to different buildings that I found to be intresting.

I over herd a dispute between two groups of school boys. Two or three were black and the other was an American Irsh kid. From their words one can see their adolecent minds explore what they knew and how to aplie it. Never violent but the whole dispute was over violence. The Irish claimed he could box better than all of the others, and ofcource the others thought otherwise. They both expressed this by evidence that seemingly had little if any relivance to the subject at hand. But that's because it wasn't about fighting at all. It was a learning experince, an excersize for nagatioating with opposition. I could help but think of myself at that age and what kind of sence this would mean if I were them. Like actors playing out a part, their minds acting a part that they could swear is athenticly themselves inoder to figure out who themselfves really is, and who everyone else is. *Like actors rehersing a part to understand their motive.

We finally get to central park. Are sub-mission is to find weed inorder to get Rich high for the first time. This shouldn't be too hard, right? Just look for a guy posted on the street somewhere with a backpack. Could it be that much different from michigan?
We walked down a street that was one of the most memorible and buteafull I had ever seen. It lead to Central Park from the subway station. Apparently some private school had just let out because there were younge girls in uniforms. The kind of uniforms that I thought only exsisted in movies to represent temptful youth.

Central Park is probebly my favorite part if New York. I wonder if I would have been more impressed by the great metropolitain NYC if I hadn't been exposed it it threw modern day media. When we were on the subway I couldn't help but to think that the only diffrence between that and seeing a NYC subway in a movie is actually being there. Central Park, on the other hand, was a truly unique experience. It is a clam oasis of serenity in a city so intese and fast that it has it's own minute. To get the full and true experience I bought a soft pretzle and hotdog from a park vendor. A man, he seemed to be right out of the pages of National Geopraphic article on sherpa, licked his fingures and fished out a hotdog out of the pool of hot water that they were being contained in. He gave me my food with a blaten disregaurd for care and mummbled what I understood to be the price.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Just go with it

It's just so easy to say later. What are we going to do after I strip you down? Later on. What can I do for you tomorrow morning? Later, bye. And now that it's later? Fuck- Every unprotected thrust last night is chewed on the fat of this morning's break fest steak. There is a confliction of what need be worried most about: the cleanliness of your dick- riding that hedonistic roman whore- or the cleanliness of your sole- going along with that heathen slut.

Whatever it is, one thing is for certain: those gold bands and bracelets she wears are the only thing about her staying pretty. Those tracked up arms will soon turn to blown out tree branches. Dried up and tanned like leather. Christ, her ass has already fallen. You could already be the winner of this auction, sir, you bid SO hard for it.

Time to pay the piper, motherfucker.

When the needle is on the E line, every pop and fall of the engine is a sudtle dusting of worry. You know what I mean? These are the things we did and these are the things we got our selves into. What was said last night, rolling off the tongue, what was done last night, a kitana slit in the air, we do these things all so naturally. A primal urge that, when acted on, leaves us exposed to the most harshness of mother nature's domain. We make those calls on the assumption that it will be dealt with later. We assume later we will be more capable people. Better people.

We assume that those over draft fees at the bank will be taken care of easily on payday, when we're rich. But I don't even need to ask because you already know you're gonna need every cent you can get on payday.

Case in point. Here I am now, when I was gonna take care of all that shit. I am shit faced. Around me is a dull wrap of cotton and in me is only the knowledge that i need to be concerned with where I'm going. I'm so shitty. My plate has been expired months and months now. It only takes some asshole rookie to pull me over or it only takes one more knock of bad gas, and I'm done. I'm late. Is this the last knock before stall out? This is what I'm dealing with now.

Sure. no matter how young you are you were at one time younger. At some point in your life the lines of rule were more grey and fuzzy than they are now. Like the time I let a room go to a supposed member of the Dayton Family. I mean, he said he was Bootleg. And in retrospect the real Bootleg might as well have stiffed me on a room so that he could get his fuck on. Also, he, who ever he really was, had also stolen my pen.
I did not fear repercussions from my boss due to his express emphasis on negligence. Instead it was a feeling of short coming. The grimy feeling of the actuality of life. No fear, it is a third shift. So I watch the sun come up on third shifts. Some people see the rising sun as a nuisance, something that they unwillingly wake up to.

Did I get pulled over? No. Did I run out of gas? no. But the guy at the clinic told me I was too drunk to take a blood sample from. That fag-prick told me he would call the cops if I left in my car. Cocksucker. So now I'm dealing with it. Now I'm taking care of it the way I didn't want to but should have known I would.

Baby, I won't be there for a while. No. No. Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just gonna take a walk. Pick up some empties, get some gas. Yeah, i'm sure, everything is fine.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Sugar and Garlic

We are walking by an array of check out isles. It's a mission to the customer service desk. The head of each isle is petaled with an assortment of impulse buying items but the salivating allure of jerky and candy bars and the eye catching red and yellow font shouting A list celebrity's infidelities are no match for what captures our attention and subliminal thoughts. We're on a mission.

Of course there are always hitches during a mission and this would be a very minor one- An over weight toad of a brunet cuts her shopping cart, filled to the brim with frozen pizzas and Doritos complete with a little brat hanging off it like a monkey cut left in front of us, queuing her self in line. At lest for a moment we had to stop. Our big ticket item slid forward a bit in our own cart.

People in NA or AA talk about having a moment of sobriety. A moment in which during one of your most fucked up desperate points providence gives you a fresh objective view to see how silly and messed up you are. I'm just saying is all, so we're thinking along the same lines. And so for that brief moment, only by accident, our eyes get caught on this bud of consumerism. With a smirk Fat Eddie says "you should yank one" referring to a package of Bic pens hanging by the horoscope scrolls above the gum.

We've been doing this take back scam off and on for a while now. What you do is counterfeit a receipt for a big ticket item like a flat panel HD tv, go to the store, find it, then "take it back" for cash. One of the first times doing this I happened to notice a set of fancy fountain pens with ink cartridges. I thought it was really cool and classy, something those old proper bohemian opium den dudes would have been using back in the day. I was still on a rush from the initial time we pulled the scam so I strait up shop lifted 'em. It was one of those jokes where you had have been there for it to be funny but Fat Fucking Eddie roasted me about it. So after that I would steal markers and pens as a way to continue the inside joke. But by now it wasn't so much funny as it was course of habit.

We used to called Eddie "Fat Eddie" ironically. In high school he was skinny, lanky dude. After the second time he got outta jail he started to get fat. For any one that partakes in the fast-living excesses of smack and coke derivatives that a grand theft like this is about to bankroll, well it's remarkable to not loose weight let alone to gain it.

I've only been to jail once. A little doughier on the gut, still thin in the face but the most significant change was a bad (as opposed to bad ass) prison tat. John, or J, he's the other guy I'm with, has been to jail three times and besides his haggardness, he still looks the same but mentally he is more off the hook than any of us. Anyhow, ironically, Fat Eddie (or Fat Fucking Eddie or Fucking Fat Eddie when he wasn't around) is a fat junkie.

"I've already got those". I look at my bad tat of a feather on my fore arm. I forget the reason why I decided on a feather but now that I look at it it could easily be a fountain pen feather that those old school wig wearing motherfuckers would have used to sign parchment documents and shit. We sway the cart around the toad woman and proceed to walk to the costumer service desk. Our big ticket item this time is a quadraphonic wood burning toaster complete with a butter warmer and NevrBurn technology. I feel bad that we are even making it look like people buy this crap. This is stupid. Fat fucking Eddie is fucking fat, I have a dumb tattoo and J is a god damn psycho. This is such a stupid life.

"Can I help who's next?" the girl at the desk could be toad women's daughter. "Can I help who's next?" She repeats her self with apathy as she scratches her ass. Well, we might as well do it one last time. We've already come this far. Anyways.

Friday, July 24, 2009

coffee with ambre

I tell Ambre that her handicap is that she's a woman. She wants to be mad, but it's me so how could you be? Besides, it's all a joke. After all she's only a girl. And so that's exactly what I tell her- that she's a kid.

She slaps me and begins to walk out. She's all red about it but she's not actually going to leave. She sits back down. "you're an ijiot" (yes, with a 'j'). It's funny because she can't even tell me off with out being juvenile.


But, you know it is all just a joke. A fine joke.

Most women lie about themselves and to them selves. That's what women do, that's their handicap. So I would just love it to be true for her but it's really not. I get the feeling that she's strait forward with her self and unfortunately I like that. There is nothing more I would love than to believe that she's just another plastic facade over a dumb pile of rocks.

What makes it funny is that I couldn't just say something nice. What makes it funny is that I'm a jerk and the only way I can give her a compliment is via insult. It's fucking hilarious that the only straw I have to grasp is her youthful demeanor, as if that's such a bad thing.

So what was my point? I can't think of a way to say it now, but now she's reading and I'm sitting here writing. And that's fine.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Bumper Sticker

Bumper stickers do one of two things: express a point of view held by the owner of the vehicle or tell you, the reader, to do something. Most of the time we are informed about the persuasion towards jesus/gun control the driver has or are told to recycle or something earth friendly. But today while sitting behind an F150 I was struck with something a bit more profound. A quarter of the cab windows simple read "Get Over It". To the best of my recollection never has a bumper sticker dumbfounded me with such zen like awe. This was perhaps the most provocative bumper sticker sense "go balls deep".

The ambiguity of what exactly "it" is is the key term that sprung me into a battery of self questioning and self discovery. Good christ, why not just let go?
You're in love with one girl and sleeping with another. Get over it.
Writers block has made your shitty writings come less frequent.
Drinking too much, popping too many damn pills.
No motivation to become financial successful.
Shoes are broken, pants full of holes.
Get over it.

I was excited. I was moving on. I was getting over all the things that have been hanging me up. By the time I pulled up to the parking lot of my destination I was tingly with anxious excitement- I'm free, I'm over it, what next?! What next indeed. My grapes turn sour. What are you suppose to do after getting over it? Really I'm no better off, just numb to what ails me. Get over it. That bumper sticker was just a proactive suggestion for cutting me off with out using a blinker.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

getting nailed in a Geo hatch-back

Most kids can't even walk to school nowadays. I purposefully used the word can't because I don't even think schools allow it. It's probably due to prime time tv airing too many shocking 'to catch a predator' shows and it's probably a cause of the child obesity problem in this country. When I was a kid I used to walk to and from school, I loved. It was nice cause you had your options; If I wanted to, I could rush home in time for Chip n Dale's Rescue Rangers or I could just hang out with some other kid that was walking home and do whatev. And I never even once got abducted into a windowless van.

But there was this one sexy thing that happend walking back from school about once a week.

Down the hill from my elementary was another, smaller elementary building that had fallen into disuse. The building was only used to store lunch trays- we knew this because we were able to slip in threw a chained shut door once. The land around it was occupied by an unmaintained baseball diamond over grown with grass. The decaying bleachers were riddled with spent condoms. The barren parking lot also had a collection of used condoms, in this one certain area, and about once a week a little blue Geo hatch-back would be parked there, smack dab in the middle of the parking lot.

At first we avoided the car. But as the weeks went by curiosity overcame caution. Of cource the first thing our young adolescent minds jumped to is how people must be screwing in there but after a while we had to know what truly was going on. This was a task for William.

William was this scrawny weird kid that was easy to push around. One time Joey took a beer from William's frig, this was one of the few times William put his foot down. "My dad will kill me!" he screamed. So what did Joey do? He made William open the beer for him. Then he drank it.

So it was a no brainer that William was the one to go peak in side the car. He did. And as soon as his eyes were able to distinguish what was going on inside Williams face lit up and he ran back to the group. "It was some black guy with a big dick and then some girl underneath him!". Ofcource William received extra razzing for his initial comment being a description of the male's genitalia.

But now that it is years later I think back to this and realize it wasn't what William said that was fucked up. Well, ok, it was, but what was even more fucked up was that there was a girl that was willing to get nailed in the back of an itty bitty Geo on a weekly basis. Perhaps she was also getting nailed outside on some rotten bleachers- someone was. I understand that circumstances arise and you gotta do what you gotta do and all that, but where dose it end?

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that sure, it happens. We all get fucked in the back of a Geo once in a while but that doesn't mean you have to get fucked in the back of a Geo all the time! Barrow your friend's Buick. Get a room a room for the love of Christ. And would it kills you to properly dispose of your slimy old scumbags? There's school kids around for cryin out loud.

Do they even make Geos anymore?

Thursday, June 25, 2009

BUBBLE TEA PT.2, PAGE 1

"Do you remember the matchstick man?" She often speaks her mind in the form of a rhetorical question. "Don't you think Italian sounds better?" or "Dose this seem unsafe?" It's annoying to find out a woman's catches and it's definitely a burden when you grow tired of them. Really, she is asking me to join in her nostalgia. I, however, would like to continue to loose myself in the nights mitigation of this uncomfortable chair.


I like sitting out here on the porch at night. Up here I can still see the lights and hear the sounds, like the looping note from below right now. Coming from all the way down there, in the heart of the city. It's a car honking. A troubling sound probably due to a traffic incident. Frantic and frequent. It's so loud, he must be pressing the wheel very hard. Makes me wonder what it is, if it's an emergency. But it doesn't matter- it stops. Crisis handled.

You know, looking down at the city at night is kinda like looking at an ant farm or something... It appears complex but still maintains the aesthetics of simplicity. I think she is more interested in the fancy candles we lit. Damn it. These apartment buildings are so boring, almost as much as the suburbs. At least we are near the top, with a nice view. I'd hate to live in an apartment in the suburbs with nothing to look at but assholes with nothing to look at, sitting on their plot of urban sprawl. I would hate it, but what she thinks is ideal... well.

But what could you be thinking? I watch her reach one finger to caress the glass rim around the candle. We make eye contact. It's like poking a sleeping arm. I know she is still as attractive as day one, she hasn't changed, but I've been with her for five years. I know it... I just can't feel it anymore. I don't know when I stopped seeing her the way I used to but it came to my attention a short time after we had moved here. How can someone be different by staying the same? It must be funny because it's a joke we all know.

With a hum she resubmits her question. You have got to be kidding me. What's the point in combing over the past night after night? Why not just sit here in piece, feel the nice breeze roll by. What's you're angle anyway? Of course I remember the Matchstick man. I resent even thinking about him now. It's all so stupid. Might as well sit around and talk about ponies or teddy bears or ice cream...

This guy, the matchstick man, he was a personified combination of street performance and folk art. He had a little portable stand that probably once vended ice cream. Inside it played the begining of "Once In A Life Time" by Talking Heads in an infinite loop. He was a born performer. At first he would stand there lifeless, looking at the ground. The music switched on and every repetition of the looped beat would bring him more and more into life until was doing what could only be described as interpretive breakdacing. His Finale was a flip backward on to his hands. Then he hand walked over to the stand and, with his feet, picked up at straw hat. He'd hand walk around the perimeter of spectators and collect donations. After that he would carefully place the hat back on the stand and foot-pick-up a small cardboard box. Of course he didn't know who was giving what, but if you were lucky he'd hand walk right to you and present the box, full of matchstick figurines held together with glue. She was one of the lucky ones.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Friggin squirrels...

In this neighborhood I am cautious when I see squirrels. Perhaps in your neighborhood they act how they are suppose to, as I remember them to. They are shadow dwellers that prefer to be as unseen as possible. They are like automatic doors, they move out of your way before you even think of it as an obstacle. Scared, jumpy creatures that are overly aware of their surroundings and that scurry up a trees at a moments notice. Human contact?- they are unscathed. They are collectors of small nutty things that you or I never notice laying the the grass or gutter.

That's the way squires are, as I remember, suppose to act. Perhaps these are college squirrels. I have concidered this severel times on the grounds that like most college dude douche-bags, they walk a fuzzy line between ignorance and cockiness, like that guy that crossing the street in front of you even tho you have the green, and it's like he knows he's walking right in front of you and he knows you gotta wait for him... Dosent even do some half assed jog for the sake of basic humane politeness. The squirrels here are impolite like that. They also wear hemp accessories and listen to Dave Mathews Band and really bad commercial rap.

Yeah, the squirrels here, will sit in the middle of the sidewalk. And just sit there. I damn near tripped over one the other day. Right as I was about to step on it it trotted away with the casual and comfortable swagger of a family dog walk it's property lines. What stuck me as the oddest was that it was dragging along with it a Pacific Sun shirt but then, after a moment of consideration, it was all quit nominal.

It wouldn't be so bad if they simply left it at ignoring your existence. But no, they watch you as you awkwardly get around them. The worse is when they are in the trees. Often times when they are climbing a tree they will stop so they are right at eye level. They will watch you as you pass. I can't help but think this is something similar to how a black man would feel walking by a bunch of white folks on their porch in the old South. Only this is more alarming for me because this isn't the old South, it's just about me and some dumb squirrels I even go as far as to think about possible scenarios involving the squirrels attacking me and the possible actions I would have. Like if one jumped on my shoulder from a tree I would have to grab it's tail with the opposite hand or if I came too close to stepping on one I would just step on it's tail anyway and have some baddass line like “Going somewhere?”. Sadist thing is that's the best line I can come up with. I start to worry if my reclusive lifestyle is taking a toll on me mentally.

That's why I was relieved to have Sabrina at my house. Sabrina is an old roommate of mine. We lived in a house together back in Flint. I guess we, along with a couple other people, lived together for a little over a year. And that is how fate had paired us together, she needed a place to stay and I had rooms to fill up. But fate was favorable in that we clicked together rather naturally. In the years sense we had scattered our separate ways from the Kennelworth house me and Sabrina had been able to keep in sporadic contact with one another and maintain friendly relations. I think it is due to the fact that nether one of us aspired to become overly successful in our young adulthood, something that distracts people from things like keeping it real, and also that we never had sex. I have determined, by a battery of very serious and scientifically isolated clinical trials, that sexual relations withers a co-ed relationship. Altho if we had sex it probably would have been spectacular, I'd imagine.

Sometimes, as the movies portray it, people that have long not seen each other embrace one another with a concentrated joy that could only have accumulated from 10 years of absence. This is not the case with Flint town homefries. And that's what I love. I've always hated good-byes, I'm that kinda guy. I also hate overly passionate hellos. Saying goodbye seems like such a pessimistic thing, and later seems so alien and informal over someone you are suppose to have the utmost comfort with. It is in my opinion that your most intimate and meaningful moments with someone should be in the most mundane, everyday moments.

When a good friend is back around you can play it how it lays. I dropped the usual false alias in which I'd made millions in speculating on the bear market. I put my plastic monocle on the shelf. I'm just David, more or less. After all she had already lived with me, as a roommate, back in the day. She was hanging around at the worse. Pathetic and junky, twas, but despite this she was always keen to me. Perhaps it's that she was able to see me for what I aspire to be- not who I was- and/or maybe on top of that she also takes solice with the knowledge of her own short comings. Dosnt matter. Doesn't matter what the reason, it's a good reason for why-ever.

Yeah, some people fake being friends just because they were friends. Not Flintstones. They will say 'later' after you signed a four year contract with the army and when they see you again they say 'what's up'. No fakey sentimental bullshit here. Bump fists with Stoicism and suave. Flintstoners keep it real.

And real we kept it. Without even discussing it we both decided to forgo the touristy things in Kalamazoo (yes the entire plethora of touristy things to do). We watched mystery science theater 3000. We listened to a faded mix tape. We got high.

When I was at work I suspect she just walked around and smoked and stuff. And when I would return home we would walk and talk. When making breakfast I rediscovered that she didn't eat meat. Ooops. I bought three pounds of bacon for nothing. The only noble thing to do is eat a shit-ton of bacon.

Pleasantly, inner-dialog with myself had dropped totally. It was totally weird to get input from an external verbal source.

On a sunny Sunday afternoon we walked to the theater to see 'UP' (in 3D, so we ofcourse got high). At one point there came to be a fatty little squirrels in our path. “The squirrels around here are nuts” she says. I love you Sabrina, thanks. My sanity is now restored. And I realize that the break in solitude has lent me a fresh, new- or perhaps rediscovered- perspective on things. I charge at the rodent and kick it like a field goal. The tubby rodent arks high in the air and lands somewhere in the far distance. “Going somewhere?” I smugly remark.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

At least Zombies can get Married

The house I live in, well it's actually an apartment in a house and a very old house at that. So, old houses like this creek with footsteps and shake with jumps or sudden movements. They are also drafty, bat prone and in total lack of three-prong power outlets. So, that's my shelter situation. And it's my day off. I'm on my coach just doing nothing but watching a movie. The frame of my bay window creeks and pops. I'm used to it, it happens time to time with the atmospheric pressure changes and whatnot. But I couldn't help but to think this time was different, it was more frantic and regular. At first I thought nothing of it, but eventually I had to pause the movie. Yes, it is true, my neighbor is fucking.


When you're a kid, or even up into your teens, it's kinda this big deal to hear people fuck. It's amazing, outrageous and exotic. What captures the audience of 12 year old boys better- a found unicorn or overheard fucking? But, like many things from adolescents, it becomes a different reaction when you're older. Whenever, as an adult, you live close by other people, time to time you get an ear whiff of fucking. It's bound to happen. It's kinda like hearing someone you don't know that well fart.


Now, as an adult, I'm intrigued, but not in a perverted way. It's not the sexuality that gets my attention. No, it's something else, like the interest of watching a tree blow in the wind or the curiosity of a car wreck. It's a moment of life that's only purpose is to remind you of life, and how this is it. I resume play on my movie. It's a movie with Philip Seymour Hoffman.


It's OK, but its written by that guy that did Being John Melkavich, so you gotta watch it a few times. That Before The Devil Knows You're Dead movie with Hoffman was in was pretty good. Capote was good too.


Then comes the moaning. “Ohhh! Ohhh!oh!”. It's loud enuff to hear easily but soft enuff to ignore if you tried. I loose myself in the moment. My thoughts become abstract, like how the leaves of the tree in the wind look like wild locks of hair being swam threw a body of water.

Or how their bodies could be tightly held flush together, with the only separation- the only thing separating them from combing as one entity- is a thin film of sweat held stagnate and the only movement coming from his jackhammering hips.

Or how impersonally a cheetah kills his prey on the other side of the screen on the Discovery channel.

Or Joey P., the kid you went to the 4th grade with that had the long curly flowing hair, is, the last you herd, in prison.

Or how Philip Seymour Hoffman was spot on with Truman Capote, the flamboyantly queer writer.

Or how I have never over herd two members of the same sex fuck. With all the sex I have ever over herd it has always been the regular way. I wonder if it would somehow be different.


Last weekend I went to a gay bar for the first time. It was a last call destination after zombie prom at Louie's. The gay bar is like any other, except the over abundance of dancing (admittedly, I even “danced” at on point). Things are inheritly a bit more faggy, of course. That is to be expected, but I was surprised that there was such an alarm with some of the patrons that my friends were still dressed as a zombies. You would think that the gay community, arguably the most socially acceptable minority to still be discriminated against, would be more open to things like zombies, the second most easily discriminated against minority. But no, the bars, always, are filled with fucktards. Sure the queers are more liberal in some ways but even more stuck up in others (Yes, these are my shoes. I don't care how many holes are in them).

But this is where we all end up, isn't it? We all got our own type of bar we go to. Drugs are a great equalizer. What separates us is the type of bars we go to and the way we dance when we get there. The moist film of sweat between our coupled bodies is a commonality.

As they draw to a climax, and the dance floor plays it's last song, I am only left with the fleeting wonder if I should offer an applaud of some sort.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Hill Crests and Soccer Balls

It's mothers day today. When I woke up, I thought I would head up to my work so I could call my mom. Work is on the other side of town and this would defiantly get me out of the house for a while, besides I needed gas and it is always a bit cheaper on that side of town.
After eating an undercooked peice of steak, a few green olives and downing the swill remains from a half pint of Popov from the night before I headed out. At the last minute I grabed a box of potato pancake mix. It requires 2 eggs, of which I have none of. I thought that maybe I should stop by my friend Helen's house and see if she wants to make the potato pancakes with me.
It was a little after 11 when I arrived at my work. People were still checking out. I approach the front desk to ask if I can use the phone. My boss is frantically flipping threw papers and clicking on a mouse. After a moment he looks up at me and says "This is the man who had the rollaway" and pointed to a group at the other end of the desk. He talked to me as if my appearance was totally expected, as if he had asked me to come in and resolve this issue of the rollaway bed. But I knew the man and his group of people, he never had requested a rollaway bed during his stay. The man looks at me and plainly states that he only requested extra pillows. My boss tells him it's ok and that he has adjusted it off his bill.
I talk to my mom on the phone while pacing back and forth in the breakfast room. We make small talk about the plans for the day and agree that the weather is warm, but not quite warm enuff. I expected her to bring up grandma's health and status but she never did. I should probably call my step mom, but that's a local number so i can do that at a payphone anytime.
I set the phone on the counter and tell my boss he should call his mother. After a short, awkward mouse click filled moment the new girl takes the phone and says something plesent, I say goodbye.
When nearing Helen's neighborhood I notice a soccer game being played at an elementary school. But the players were not children, they were grown men. And there was even a couple of concession stands, which could very well be selling hot coco. What sort of soccer game was it?

Perhaps, I thought, it was a game between good and evil- feel good sumer movie style. Perhaps one team was a bunch of rich assholes trying to buy out an old bar so they could turn it into a parking lot. And maybe they only way for the loyal patrons and owner to save it is, for some reason, to defeat them in a soccer game. After creating each team's set of characters with their individual quarks and catch phrases I reconsidered Helen's house. I'm obtusely aware that not everyone likes to live in the moment and that unexpected company isn't always a pleasure.

I go back to the school. At the foot of a hill lays the soccer feild the top are the concession stands and parked cars. I approach the crest of the hill and there is a Mexican family to my left speaking spanish, and to my right a white girl by her self, leaning up against the hood of a car. I go to the girl and ask what's going on. She tells me it's some kind of mexican league but the ones in yellow were the Bell's team ( a local brewery) and that's who she was suppose to be rooting for.

I sit down on the slope of the hill and watch the game. The girl, to me, seemed very confident. I often talk to strangers and in doing so I find a lot of people get anxious and don't make good conversation. She, however, was very laid back during our conversation, chewing on a toothpick the entire time. Plus she was wearing big, dark sunglass which automaticly makes the wearer 45% cooler.

I don't know much about soccer, rulewise, and it is probably for the better. For if I did, I would probably confirm my hunch that this Bell's team is one big collection of assholes. They keep shouting things that seem really obvious to one another "You gotta block it!" "come on, everyone move" "You can't use your hands, this aint basketball". I wonder if it weren't for these dynamic tips that half the team would just stop moving and stand on the field like unpowered robots.
The girl walks over to me and says "Yeah, they are kinda assholes", referring to an ongoing argument Bell's team are having with a referee.
"I suppose that happens in sports in general" I say
"well, they're excessive." she says
I seems like the Bell's team wants you to know they are playing soccer. Everything they do is so intentional. There's alot of superfluous slide-kicks and head hits (all preceded with a general direction to somehow "go for it"). The Mexican team on the other hand could be anywhere. Here on this field, in a big stadium, in the street, where ever. These guys are just dudes playing soccer. There is not a lot of talking between themselves on the field either. They probably don't even call it soccer, they probably call it foot ball. A complete clash in cultures. The crest of the hill is lined with large dark skinned families, all having laud and jolly conversations while the slope of the hills is speckled with individual white girls, looking on with the most mild sense of amusement. They are all girlfriends of Bell's players. There not out of joy but for a sense of support of which they are obligated to provide.

I look back to the girl, who is now back leaning on the car hood "What's the score?" I ask
"I think it's still 2-1"
I bet she is a girlfriend. She doesn't seem like the other white girls here but I bet she is also a girlfriend. I contemplate asking her if she is in fact dating a team member. It's a coarse of hobbit for me to look at things threw a sociological lens and project hypotheses while people do things. Sometimes I will ask someone something like "are you dating one of those guys" just to see if I'm right. In this instance I am reluctant because I'm sure she would take it as some guy trying to get her number in a weird way or something.
the game goes on with many unnecessary sissor kicks and a few fowls here and there. After a while I get distracted by watching a little Mexican boy who seems to be stuck in a perpetual cycle of dropping a ball, chasing it down the hill, and bringing it back up. Suddenly I notice the teams have cleared the field. The girl walks past me, going down the hill.
"Half time?" I ask
"No, it's over" she says "they've been playing sense 10"
As she makes her way across the field to allegidly reunite with her boyfriend one of the Bell's players is going around talking to various people making a fuss about how one of the Mexicans wasn't wearing a uniform exactly uniform with his teammate's. I am struck with a profound query- Just where do they get the refs for these kinda games, anyway?

Friday, May 8, 2009

Life, Or Something Like it

I am at work right now. Over head, there is a flickering lightbulb within the shandeler. Sure, it is flickering but you can't really say that it's not providing light. If anything it is more on than it is off. And sure I suppose one could make the argument that I do some rediculous things. At times I rant in to this old coffee can of mine (remember when they used to be tin?) and I've been known to go on multiply day benders (I am twice devorced from my liver). But, I mean, for the most part I'm fiarly normal. Just like you. I cook beacon in the morning and wash my dishes at night. But you never get to see this side. I suppose it's fate that you should only knock on my door after I had downed a whole bottle of cough syrup, but I'm glad that life works out this way. You really don't need to this this average, domesticated side of me. You already have you, now here is me. This is my life. It isn't like yours, but it's something like it.


(PLEASE NOTE THAT DAVID EX IS NOT RESPOSIBLE FOR SPELLCHECKS. WHEN IN DOUBT, USE CONTEXT CLUES.)