Spalding Gray
Where is the Staten Island Ferry taking you today?
You’re inspecting the Hudson, gauging it’s suitability.
The MTA is watching you.
They’d escorted you off earlier that week.
Its’ a foregone conclusion,
You’ve made us laugh with it for years.
Step away from the railing, Sir.
Did you jump or did you slip and fall
trying to talk yourself into jumping?
All it takes is one flake
Of courage, one lapse in neurosis and
You’re in flight, Spald.
You’ve disembarked
From the body that abandoned you,
The defunct mind,
down the hole after your mother.
A glorious hiatus in thought occurs in that splice
after you’ve left the earth, before you’re buried in water.
It's as if you'll never come down.
Then you slap the skin of the river and something is jolted
Out of you, like a body hitting the end of a noose
rudely yanked back when it would prefer to keep falling.
It’s very cold, much colder than you imagined
But after the initial trauma
The river welcomes you.
You’ve slipped back into your berth.
There’s the familiar tranquility of swimming
with the new gravity of the ultimate.
If only you could live through it
It would be your best monologue yet.
And you could. There is a choice
In the white of the searchlight
Peering down at you,
But you can almost see her
Down in the dark,
So you gulp and dive to get there faster.
A thousand silver bubbles
Bloom from your nostrils, your ears,
Your legs and arms and teeth
like stardust.
Now that you’ve vanished
People see you all over town:
In the glass of a bus stop,
At Sardi's, skiing down Park Ave,
flying through the light
on to a movie screen in the Village.
Yesterday I went out on the Ferry
to look for you in the water
And though you washed up
On the shore in Brooklyn
I find you everywhere
sleeping in the East River.
22 December 2010
19 October 2010
Song of the Open Road: June - Los Angeles
L.A., the delirious fever dream of the world.
The sun is a spotlight that never goes out. The clouds come visit sometimes, but they know when to leave.
Oranges are bursting off the trees. The orange juice there is much more radiant, closer to life than in Ohio. Not as long deceased and preserved and frozen.
Enflamed flowers. They can't stop them from growing. The sun and the flowers decorate an otherwise grungy place.
Ohio weather has such bearing on everything, such presence and dominance. The seasons arrange and shape all life. L.A. weather just kind of leaves you alone.
A relaxed, stoned vibe to everything. Very warm, low key wavelength. Like a Beach Boys song playing everywhere.
The traffic is a procession of iron and smog going everywhere at once. A great snake devouring itself. The 405 is strangely unmonumental, not a gregarious American superhighway. Everyone drives slow. You change lanes anytime you need to. Cars do not swarm.
Operatic mountains, great red martian surfaces. Roads tangled through like intestines.
It's a holy place, the Hollywood Sign. We drove up to see it in the night and it was gone, vanished into the fog.
Hollywood mirrors the night sky. There are stars in the sidewalks.
You can't hardly get a glimpse of the ocean over the wall of houses. It's like standing tip-toe in the back row of a concert.
Color everywhere. Pink, orange, green, red. Hand-painted. A surprising lack of joy. Lapped over crumbly little apartments and strip malls. Little variety in architecture. Simple shelving for people shooting for the stars.
Presumably the beauty is all hidden behind topiary walls and shubbery.
A strange continuity to the place. Few breaks in style. Even Musso and Franks looks like a shithole from the outside.
The Hollywood Hills have unbelievable roads, lashing like a county fair ride assmbled and operated by a junky.
Paint flaking off the battered walls of the Paramount lot.
The women are fucking gorgeous. Professionally gorgeous. L.A. sucks up most of the beautiful people from everywhere else. They were born that way, they might as well try and derive money from it.
People very nice and not in a fake way. I'm nobody, after all, and they treated me well.
Little altars with candles and incense and effigies and pictures of mahareshis and yogis.
Everyone is in pictures. A little girl told me how to frame a snapshot of her and her friends.
It's like the sky has been botoxed. No snow. Little cold. Just a smile, lips.
The sun is a spotlight that never goes out. The clouds come visit sometimes, but they know when to leave.
Oranges are bursting off the trees. The orange juice there is much more radiant, closer to life than in Ohio. Not as long deceased and preserved and frozen.
Enflamed flowers. They can't stop them from growing. The sun and the flowers decorate an otherwise grungy place.
Ohio weather has such bearing on everything, such presence and dominance. The seasons arrange and shape all life. L.A. weather just kind of leaves you alone.
A relaxed, stoned vibe to everything. Very warm, low key wavelength. Like a Beach Boys song playing everywhere.
The traffic is a procession of iron and smog going everywhere at once. A great snake devouring itself. The 405 is strangely unmonumental, not a gregarious American superhighway. Everyone drives slow. You change lanes anytime you need to. Cars do not swarm.
Operatic mountains, great red martian surfaces. Roads tangled through like intestines.
It's a holy place, the Hollywood Sign. We drove up to see it in the night and it was gone, vanished into the fog.
Hollywood mirrors the night sky. There are stars in the sidewalks.
You can't hardly get a glimpse of the ocean over the wall of houses. It's like standing tip-toe in the back row of a concert.
Color everywhere. Pink, orange, green, red. Hand-painted. A surprising lack of joy. Lapped over crumbly little apartments and strip malls. Little variety in architecture. Simple shelving for people shooting for the stars.
Presumably the beauty is all hidden behind topiary walls and shubbery.
A strange continuity to the place. Few breaks in style. Even Musso and Franks looks like a shithole from the outside.
The Hollywood Hills have unbelievable roads, lashing like a county fair ride assmbled and operated by a junky.
Paint flaking off the battered walls of the Paramount lot.
The women are fucking gorgeous. Professionally gorgeous. L.A. sucks up most of the beautiful people from everywhere else. They were born that way, they might as well try and derive money from it.
People very nice and not in a fake way. I'm nobody, after all, and they treated me well.
Little altars with candles and incense and effigies and pictures of mahareshis and yogis.
Everyone is in pictures. A little girl told me how to frame a snapshot of her and her friends.
It's like the sky has been botoxed. No snow. Little cold. Just a smile, lips.
Flying
Riding in an airplane, it's still this miraculous thing to me. You get in this steel airship and you're strapped in and suddenly you're lifted and soaring and next thing you're above the clouds. You look down as you take off and see your hometown turn into a little toy train set, the little cars going to and fro on the highways, doing the business of their happy little lives. "Goodbye everybody!" you wave as if you'll never return. It all looks imaginary from up there, like nothing horrible ever happens. It seems like a peaceful place.
You know what I think to myself as we're climbing up? I look out at the silver wing reaching out so strong and I think "Hold fast you mighty wing! Climb! Carry us safely onward and upward!" It's rather silly I know. I never really pay any attention to the people with me on the plane. It's always me and the wing and the clouds.
My favorite part of flying is when, if you're lucky, sometimes you'll look out the window and you'll just see white. White everywhere. Like you're outside of time and space, in some void. You're really in a cloud, but if look out the window just the right way and ignore everyone on the plane, you're just this man in the sky. Above the rain, lightning, tornadoes, oceans, everything, as if you're being carried by the hand of God Himself.
The Big Yolk. That's what I call it. The sun. The Big Yolk. The best time to fly is late afternoon into the evening. You get the day and the night. It's like a play. The sun makes his exit and whooooooooop, up comes the moon, stage left, right on cue.
Above the clouds
The clouds are
Now a mist
Now ice cream
Now a forest of white trees
Now raining
Now heaven
Now burying the sun
Now launching the moon
You know what I think to myself as we're climbing up? I look out at the silver wing reaching out so strong and I think "Hold fast you mighty wing! Climb! Carry us safely onward and upward!" It's rather silly I know. I never really pay any attention to the people with me on the plane. It's always me and the wing and the clouds.
My favorite part of flying is when, if you're lucky, sometimes you'll look out the window and you'll just see white. White everywhere. Like you're outside of time and space, in some void. You're really in a cloud, but if look out the window just the right way and ignore everyone on the plane, you're just this man in the sky. Above the rain, lightning, tornadoes, oceans, everything, as if you're being carried by the hand of God Himself.
The Big Yolk. That's what I call it. The sun. The Big Yolk. The best time to fly is late afternoon into the evening. You get the day and the night. It's like a play. The sun makes his exit and whooooooooop, up comes the moon, stage left, right on cue.
Above the clouds
The clouds are
Now a mist
Now ice cream
Now a forest of white trees
Now raining
Now heaven
Now burying the sun
Now launching the moon
15 October 2010
Train-train
The world is rolling around one more time,
giving me another chance to do the things I’ve
successfully deferred every day so far.
I go to the market
and a girl climbs into my eyes like they do every couple hours.
Reasons to fall assemble easily:
because of the way she’s smearing jelly
between two cookies with a dull, shiny knife,
because of the way she almost kisses the glass display case
when she breaths on it to clean it,
because of the way the flowers in black plastic barrels
surround her, eager to be gathered up and delivered
to her arms. (If it’s at all about love, it’s as much about
ferrying the flowers to their respective destinies)
Two models sit near me
looking just like how models are supposed to look, but somehow
they are not attractive to me, their beauty too flagrant a reminder
of the imbalance of things. I suspect I am not the kind
of man they require and silently rescind myself.
I prefer the jelly girl,
whose beauty is subdued by a kind of helplessness. She shares an
oppression with me, being meek enough to have arrived behind that counter,
at the mercy of the clock spinning her toward a boredom of her own choosing.
I should talk to her. Instead, I watch the
steam rising from my coffee, continually refreshing
the idea of death, which remains unconvincing.
In case I’m wrong, I should talk to her.
A hundred million years from now
none of it will have mattered
as right now all of it matters so much.
Every discarded moment piles into
an ever-rising crest of Now.
Now is here. That much is clear.
Go talk to her. Go talk to her. Go talk to her
(My mind is always giving an ineffectual pep talk,
I seem to be a sightseer touring all the various guilt trips of life).
I can’t think my way into the brief lapse of thought
we call courage. I’m entrenched. I've done all I can
to make myself impervious to chance,
to ensure safe, undisrupted passage down the corridor of each day.
I’ve plied my aloneness into solitude,
where shrewder ones have learned to
accompany it with people.
The familiar, gloomy conclusion
revises itself for today’s dilemma:
If I talk to her, it won’t make me any less alone.
Once again I have bartered bravery and the dim possibility
of elation for the patchy cloak of thought.
Starting home, I am pleased to feel
my feet hijack my body. They take me
on a detour by her booth.
I clutch an alibi: I’m only looking at the cakes.
I pretend to look at the cakes
while actually looking at the cakes
when I feel her walk up
(I've endowed her with such magnitude).
I brave a look at her.
She smiles at me.
I may have twitched
something back before fleeing.
I cherish the smile all day on into the night.
It justified the whole thing somehow.
She smiled at me. I've seen it.
Tomorrow I’ll say everything to her.
giving me another chance to do the things I’ve
successfully deferred every day so far.
I go to the market
and a girl climbs into my eyes like they do every couple hours.
Reasons to fall assemble easily:
because of the way she’s smearing jelly
between two cookies with a dull, shiny knife,
because of the way she almost kisses the glass display case
when she breaths on it to clean it,
because of the way the flowers in black plastic barrels
surround her, eager to be gathered up and delivered
to her arms. (If it’s at all about love, it’s as much about
ferrying the flowers to their respective destinies)
Two models sit near me
looking just like how models are supposed to look, but somehow
they are not attractive to me, their beauty too flagrant a reminder
of the imbalance of things. I suspect I am not the kind
of man they require and silently rescind myself.
I prefer the jelly girl,
whose beauty is subdued by a kind of helplessness. She shares an
oppression with me, being meek enough to have arrived behind that counter,
at the mercy of the clock spinning her toward a boredom of her own choosing.
I should talk to her. Instead, I watch the
steam rising from my coffee, continually refreshing
the idea of death, which remains unconvincing.
In case I’m wrong, I should talk to her.
A hundred million years from now
none of it will have mattered
as right now all of it matters so much.
Every discarded moment piles into
an ever-rising crest of Now.
Now is here. That much is clear.
Go talk to her. Go talk to her. Go talk to her
(My mind is always giving an ineffectual pep talk,
I seem to be a sightseer touring all the various guilt trips of life).
I can’t think my way into the brief lapse of thought
we call courage. I’m entrenched. I've done all I can
to make myself impervious to chance,
to ensure safe, undisrupted passage down the corridor of each day.
I’ve plied my aloneness into solitude,
where shrewder ones have learned to
accompany it with people.
The familiar, gloomy conclusion
revises itself for today’s dilemma:
If I talk to her, it won’t make me any less alone.
Once again I have bartered bravery and the dim possibility
of elation for the patchy cloak of thought.
Starting home, I am pleased to feel
my feet hijack my body. They take me
on a detour by her booth.
I clutch an alibi: I’m only looking at the cakes.
I pretend to look at the cakes
while actually looking at the cakes
when I feel her walk up
(I've endowed her with such magnitude).
I brave a look at her.
She smiles at me.
I may have twitched
something back before fleeing.
I cherish the smile all day on into the night.
It justified the whole thing somehow.
She smiled at me. I've seen it.
Tomorrow I’ll say everything to her.
The Angel
The Angel perched atop the trophy,
wings outstretched,
watches the flannel-shirted man
drag his jangling cart of cans
over the snow-crusted sidewalk.
wings outstretched,
watches the flannel-shirted man
drag his jangling cart of cans
over the snow-crusted sidewalk.
An Appeal
This old ship of earth is worn from wear;
Oil is bleeding into the ocean,
Volcanoes are hacking ash.
Sometimes I think humanity is only
the earth's most successful infestation;
We've minced the forests and piled
them into homes,
We've torn through the atmosphere
and lept all the way to the moon,
We've blasted the limits of sound,
All our successes drawn from
one another's veins.
Still, we reach further into the dark.
Don't take this world away.
Teach us to love it again.
Send the sun flourishing
through our windows.
Breath the wind through
our doors.
Resuscitate us.
Oil is bleeding into the ocean,
Volcanoes are hacking ash.
Sometimes I think humanity is only
the earth's most successful infestation;
We've minced the forests and piled
them into homes,
We've torn through the atmosphere
and lept all the way to the moon,
We've blasted the limits of sound,
All our successes drawn from
one another's veins.
Still, we reach further into the dark.
Don't take this world away.
Teach us to love it again.
Send the sun flourishing
through our windows.
Breath the wind through
our doors.
Resuscitate us.
02 October 2010
Cricket
I was meditating, grateful to the miserable weather
for condoning my isolation, when I heard
a lone cricket throbbing through the cold, wet leaves.
What was he chanting? I wondered. Must he sing to live?
“help, help, help,” he ached, or maybe “please, please, please.”
I went out to find him but when I approached he
vanished into silence. I stood in the rain, listening,
wanting him to teach me how to endure, to thrive
in an inhospitable world, but he would not give himself up.
Back inside I found the silence I’d requested.
Today summer has been granted a reprieve.
Again, the crickets try to chirp
their way through the walls.
for condoning my isolation, when I heard
a lone cricket throbbing through the cold, wet leaves.
What was he chanting? I wondered. Must he sing to live?
“help, help, help,” he ached, or maybe “please, please, please.”
I went out to find him but when I approached he
vanished into silence. I stood in the rain, listening,
wanting him to teach me how to endure, to thrive
in an inhospitable world, but he would not give himself up.
Back inside I found the silence I’d requested.
Today summer has been granted a reprieve.
Again, the crickets try to chirp
their way through the walls.
09 September 2010
Mixed
I pierce the clouds with light
beneath the print of No. 6
hanging over my mantle
you send your showers down
orange blue yellow
shaking from the canvas
the window becomes
the painting in water and glass
raindrops assuming the yellow
flowers and black leaves
quaking in the wind
we drown into each other
almost breaking from our bodies
we plunge completely
as the violins purple fumes
rise over the room
my favorite part of you
is the little absence
where I can put myself
the drops wrench apart
and bleed down the glass
into the earth
they will never be
what they were before
as red and blue blended are no
longer red and blue but purple
as the blood mixed in our veins
as you mixed in my arms
beneath the print of No. 6
hanging over my mantle
you send your showers down
orange blue yellow
shaking from the canvas
the window becomes
the painting in water and glass
raindrops assuming the yellow
flowers and black leaves
quaking in the wind
we drown into each other
almost breaking from our bodies
we plunge completely
as the violins purple fumes
rise over the room
my favorite part of you
is the little absence
where I can put myself
the drops wrench apart
and bleed down the glass
into the earth
they will never be
what they were before
as red and blue blended are no
longer red and blue but purple
as the blood mixed in our veins
as you mixed in my arms
07 September 2010
Productivity
The achievement of the mundane gives one the illusion they are getting somewhere in life. This is a replacement for the feeling of being alive. When you are really living you are not jumping hurdles, you are levitating.
The goal is Being. The words in Christ's halo say "The One Who Is".
The goal is Being. The words in Christ's halo say "The One Who Is".
25 August 2010
I Had a Dream About You
I don’t know why.
I had you pinned to the bed
and you were finally gonna let me
kiss you. I wanted it to be perfect
so I got up to turn off the TV or
light a candle and I don’t know
what happened but I still haven’t
kissed you and you got married
in April.
The way you looked
at me: dopey and smug,
I haven’t seen anything like it
in years. I’ve subsisted on fumes.
It’s not easy concocting that
in a woman.
I tried to kiss you once before.
We sat on my porch.
You stroked my
hair. I leaned in.
You ducked out of the way
quicker than if I'd
thrown a fastball at your head.
You went back home to the South.
I commemorated my survival
by putting a black X through
each day on the calendar.
Love was finally going to happen to me.
Every day I was getting closer,
or further away,
I'm still not sure which.
I had a lot of dreams about you then.
I wanted them. If I couldn't
have you during the day, I’d make you
visit me in the night.
Once you were wearing
a sweater that gleamed like snow,
my lips touched yours like a bow
on a violin string.
We were both looking for clues,
for God or Fate to tell us what to do.
You crashed your car after you told me
on the phone your friends thought
we should be together forever.
You stopped talking to me after that.
I cried for three days and nights,
but I felt like I should've cried longer.
Tears came all the way from
the tips of my fingers,
the soles of my feet.
That grief was the last time
I knew how to use every part of myself.
I saw you next in a bowling alley.
There was some other guy
you were getting attention from.
He wasn't your boyfriend either.
You were so nice to me
that I knew it was over.
I wondered what God was trying
to tell me and decided He was
fucking with me (a bowling alley!)
so I stopped listening altogether.
I haven’t had as much love
(or, more likely, sex)
in my life as I planned on.
I’ve withheld reservoirs,
waiting for the right girl,
my energy going into work,
leaking away in various diversions.
Meanwhile, she’s yet to show up.
It’s a hobby of mine,
entertaining suspicions
that she might’ve been you.
Once I sent you a message
saying I’d do anything
to make love to you.
That’s not exactly true,
but that doesn’t make it
a lie either.
I had a dream about you.
Someday my kiss
will land on your lips.
I had you pinned to the bed
and you were finally gonna let me
kiss you. I wanted it to be perfect
so I got up to turn off the TV or
light a candle and I don’t know
what happened but I still haven’t
kissed you and you got married
in April.
The way you looked
at me: dopey and smug,
I haven’t seen anything like it
in years. I’ve subsisted on fumes.
It’s not easy concocting that
in a woman.
I tried to kiss you once before.
We sat on my porch.
You stroked my
hair. I leaned in.
You ducked out of the way
quicker than if I'd
thrown a fastball at your head.
You went back home to the South.
I commemorated my survival
by putting a black X through
each day on the calendar.
Love was finally going to happen to me.
Every day I was getting closer,
or further away,
I'm still not sure which.
I had a lot of dreams about you then.
I wanted them. If I couldn't
have you during the day, I’d make you
visit me in the night.
Once you were wearing
a sweater that gleamed like snow,
my lips touched yours like a bow
on a violin string.
We were both looking for clues,
for God or Fate to tell us what to do.
You crashed your car after you told me
on the phone your friends thought
we should be together forever.
You stopped talking to me after that.
I cried for three days and nights,
but I felt like I should've cried longer.
Tears came all the way from
the tips of my fingers,
the soles of my feet.
That grief was the last time
I knew how to use every part of myself.
I saw you next in a bowling alley.
There was some other guy
you were getting attention from.
He wasn't your boyfriend either.
You were so nice to me
that I knew it was over.
I wondered what God was trying
to tell me and decided He was
fucking with me (a bowling alley!)
so I stopped listening altogether.
I haven’t had as much love
(or, more likely, sex)
in my life as I planned on.
I’ve withheld reservoirs,
waiting for the right girl,
my energy going into work,
leaking away in various diversions.
Meanwhile, she’s yet to show up.
It’s a hobby of mine,
entertaining suspicions
that she might’ve been you.
Once I sent you a message
saying I’d do anything
to make love to you.
That’s not exactly true,
but that doesn’t make it
a lie either.
I had a dream about you.
Someday my kiss
will land on your lips.
16 August 2010
Song of the Open Road - Extracts 2
And never so much as today have I found myself
With all the road ahead of me, alone.
-Cesar Vallejo
I praise what is truly alive,
What longs to be burned to death.
-Goethe
And this is the reward: that the ideal shall be real to thee, and the impressions of the actual world shall fall like summer rain, copious, but not troublesome, to thy invulnerable essence. Thou shalt have the whole land for thy park and manor, the sea for thy bath and navigation, without tax and without envy; the woods and the rivers thou shalt own; and thou shalt possess that wherein others are only tenants and boarders. Thou true land-lord! sea-lord! air-lord! Wherever snow falls, or water flows, or birds fly, wherever day and night meet in twilight, wherever the blue heaven is hung by clouds, or sown with stars, wherever are forms with transparent boundaries, wherever are outlets into celestial space, wherever is danger, and awe, and love, there is Beauty, plenteous as rain, shed for thee, and though thou shouldest walk the world over, thou shalt not be able to find a condition inopportune or ignoble.
-Emerson
It is the lumps and trials
That tell us whether we shall be known
And whether our fate can be exemplary, like a star.
All the rest is waiting
For a letter that never arrives,
Day after day, the exasperation
Until finally you have ripped it open not knowing what it is,
The two envelope halves lying on a plate.
The message was wise, and seemingly
Dictated a long time ago.
-John Ashbery
I am pursuing you, life, to the ends of the earth
-Frederick Seidel
Mr Henry: It's an esoteric journey. We're renegades from despair.
-Bottle Rocket
The ancient British Bards had for the title of their order, 'Those who are free throughout the world.'
-Emerson
The spread of materialistic values has contributed to a moral coarsening and a growing cynicism in our country. Within a manipulative world all motives seem venal, all efforts illusory. But at a deeper level, it is the commodifying of imagination itself, the moral passivity, the social isolation, the angst that is generated by living in a solipsistic world of fraudulent satisfactions that is producing the greatest evil.
-Larry Harvey
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven
-Wordsworth
When geometric diagrams and digits
Are no longer the keys to living things,
When people who go about singing or kissing
Know deeper things than the great scholars,
When society is returned once more
To unimprisoned life, and to the universe,
And when light and darkness mate
Once more and make something entirely transparent,
And people see in poems and fairy tales
The true history of the world,
Then our entire twisted nature will turn
And run when a single secret word is spoken.
-Novalis
We waste our life waiting, and I haven't the faintest idea
How to act or talk... in the lean years who needs poets?
But poets as you say are like the holy disciple of the Wild One
Who used to stroll over the fields through the whole divine night.
-Holderlin
You must not cling to your boyhood any longer--
It is time you were a man
-The Odyssey
ANDRE: Well, you know, I could imagine a life, Wally, in which each day would become an incredible monumental creative task. And we're not necessarily up to it. I mean, if you felt like walking out on the person you live with, you'd walk out. Then if you felt like it, you'd come back, but meanwhile the other person would have reacted to your walking out. It would be a life of such feeling. I mean, what was amazing in the workshops I led was how quickly people seem to fall into enthusiasm, celebration, joy, wonder, abandon, wildness, tenderness! Could we stand to live like that?
WALLY: Yeah, I think it's that moment of contact with another person. I mean that's what scares us. I mean, that moment of being face to face with another person. I mean, now, you wouldn't think it would be so frightening. It's strange that we find it so frightening.
ANDRE: Well, it isn't that strange. I mean, first of all, there are some pretty good reasons for being frightened. I mean, you know, a human being is a complex and dangerous creature. I mean, really if you start living each moment, Christ, that's quite a challenge! I mean, if you really reach out, and you're really in touch with the other person? Well, that really is something to strive for, I think; I really do.
WALLY: Yeah, it's just so pathetic if one doesn't do that.
ANDRE: Of course there's a problem, because the closer you come, I think, to another human being, the more completely mysterious and unreachable that person becomes. I mean, you know, you have to reach out and you have to go back and forth with them, and you have to relate, and yet you're relating to a ghost or something. I don't know, because we're ghosts, we're phantoms. Who are we?
-My Dinner With Andre
With all the road ahead of me, alone.
-Cesar Vallejo
I praise what is truly alive,
What longs to be burned to death.
-Goethe
And this is the reward: that the ideal shall be real to thee, and the impressions of the actual world shall fall like summer rain, copious, but not troublesome, to thy invulnerable essence. Thou shalt have the whole land for thy park and manor, the sea for thy bath and navigation, without tax and without envy; the woods and the rivers thou shalt own; and thou shalt possess that wherein others are only tenants and boarders. Thou true land-lord! sea-lord! air-lord! Wherever snow falls, or water flows, or birds fly, wherever day and night meet in twilight, wherever the blue heaven is hung by clouds, or sown with stars, wherever are forms with transparent boundaries, wherever are outlets into celestial space, wherever is danger, and awe, and love, there is Beauty, plenteous as rain, shed for thee, and though thou shouldest walk the world over, thou shalt not be able to find a condition inopportune or ignoble.
-Emerson
It is the lumps and trials
That tell us whether we shall be known
And whether our fate can be exemplary, like a star.
All the rest is waiting
For a letter that never arrives,
Day after day, the exasperation
Until finally you have ripped it open not knowing what it is,
The two envelope halves lying on a plate.
The message was wise, and seemingly
Dictated a long time ago.
-John Ashbery
I am pursuing you, life, to the ends of the earth
-Frederick Seidel
Mr Henry: It's an esoteric journey. We're renegades from despair.
-Bottle Rocket
The ancient British Bards had for the title of their order, 'Those who are free throughout the world.'
-Emerson
The spread of materialistic values has contributed to a moral coarsening and a growing cynicism in our country. Within a manipulative world all motives seem venal, all efforts illusory. But at a deeper level, it is the commodifying of imagination itself, the moral passivity, the social isolation, the angst that is generated by living in a solipsistic world of fraudulent satisfactions that is producing the greatest evil.
-Larry Harvey
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven
-Wordsworth
When geometric diagrams and digits
Are no longer the keys to living things,
When people who go about singing or kissing
Know deeper things than the great scholars,
When society is returned once more
To unimprisoned life, and to the universe,
And when light and darkness mate
Once more and make something entirely transparent,
And people see in poems and fairy tales
The true history of the world,
Then our entire twisted nature will turn
And run when a single secret word is spoken.
-Novalis
We waste our life waiting, and I haven't the faintest idea
How to act or talk... in the lean years who needs poets?
But poets as you say are like the holy disciple of the Wild One
Who used to stroll over the fields through the whole divine night.
-Holderlin
You must not cling to your boyhood any longer--
It is time you were a man
-The Odyssey
ANDRE: Well, you know, I could imagine a life, Wally, in which each day would become an incredible monumental creative task. And we're not necessarily up to it. I mean, if you felt like walking out on the person you live with, you'd walk out. Then if you felt like it, you'd come back, but meanwhile the other person would have reacted to your walking out. It would be a life of such feeling. I mean, what was amazing in the workshops I led was how quickly people seem to fall into enthusiasm, celebration, joy, wonder, abandon, wildness, tenderness! Could we stand to live like that?
WALLY: Yeah, I think it's that moment of contact with another person. I mean that's what scares us. I mean, that moment of being face to face with another person. I mean, now, you wouldn't think it would be so frightening. It's strange that we find it so frightening.
ANDRE: Well, it isn't that strange. I mean, first of all, there are some pretty good reasons for being frightened. I mean, you know, a human being is a complex and dangerous creature. I mean, really if you start living each moment, Christ, that's quite a challenge! I mean, if you really reach out, and you're really in touch with the other person? Well, that really is something to strive for, I think; I really do.
WALLY: Yeah, it's just so pathetic if one doesn't do that.
ANDRE: Of course there's a problem, because the closer you come, I think, to another human being, the more completely mysterious and unreachable that person becomes. I mean, you know, you have to reach out and you have to go back and forth with them, and you have to relate, and yet you're relating to a ghost or something. I don't know, because we're ghosts, we're phantoms. Who are we?
-My Dinner With Andre
11 August 2010
Death Valley Rose: A Country Song
I was walking ‘crossed the desert,
I was west-coast bound.
The sun was stealing the rain
‘fore it hit the ground.
There were bones in the dust
where the others had died.
I didn’t have a drop to sweat,
didn’t have a tear to cry.
That’s where I first saw her
out where nothing can grow,
The only woman I ever loved,
My Death Valley rose.
She was prim and she was poised
without a thick skin.
Not a thorn or a glass
to protect her from the wind.
If you bottled up her smell
you could sell it in Paris, France.
A lotta men gave their lives
going after her romance.
How she grew out there
nobody knows.
She’s a mirage, she’s a miracle,
My Death Valley rose.
Scrub and brush
Rock and dust
Nothing could stop her
from coming up
Skull and Bone
Blood and stone
Nothing could stop me
from making her my own
There’s lots of coyotes and cactii
baking in the sun.
As far as roses are concerned
I only know of one.
She took me to her house
and fed me from her well.
I never thought I’d find the road
to paradise in Hell.
I asked her to come with me
out to the coast.
I’m living by the ocean now
with my Death Valley Rose
I was west-coast bound.
The sun was stealing the rain
‘fore it hit the ground.
There were bones in the dust
where the others had died.
I didn’t have a drop to sweat,
didn’t have a tear to cry.
That’s where I first saw her
out where nothing can grow,
The only woman I ever loved,
My Death Valley rose.
She was prim and she was poised
without a thick skin.
Not a thorn or a glass
to protect her from the wind.
If you bottled up her smell
you could sell it in Paris, France.
A lotta men gave their lives
going after her romance.
How she grew out there
nobody knows.
She’s a mirage, she’s a miracle,
My Death Valley rose.
Scrub and brush
Rock and dust
Nothing could stop her
from coming up
Skull and Bone
Blood and stone
Nothing could stop me
from making her my own
There’s lots of coyotes and cactii
baking in the sun.
As far as roses are concerned
I only know of one.
She took me to her house
and fed me from her well.
I never thought I’d find the road
to paradise in Hell.
I asked her to come with me
out to the coast.
I’m living by the ocean now
with my Death Valley Rose
The Well of Dreams
I wanna hold your body close
When you go to sleep
When your soul goes off
to the well of dreams
I’ll take you in my hands
Let you down slow
To that darkened place
Where the wishes echo
Don’t get scared
if you start to fall
The water’s rising
It’s gonna take us all.
The well of dreams is swelling up
It’s rising fast it can’t be stopped
It’s not bringing danger
It’s not bringing death
It’s bringing new life
It’s breathing new breath
It’s washing the dirt
It’s absolving the sins
It’s feeding the earth
It’s cooling the winds
Close your eyes
Till you fall asleep
Come with me
to the well of dreams
The well of dreams is swelling up
It’s swelling fast, run and get your cup
When you go to sleep
When your soul goes off
to the well of dreams
I’ll take you in my hands
Let you down slow
To that darkened place
Where the wishes echo
Don’t get scared
if you start to fall
The water’s rising
It’s gonna take us all.
The well of dreams is swelling up
It’s rising fast it can’t be stopped
It’s not bringing danger
It’s not bringing death
It’s bringing new life
It’s breathing new breath
It’s washing the dirt
It’s absolving the sins
It’s feeding the earth
It’s cooling the winds
Close your eyes
Till you fall asleep
Come with me
to the well of dreams
The well of dreams is swelling up
It’s swelling fast, run and get your cup
09 August 2010
The Power of Negative Thinking. Becoming a Free Artist of The Self
There’s been a kind of vanquishing, an ostracizing, of certain modes of thought these days. We are told to be positive, that every challenge is an opportunity, to be adaptable, to stay hungry, to “Just Do It.” If you’re negative, or critical, or present people with ideas that perhaps they’ve never been presented with before, you might as well be a goddamn skunk spraying your stink all over everybody.
Fuck this.
These attitudes are encouraged because they are what make people good, obedient workers. Massive corporate entities require people who will adapt to whatever shitty situation they’re given, who smile even as someone “pisses in their face” (to steal a rather vivid image from “Glengarry Glen Ross”). Basically, companies want to hire people who will eat shit, who won’t think past the meager little deal they’re given.
You tell this to people, and they are just immediately turned off. Many of you have probably already stopped reading. As soon as you heard “Massive corporate entities” you probably thought, “Here comes some Hippie bullshit.” And so what if it is? I’m going anyway. No one wants to argue. No one likes confrontation. The two things everyone agrees you can’t talk about are “God and Politics”. In short, you should avoid talking about anything you actually care about. No one wants to read the newspaper because it’s full of bad news. No one wants to discuss or converse about anything of real substance because it’s boring. We talk about sports, or television, or the weather. Apathy is encouraged, and cliché infects our thoughts and decays our discourse. Well, goddamnit, people need to argue. We need to disagree. We need to feel. This is how we bond. This is what knits us into the great human community. Communication. Community. Same root. You might be pissing someone off, but you’re not lying to them, and all we do now is lie to each other. We’re so afraid of looking stupid, of feeling something, of revealing a vulnerable part of ourselves, that all we do is smile and lie, because telling the truth is unpredictable, and usually dangerous. But real living cannot go unaccompanied by danger.
We look back on the 1950s and think, my how those people were such conformists. Men in Gray Flannel Suits, kids in crew-cuts and sneakers, bobbysoxers and Buddy Holly. We think since the 60s, since the Beatles grew their hair out and wore colorful shirts that we’re not such conformists. You have a mohawk or mustache or whatever your particular fashion statement of choice is and you think you’re unique. It makes sense, in a way, the last thing anyone wants to be in a world of 7 billion people is exactly like the other 7 billion people, so we meekly try to enforce our own individuality against the great wallpaper of humanity. But individuality is not about style. Individuality requires bravery. Conformity is an attitude, a state of mind. Conformity is being afraid of dancing because everyone will see you and laugh. Conformity is not telling your table with the 3 year old puking cheerios all over the floor to go fuck themselves when they ask for another napkin. Conformity is fear, vanishing into the scenery, obeying the attitudes and customs and will of a social situation. Conformity is doing the things everyone else is doing because you are afraid to do the things you want to do, or that you know are right. Essentially, it is allowing the self to disappear in the great wake of society. It’s got nothing to do with wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt.
Well, I look like a pretty normal guy, but I don’t want to be a conformist. The dilemma is: Usually, rather than face situations with courage, I avoid them. Consequently I’m alone most of the time, with nothing but my opinions keeping me company. I’m often accused of being a grouch, a grump, an old man, a cynic, a pessimist, negative, an all around sour apple. I refuse to accept this. Sure, sometimes I’m negative, sometimes I’m positive, but mostly, I try to be honest, which is not generally how one behaves. Everyone is smiling and confident, even when they are not. We are all just grinning and grinning and bearing and bearing. I’m not gonna be that. I’m gonna bitch and rail until I die, even if it means I remain alone. Labeling someone a cynic, a grouch, tuning out when someone has an opinion, is censorship. You are limiting your own consciousness. This is something of a difficult idea to comprehend, because your consciousness is invisible. If someone steals your television, you’re gonna know about it, but if someone extinguishes a part of your mind, you might not have ever known it was there in the first place. It is much easier for a government, for an industry, to get their citizens, their workers, to barter away their minds than to surrender their lives. If you put a gun in someone’s face and tell them to do their job and shut the fuck up, they will probably resent that, but if you hypnotize them by putting an iPhone in their hand, they’ll probably do their job, even though it is killing their soul.
Often you’ll use a word like “Consciousness” and people will automatically think, “What a pretentious asshole,” or they’ll make a comment about “Wow, big word you used there.” Social custom has made it unattractive and unusual to speak well, but, honestly, people don’t know what the word “pretentious” means. To most, to be pretentious is essentially to “talk like a fag” (to pinch a line from Idiocracy), to go to those dark places in the mind that we have been discouraged from exploring. This is not what pretentious means. The root of the word implies that one is pretending to be something they’re not. Pretend=Pretentious. Well, I am not pretending to be anything. I am pissed off that people are voluntarily limiting their awareness, and consequently living a life of fear and isolation, of “quiet desperation”. I am optimistic, if anything, in that I believe there doesn’t have to be this utter deficiency of joy and courage and dignity in our lives.
So how does one turn this complaint into something appealing, something beautiful, something constructive? Putting a flower into a gun-barrel would not be a bad start. But there are no gun barrels pointed at us anymore, only great wrecking balls bashing the mind and spirit. Busting people from their shells and getting them to celebrate life is what needs to happen. Being an anarchist of joy, an artist of life, reactivating humanity, this is the notion. Excavating the soul from the rubble. Shocking people from the trance and reconstructing their compassion for one another. People really do want to live. They really do. That’s why they drink. People want to dance. They want to get down on their knees and kiss the hands of the beautiful women that pass them by on the street. But we can’t. We are paralyzed by insecurity. Some people refer to alcohol as “Liquid Courage”. Alcohol does not make you courageous, it makes you semi-retarded, a side effect of which is that you forget your inhibitions. Alcohol, unlike marijuana (which, for the record, I don’t smoke, though I probably sound like I do), doesn’t inspire people to think and perceive in new ways. It deadens the senses. In effect, it puts you into a deeper sleep. I have a vague idea about how to wake people up. It is terrifying, and a little bit of a hippie idea. I’ve been trying to write a movie for the better part of a year about a girl who is a “Professional Conveyor of Beauty and Life Artist.” She does things like call people randomly on the phone and, if they'll let her, read them Wordsworth. The main crux of the movie was that she writes these little messages and ties them to balloons and sends the balloons up into the sky in the hopes that they will fall on the right people and inspire them to change their lives. The problem has been that trying to put these ideas into a movie, trying to portray these problems and solutions through characterization and action and drama has always rang a little bit false. So, I’ve decided I’m just going to do the goddamn experiments myself. Last week I sent up my first two balloons, my e-mail address was written on both of them. One of them had a line from Joseph Campbell: “One lives in the midst of a silent sermon all the time,” and the other had a some lines from Walt Whitman, which I don’t remember right now. I haven’t heard anything back from either balloon. I had another one, with a note that simply said “LIVE,” but by the time I was ready to send it out the balloon had deflated. It is sort of a cowardly way to reach out to people, a kind of carpet bombing, sending missiles of air and color and poetry in the hopes that they might cause life to bloom somewhere rather than destroy it.
Now, sending these balloons up was frightening for me. I was worried if someone on my block would see me and think, “What the fuck is this about?” and as soon as I sent them I worried, Well God what if I get a ticket for littering? or what if one of them falls onto the freeway and causes a traffic accident and kills 27 people? I thought about sending them up without my e-mail, so I couldn't be found out, but I realized that would defeat the purpose. They are these amazingly elegant machines. I’m really quite proud of them, even though they’ll probably land in the middle of a cornfield somewhere and no one will find them. I originally got the idea from Shelley, who used to send his poems and political treatise up in balloons and down rivers in bottles. I have yet to receive a response, but I plan to send more up, and devise more “social experiments” in the near future, posting the results on this blog. I realize this is an incredibly precious, twee idea, but I don’t give a fuck. If I can bring something into someone’s life this way, I will be quite proud.
The same day I sent the balloons up I first read about “Burning Man”, which was quite a revelation for me. This guy, Larry Harvey, is some kind of genius. And when you first hear about Burning Man it sounds like this awful Hippie festival in the desert where they’re all naked and smelly and doing peyote. But, I tell you, I think Larry Harvey has really cracked it. He’s really found a way, a practical, implementable way to refashion community. The thing is, for so long I’ve been trying to sneak my ideas and thoughts through people's minds in the Trojan Horse of art. But the more art becomes commodified, the less effective it is. Art is not art anymore. Rock and roll is a spectator sport, and the last thing we need are more spectators. Even theatre, which is one of the oldest oral-participatory forms has become either sensationalized-franchised-DisneyPorn or Self-indulgent Self-Important Shouting-into-the-void. Going to the theatre is the entertainment equivalent of eating your vegetables. You do it cause it’s supposed to be good for you. Real art is spontaneous and engrossing and kinetic. It is the wind puffing the sail of your soul. It is an exchange of life energy, to get really fucking New-Age-y about it. But it is not a two-way exchange anymore. Artists are obedient and audience's are dead. The only exchange going on is the exchanging of money for a ticket, and all young people care about is how to be the guy receiving the money and not the one forking it over. I guess the initial inspiration for this came from “The Game.” Although The Game is ostensibly about picking up women, it isn’t really about picking up women. The Game is the only book I’ve ever seen that teaches you the mechanics behind social interaction. It opens the hood on the seemingly unpredictable engine of human interaction and shows you piece by piece how everything works, what makes the engine go. There could be other books about this, and probably are, but I didn’t find them because they weren’t under the guise of “How to pick up chicks.” What The Game teaches you, essentially, is that people are not as scary as you think they are, and most of us have biological mechanizations that are predictable and can be manipulated. At it’s worst, The Game makes us all into socio-paths, it turns the world into a great World of Warcraft where we are quantifiable social entities only valuable to each other insofar as we can be manipulated to get what we want (now that I think of it, that sounds a lot like how things are anyway). At it’s best, The Game instructs us how to participate in a society that often seems daunting and cruel, and, doing so, reweaves the fabric of community. It gives us courage, or rather, tools for being human. “The Game” derives not only from the teachings of the Pick-Up artists of yore, but also from the philosophies of Burning Man and the Cacophony Society, which was partly the basis for “Fight Club.” Like I said, I had never heard of Burning Man or the Cacophony Society until a week ago, but throughout my thinking about this social experiment project it seemed like a non-violent kind of Fight Club, which is essentially what The Cacophony Society is.
Housing these ideas, trying to transfuse them under the auspices of traditional art is archaic and ineffective. Art, like most everything else in this consumer-driven commodity society, makes us into passive observers, consumers. If I see a girl jogging down the street, and I think she’s pretty, what is to stop me from jogging next to her and telling her so? Only my own fear of social custom. If I want to speak Shakespeare on the street corner to the businessmen passing by, why shouldn’t I? The only way to bring beauty and joy back into people’s lives is to sweep them up into it. To flood them with passion until the walls of their “Trans Trans,” or train of thought, train of habit and behavior and life, tumble in a burst of feeling. And the only place to do this is on the street, in the places it is not expected. This is what the best rock stars and comedians and actors do anyway, it's just their stage has been co-opted and commodifed, like everything else by the great wolf's head of capitalism.
I realize this sounds like a naive idea that a only a young person has. But as Max Fischer said about his aquarium, "I don't give a shit about the Barracuda. Fuck it. I'm building it anyway." I am young and naive and I will have young and naive ideas and I will chase them as far as they may be pursued. That is the only way to live.
Fuck this.
These attitudes are encouraged because they are what make people good, obedient workers. Massive corporate entities require people who will adapt to whatever shitty situation they’re given, who smile even as someone “pisses in their face” (to steal a rather vivid image from “Glengarry Glen Ross”). Basically, companies want to hire people who will eat shit, who won’t think past the meager little deal they’re given.
You tell this to people, and they are just immediately turned off. Many of you have probably already stopped reading. As soon as you heard “Massive corporate entities” you probably thought, “Here comes some Hippie bullshit.” And so what if it is? I’m going anyway. No one wants to argue. No one likes confrontation. The two things everyone agrees you can’t talk about are “God and Politics”. In short, you should avoid talking about anything you actually care about. No one wants to read the newspaper because it’s full of bad news. No one wants to discuss or converse about anything of real substance because it’s boring. We talk about sports, or television, or the weather. Apathy is encouraged, and cliché infects our thoughts and decays our discourse. Well, goddamnit, people need to argue. We need to disagree. We need to feel. This is how we bond. This is what knits us into the great human community. Communication. Community. Same root. You might be pissing someone off, but you’re not lying to them, and all we do now is lie to each other. We’re so afraid of looking stupid, of feeling something, of revealing a vulnerable part of ourselves, that all we do is smile and lie, because telling the truth is unpredictable, and usually dangerous. But real living cannot go unaccompanied by danger.
We look back on the 1950s and think, my how those people were such conformists. Men in Gray Flannel Suits, kids in crew-cuts and sneakers, bobbysoxers and Buddy Holly. We think since the 60s, since the Beatles grew their hair out and wore colorful shirts that we’re not such conformists. You have a mohawk or mustache or whatever your particular fashion statement of choice is and you think you’re unique. It makes sense, in a way, the last thing anyone wants to be in a world of 7 billion people is exactly like the other 7 billion people, so we meekly try to enforce our own individuality against the great wallpaper of humanity. But individuality is not about style. Individuality requires bravery. Conformity is an attitude, a state of mind. Conformity is being afraid of dancing because everyone will see you and laugh. Conformity is not telling your table with the 3 year old puking cheerios all over the floor to go fuck themselves when they ask for another napkin. Conformity is fear, vanishing into the scenery, obeying the attitudes and customs and will of a social situation. Conformity is doing the things everyone else is doing because you are afraid to do the things you want to do, or that you know are right. Essentially, it is allowing the self to disappear in the great wake of society. It’s got nothing to do with wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt.
Well, I look like a pretty normal guy, but I don’t want to be a conformist. The dilemma is: Usually, rather than face situations with courage, I avoid them. Consequently I’m alone most of the time, with nothing but my opinions keeping me company. I’m often accused of being a grouch, a grump, an old man, a cynic, a pessimist, negative, an all around sour apple. I refuse to accept this. Sure, sometimes I’m negative, sometimes I’m positive, but mostly, I try to be honest, which is not generally how one behaves. Everyone is smiling and confident, even when they are not. We are all just grinning and grinning and bearing and bearing. I’m not gonna be that. I’m gonna bitch and rail until I die, even if it means I remain alone. Labeling someone a cynic, a grouch, tuning out when someone has an opinion, is censorship. You are limiting your own consciousness. This is something of a difficult idea to comprehend, because your consciousness is invisible. If someone steals your television, you’re gonna know about it, but if someone extinguishes a part of your mind, you might not have ever known it was there in the first place. It is much easier for a government, for an industry, to get their citizens, their workers, to barter away their minds than to surrender their lives. If you put a gun in someone’s face and tell them to do their job and shut the fuck up, they will probably resent that, but if you hypnotize them by putting an iPhone in their hand, they’ll probably do their job, even though it is killing their soul.
Often you’ll use a word like “Consciousness” and people will automatically think, “What a pretentious asshole,” or they’ll make a comment about “Wow, big word you used there.” Social custom has made it unattractive and unusual to speak well, but, honestly, people don’t know what the word “pretentious” means. To most, to be pretentious is essentially to “talk like a fag” (to pinch a line from Idiocracy), to go to those dark places in the mind that we have been discouraged from exploring. This is not what pretentious means. The root of the word implies that one is pretending to be something they’re not. Pretend=Pretentious. Well, I am not pretending to be anything. I am pissed off that people are voluntarily limiting their awareness, and consequently living a life of fear and isolation, of “quiet desperation”. I am optimistic, if anything, in that I believe there doesn’t have to be this utter deficiency of joy and courage and dignity in our lives.
So how does one turn this complaint into something appealing, something beautiful, something constructive? Putting a flower into a gun-barrel would not be a bad start. But there are no gun barrels pointed at us anymore, only great wrecking balls bashing the mind and spirit. Busting people from their shells and getting them to celebrate life is what needs to happen. Being an anarchist of joy, an artist of life, reactivating humanity, this is the notion. Excavating the soul from the rubble. Shocking people from the trance and reconstructing their compassion for one another. People really do want to live. They really do. That’s why they drink. People want to dance. They want to get down on their knees and kiss the hands of the beautiful women that pass them by on the street. But we can’t. We are paralyzed by insecurity. Some people refer to alcohol as “Liquid Courage”. Alcohol does not make you courageous, it makes you semi-retarded, a side effect of which is that you forget your inhibitions. Alcohol, unlike marijuana (which, for the record, I don’t smoke, though I probably sound like I do), doesn’t inspire people to think and perceive in new ways. It deadens the senses. In effect, it puts you into a deeper sleep. I have a vague idea about how to wake people up. It is terrifying, and a little bit of a hippie idea. I’ve been trying to write a movie for the better part of a year about a girl who is a “Professional Conveyor of Beauty and Life Artist.” She does things like call people randomly on the phone and, if they'll let her, read them Wordsworth. The main crux of the movie was that she writes these little messages and ties them to balloons and sends the balloons up into the sky in the hopes that they will fall on the right people and inspire them to change their lives. The problem has been that trying to put these ideas into a movie, trying to portray these problems and solutions through characterization and action and drama has always rang a little bit false. So, I’ve decided I’m just going to do the goddamn experiments myself. Last week I sent up my first two balloons, my e-mail address was written on both of them. One of them had a line from Joseph Campbell: “One lives in the midst of a silent sermon all the time,” and the other had a some lines from Walt Whitman, which I don’t remember right now. I haven’t heard anything back from either balloon. I had another one, with a note that simply said “LIVE,” but by the time I was ready to send it out the balloon had deflated. It is sort of a cowardly way to reach out to people, a kind of carpet bombing, sending missiles of air and color and poetry in the hopes that they might cause life to bloom somewhere rather than destroy it.
Now, sending these balloons up was frightening for me. I was worried if someone on my block would see me and think, “What the fuck is this about?” and as soon as I sent them I worried, Well God what if I get a ticket for littering? or what if one of them falls onto the freeway and causes a traffic accident and kills 27 people? I thought about sending them up without my e-mail, so I couldn't be found out, but I realized that would defeat the purpose. They are these amazingly elegant machines. I’m really quite proud of them, even though they’ll probably land in the middle of a cornfield somewhere and no one will find them. I originally got the idea from Shelley, who used to send his poems and political treatise up in balloons and down rivers in bottles. I have yet to receive a response, but I plan to send more up, and devise more “social experiments” in the near future, posting the results on this blog. I realize this is an incredibly precious, twee idea, but I don’t give a fuck. If I can bring something into someone’s life this way, I will be quite proud.
The same day I sent the balloons up I first read about “Burning Man”, which was quite a revelation for me. This guy, Larry Harvey, is some kind of genius. And when you first hear about Burning Man it sounds like this awful Hippie festival in the desert where they’re all naked and smelly and doing peyote. But, I tell you, I think Larry Harvey has really cracked it. He’s really found a way, a practical, implementable way to refashion community. The thing is, for so long I’ve been trying to sneak my ideas and thoughts through people's minds in the Trojan Horse of art. But the more art becomes commodified, the less effective it is. Art is not art anymore. Rock and roll is a spectator sport, and the last thing we need are more spectators. Even theatre, which is one of the oldest oral-participatory forms has become either sensationalized-franchised-DisneyPorn or Self-indulgent Self-Important Shouting-into-the-void. Going to the theatre is the entertainment equivalent of eating your vegetables. You do it cause it’s supposed to be good for you. Real art is spontaneous and engrossing and kinetic. It is the wind puffing the sail of your soul. It is an exchange of life energy, to get really fucking New-Age-y about it. But it is not a two-way exchange anymore. Artists are obedient and audience's are dead. The only exchange going on is the exchanging of money for a ticket, and all young people care about is how to be the guy receiving the money and not the one forking it over. I guess the initial inspiration for this came from “The Game.” Although The Game is ostensibly about picking up women, it isn’t really about picking up women. The Game is the only book I’ve ever seen that teaches you the mechanics behind social interaction. It opens the hood on the seemingly unpredictable engine of human interaction and shows you piece by piece how everything works, what makes the engine go. There could be other books about this, and probably are, but I didn’t find them because they weren’t under the guise of “How to pick up chicks.” What The Game teaches you, essentially, is that people are not as scary as you think they are, and most of us have biological mechanizations that are predictable and can be manipulated. At it’s worst, The Game makes us all into socio-paths, it turns the world into a great World of Warcraft where we are quantifiable social entities only valuable to each other insofar as we can be manipulated to get what we want (now that I think of it, that sounds a lot like how things are anyway). At it’s best, The Game instructs us how to participate in a society that often seems daunting and cruel, and, doing so, reweaves the fabric of community. It gives us courage, or rather, tools for being human. “The Game” derives not only from the teachings of the Pick-Up artists of yore, but also from the philosophies of Burning Man and the Cacophony Society, which was partly the basis for “Fight Club.” Like I said, I had never heard of Burning Man or the Cacophony Society until a week ago, but throughout my thinking about this social experiment project it seemed like a non-violent kind of Fight Club, which is essentially what The Cacophony Society is.
Housing these ideas, trying to transfuse them under the auspices of traditional art is archaic and ineffective. Art, like most everything else in this consumer-driven commodity society, makes us into passive observers, consumers. If I see a girl jogging down the street, and I think she’s pretty, what is to stop me from jogging next to her and telling her so? Only my own fear of social custom. If I want to speak Shakespeare on the street corner to the businessmen passing by, why shouldn’t I? The only way to bring beauty and joy back into people’s lives is to sweep them up into it. To flood them with passion until the walls of their “Trans Trans,” or train of thought, train of habit and behavior and life, tumble in a burst of feeling. And the only place to do this is on the street, in the places it is not expected. This is what the best rock stars and comedians and actors do anyway, it's just their stage has been co-opted and commodifed, like everything else by the great wolf's head of capitalism.
I realize this sounds like a naive idea that a only a young person has. But as Max Fischer said about his aquarium, "I don't give a shit about the Barracuda. Fuck it. I'm building it anyway." I am young and naive and I will have young and naive ideas and I will chase them as far as they may be pursued. That is the only way to live.
23 July 2010
We Go Way Back
SCENE: The Conversation Pit/ Rehearsal space of a campus house. The furniture is soiled, any ornamentation, carpeting or furnishing has been stripped, the windows boarded up, to make the space more amenable to loud rock and roll and sloppy drinking. Amplifiers line the walls. Vintage recording equipment, Guitars on stands, a half-dismantled drum set. The room is lit by a neon "Miller High Life" sign.
Yogi and Taylor - Early 20s.
Henry and Fitzy- Mid-20s
*******************************************
Fitzy, Yogi and Taylor have just returned from a bike ride, sweaty and clothed appropriately.
They all drink Genessee beer out of cans.
Henry: Are you guys brothers or...?
Yogi: Pretty much.
Taylor: We go way back. Way back to sharing women and...
Henry: Oh yeah.
Yogi:... drinking whiskey.
Laughter.
Taylor: I'll never forget that, dude. We're riding our bikes though, we were like, what, 14? Riding our bikes in Grove City, just ridin' around and then Yogi's like, "Hey, look girls, you want me to rape you?" They're like, "You can't rape the willing." Dude, we did U-turns...
Yogi makes the sound of screeching tires.
Taylor:...got their numbers, she was at my house the next day...
Henry: How old were they?
Taylor: Fuckin' Yogi was like, "Hey loosen her up so I can fuck her next." All right. Fuckin' popped my cherry on this bitch. Then I'm like, "You gotta go, I got plans today. I think Yogi wants to see you." She goes down, wouldn't fuck him cause she was sore. I was like "Yeeeeaaagh!"
Laughter.
Taylor: He fucked her, what, two days later?
Yogi: Yeah, we banged. She's hot.
Taylor: She was.
Yogi: She's like two years younger than us.
Fitzy: So she was 12?
Taylor: Like 8th grade.
Yogi: Like 13.
Fitzy: Oh, that's good.
Taylor: It was sweet.
Yogi: It's what I-- Dude, I been, I've been hittin' it since I was 12.
Taylor: Yeah bro, every time I get this chick, like I'll meet a chick at the bar. I'll be like, "Hey, you remember such and such from high school? Yeah, I just banged her last night." Yeah it's like, "yeah she sucked my dick." I'm like Mutherfucker.
Laughter.
Taylor: Every time.
Yogi: Every, every girl, like he he used to like these girls and like, he like, "Hey man, I'm talking to..." I was like, "Man, go ahead, I fucked her."
Fitzy: Remember them--
Yogi: Every time.
Fitzy: Remember the postal hoes?
Yogi: Dude, yeah, I fuckin' rode butt naked in front of'em.
Henry: Who are the postal hoes?
Fitzy: These, these trails out, out on the West Side we grew up riding at. There's all these, In Lincoln Village, There was all these... girls, these hoes, would just hang out, like groupies.
Yogi: Us dirtbag BMXers sweatin' our balls off, would get our dicks-- Like I remember Fat Steve gettin' his dick sucked by that girl and she threw up all over him.
Fitzy: Oh yeah!
Laughter.
Fitzy: In the back... It was so funny cause like Westland is just down the street and all the football jocks would like come by and they'd be so mad that us dirtbag shitheel bike riders are getting all the trim. And they ain't gettin' shit.
Yogi and Taylor - Early 20s.
Henry and Fitzy- Mid-20s
*******************************************
Fitzy, Yogi and Taylor have just returned from a bike ride, sweaty and clothed appropriately.
They all drink Genessee beer out of cans.
Henry: Are you guys brothers or...?
Yogi: Pretty much.
Taylor: We go way back. Way back to sharing women and...
Henry: Oh yeah.
Yogi:... drinking whiskey.
Laughter.
Taylor: I'll never forget that, dude. We're riding our bikes though, we were like, what, 14? Riding our bikes in Grove City, just ridin' around and then Yogi's like, "Hey, look girls, you want me to rape you?" They're like, "You can't rape the willing." Dude, we did U-turns...
Yogi makes the sound of screeching tires.
Taylor:...got their numbers, she was at my house the next day...
Henry: How old were they?
Taylor: Fuckin' Yogi was like, "Hey loosen her up so I can fuck her next." All right. Fuckin' popped my cherry on this bitch. Then I'm like, "You gotta go, I got plans today. I think Yogi wants to see you." She goes down, wouldn't fuck him cause she was sore. I was like "Yeeeeaaagh!"
Laughter.
Taylor: He fucked her, what, two days later?
Yogi: Yeah, we banged. She's hot.
Taylor: She was.
Yogi: She's like two years younger than us.
Fitzy: So she was 12?
Taylor: Like 8th grade.
Yogi: Like 13.
Fitzy: Oh, that's good.
Taylor: It was sweet.
Yogi: It's what I-- Dude, I been, I've been hittin' it since I was 12.
Taylor: Yeah bro, every time I get this chick, like I'll meet a chick at the bar. I'll be like, "Hey, you remember such and such from high school? Yeah, I just banged her last night." Yeah it's like, "yeah she sucked my dick." I'm like Mutherfucker.
Laughter.
Taylor: Every time.
Yogi: Every, every girl, like he he used to like these girls and like, he like, "Hey man, I'm talking to..." I was like, "Man, go ahead, I fucked her."
Fitzy: Remember them--
Yogi: Every time.
Fitzy: Remember the postal hoes?
Yogi: Dude, yeah, I fuckin' rode butt naked in front of'em.
Henry: Who are the postal hoes?
Fitzy: These, these trails out, out on the West Side we grew up riding at. There's all these, In Lincoln Village, There was all these... girls, these hoes, would just hang out, like groupies.
Yogi: Us dirtbag BMXers sweatin' our balls off, would get our dicks-- Like I remember Fat Steve gettin' his dick sucked by that girl and she threw up all over him.
Fitzy: Oh yeah!
Laughter.
Fitzy: In the back... It was so funny cause like Westland is just down the street and all the football jocks would like come by and they'd be so mad that us dirtbag shitheel bike riders are getting all the trim. And they ain't gettin' shit.
14 July 2010
Summit Chase
Summit Chase, the luxury high rise,
was squarely framed in my bedroom window.
The only building bridging hometown skies
enchanted me with its heavenward flow;
The space-man John Glenn lived there, or so we heard,
and everybody dreamed of the roof-top pool,
high above with the singing birds,
too high to hear as we walked home from school.
Writing a story for the school newspaper
they let me inside. The basement was dark.
The power was dead. No elevator
could raise me. I heard a hidden dog bark.
On the ground I saw a pool, cracked and drained.
The lights leapt on above, the sky was stained.
13 July 2010
The Black and White Ball
The guests have all almost arrived.
The men in black ties
cross names off the list.
Soon it can begin
to end.
A Man
is shaking hands.
We file
down the line.
His smile is so big
I can see the silver in his teeth.
His hand is warm and strong.
We have cocktails with the men
who will kill us.
They are not doing it for them
they tell us.
I believe them. I thank them.
Men have been trying for centuries
and they're going to do it.
We'll rise to the sky
without having to climb.
We'll appear there,
lifted like rain.
The last guest arrives.
He’s already dead.
The men in black ties
cross names off the list.
Soon it can begin
to end.
A Man
is shaking hands.
We file
down the line.
His smile is so big
I can see the silver in his teeth.
His hand is warm and strong.
We have cocktails with the men
who will kill us.
They are not doing it for them
they tell us.
I believe them. I thank them.
Men have been trying for centuries
and they're going to do it.
We'll rise to the sky
without having to climb.
We'll appear there,
lifted like rain.
The last guest arrives.
He’s already dead.
06 July 2010
The Guf
A FATHER, 60, long hair, wearing a bathrobe. A SON, 25, on the couch. They are watching a giant gray television. CNN or the History Channel. The Father is putting a golf ball across the carpet at a little machine that spits it back at him. He may be smoking a joint. The Son may be playing with his Cell Phone.
DAD: So when we gonna get out and play some golf?
SON: Shit. Too goddamn hot.
DAD: When'd you play last?
SON: Your birthday prolly.
DAD: You gotta get out there so I can give you an asskicking. (pause) I went out to Walnut Grove the other day.
SON: Who'd you go with?
DAD: Just by myself. It's in pretty good shape for this time of year. The greens are nice and smooth. Ball rolls where you hit it. Ground's so dry it bounces for a hundred fucking yards after it lands.
SON: Yeah it needs to fuckin' rain already, seriously. This shit's getting ridiculous.
Pause.
SON: Change the fucking channel. This shit's depressing.
Pause.
DAD: You ever hear of the Guf? You know what The Guf is?
SON: Nope.
DAD: What the Hell are they teaching you up in that college? The Jews have this idea that there's this chamber in Heaven where all the souls are kept before they're released into the world. Supposedly birds can see the souls coming down from the Guf and that's why they sing.
SON: Mmm.
DAD: Sounds nice, right? Well, when the Guf is empty, when all the souls have been released, that's when the Messiah is supposed to come. Supposedly, Adam, the Original Man, was as big as the universe. When he was cast out, or maybe when Eve was created (they didn't really explain that shit but it's religion what the hell do you expect), his soul was shattered into a bunch of fragments, which are us, or we carry them around anyway.
SON: We're sub-leasers.
DAD: Yeah right. All souls are only fragments of some great "World Soul" and when the Guf is empty all the souls will be back here, back on the earth, and the "World Soul," the soul of Adam will be whole again. That's when Jesus, the Messiah will come back.
SON: Maybe that's metaphorical
DAD: Sure, yeah, but, I've been thinking about it and, okay, good story, sounds nice and all, but when the Messiah comes, from what I understand, he's not gonna be pleased. Ain't happy about the "way things been going."
SON: Right, Revelations and all that.
DAD: Right. In Re-
SON: Revelations is a, I read it a little while ago, it's pretty grim.
DAD: To say the least.
SON: It's quite vivid, actually, the way-- Whoever wrote it seemed to enjoy finding unbelievable, spectacular ways to kill us. Like, Jesus has a giant wine press and he squashes people like they're fucking grapes and there's blood spewing everywhere and he's got flames coming out of his eyes and a sword for a tongue.
DAD: Yeah, real merciful guy.
SON: Right.
DAD: So, anyway, I've been thinking, well, there's, what, 7 billion people on earth? 8 billion people on earth? More people alive than at any point in history. What that says...
SON: Ahhh.
DAD: What that means...
SON: Uh-huh Yeah.
DAD: What that says, to me anyways, is, well, where are all these people, these newly-minted souls coming from?
SON: The Guf is empty.
DAD: Right. Or getting there anyway. Shit, you can't hardly turn on the TV without seeing floods, tsunamis, Biblical shit. The Oil Spill. I watch it right from my living room every day. I got a front row seat. Every day there’s a new catastrophe.
SON: Well, if you watch CNN all the time you can't.
DAD: The "Fertile Crescent." That's everything between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers-- Iraq, essentially. The Christians believe that when the Fertile Crescent is returned to the Jews, when the Jews have been restored to their "Homeland", that's when the Messiah will return for, for...
SON: For...
Dad: For "The Big Showdown".
SON: Yeah.
DAD: Right. This war, this war, people think it's about freedom or oil or killing Saddam. It's not about any of that shit, and oil, which is what everybody on the left thinks it's about, that's just sleight of hand. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain". It ain't about oil. It's about returning God's Chosen People to their Homeland.
SON: Well, I don't--
DAD: 'Course you tell people that they think you're nuts. It's about-- Bush and all his, his, the people that have been in power, on and off, for the last thirty years, that whole regime, they actually really believe this shit, and they are doing everything they can to see that it comes to pass in our lifetime. They wanna secure the good seats in Heaven, you know, near the front.
SON: But--
DAD: And they're doing a pretty goddamn good job of it.
SON: Well, but Obama's not--
DAD: Obama doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. He's never even been in office hardly. They're incompetent. Obama is a placeholder. Bush did the heavy lifting. It's already been set in motion. It's too late to stop. It's like dominoes. First it was the Afghanistan and Iraq, the Stock Market, the Economy. "The Graveyard of Empires". You ever hear that? That's what they call Afghanistan.
SON: No.
DAD: The British, Alexander the Great, The Russians, if you look at history, they all went into Afghanistan and that was the last place they fucked around with.
SON: I did not know that.
Pause.
SON: So, what do you suggest is going to happen?
DAD: Well... 2012. The Mayan Calendar. Revelations. Dr. Strangelove.
SON: You believe that?
DAD: You can't hardly look at the news and not believe it. This country is bleeding to death. It's only a matter of time before the federal government is bankrupt. Pretty soon we won't have anything left except a shitload of Nuclear Bombs. And you can't eat a Nuclear Bomb. You can't do anything with it but blow shit up.
SON: Yeah... Yep. Well that's... I thought maybe the Mayan thing referred to something, uhh...
DAD: A change in consciousness?
SON: ...Yeah.
DAD: Yeah, well, all you gotta do is turn on your TV...
SON: I don't have a TV.
DAD: Well then you won't have to watch. All you gotta do is turn on your TV and-- Two years from now, what seems more likely? That suddenly everybody's gonna wake up one day and be enlightened or that there's gonna be worldwide suicide?
The Son laughs.
Pause.
SON: I just, I can't, uhh, I can't... believe that-- It's-- In a... In a-- (he sighs) It seems to me that, I mean, this isn't the first time we've been close to extermination. Everybody has always thought we were gonna die. A thousand years ago people were saying the same shit. I mean, it's a fairly easy thing to predict. The world is here. It could just as easily be gone. "'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished," you know. And certainly, it is possible. These days especially, it's getting to seem more possible. We could definitely blow ourselves up today quite easily, on accident even, and that possibility probably wasn't there a hundred years ago. BUT...
Okay, there's forces of good and forces of evil, maybe, in the universe. At least there are things we call good and evil. Or maybe, let's say, there are destructive forces and creative forces, to be more impartial. The struggle, the friction, the conflict, the way these forces pummel and wrestle with each other is what drives life forward somehow. To me, I think, these forces are not exactly balanced, it seems to me. It seems to me the creative force has the smallest little sliver of a slice of an advantage over the destructive force and that's how life has been capable of proliferating itself. That's how there can be 7 billion people when 300 years ago there were only 750 million or however many.
Now, momentum does seem to be building in a possibly sinister way. Time does seem to be speeding up. Things are-- advancement, growth is happening twice as fast in half as much time. Mathematically this appears to signify, Casey Jones, you know, “Ridin’ that train/ High on cocaine”.... It's impossible to sustain. Technology is more powerful and more destructive, but, I believe it is concurrently also getting more effective at sustaining us, or helping us to sustain life. We are getting better at surviving and reproducing, I mean, 7 billion people!, which is basically the objective of, umm, living, so far as we can tell. Maybe, I guess, maybe the whole purpose of life is to get better at reproducing so that, like you said, the Guf can be emptied. Maybe that's all we're here for; to spit the 10 billion little shards of Adam or however many there are out onto the earth so they can be put back together. And, you know, in that sense, we are succeeding. Maybe God, or whatever it is, sent us here to empty the Guf, to restore the original harmony, the World Soul, so that it can die. So that it can destroy itself. So that it can rest. So that we can rest. Maybe the universe opens and closes just like a flower. Maybe that’s all it does. Maybe we’re just held here in the bloom and we get to live for a little while and that’s it.
On the other hand, maybe when the Guf is emptied it won't mean destruction, but, I don't know, Peace. The Music Of The Spheres. A change in consciousness. A release from these petty, umm, worldly concerns that we think we care about, or we force ourselves to care about. Maybe there'll just be, I don't know, a hum. A resonance. A connection between us, such as would not be possible UNTIL the guff is empty. Maybe the incompleteness of the soul is what keeps us in disorder, keeps us squabbling over bullshit.
I, personally, hope the world doesn't end. Life is wonderful, in nearly equal proportion to how shitty it is. Every time it looks like humanity is fucked, like it's curtains, some bit of ingenuity springs up and alleviates our struggle, just enough so that we can squeak into the next, more fucked up situation. And we have to live in a constant state of danger, of extinction, of the possibility of being destroyed, otherwise, somehow, life wouldn't be worth as much. I mean, if we just kept inventing all this awesome shit that solved all of our problems and made our lives better, well that'd just be too easy. With every added convenience or progression something is lost. It’s like if you divide a number by two, you can just keep dividing it and dividing it and you will never reach zero. You’ll never solve it. There has to be a, a, a... I ran out of gas.
DAD: A balance.
SON: A balance, yes-- I mean, part of it, you know, I just got here. I'm not ready for it to end.
DAD: Yeah... (sighs) Yeah. I've been around for some time now.
SON: Yeah but you've still got... I mean, Jesus, you're only middle aged really.
DAD: I get the senior rate at the golf course.
SON: Shit, they start giving that to you when you're 50.
DAD: Yeah.
SON: 50's not a goddamn senior.
The Dad sighs. Pause.
DAD: You know how when somebody hears their voice on a tape recorder they hate the way it sounds? That's how I feel about myself all the time.
Pause.
SON: You don't have to, Dad, you're... You're the only fucking... holy person I know, really.
Pause.
DAD: I feel like I'm trying to construct a kind of a, a... psychic ark. Something that'll keep me afloat on all of the, the, fucked-up-ness.
SON: That's all you can do, really.
DAD: If you look at the evidence, if you simply just objectively look at the record, objectively, I mean, if it was you or I and it was our job to be God and we were doing what he's doing we'd be fired. We're supposed to think he's merciful? I have a hard time digging that, you know? In my experience, He's been a mean motherfucker. If anything God is the ultimate destructive force. It gets to be... I don't know that I'd want to go to Heaven if I have to be around somebody like that, who's blatantly abandoned and ignored, tortured, "His" so-called children.
SON: Well, the lord giveth and the lord taketh away.
DAD: The lord giveth and the lord fucketh you over.
Pause.
SON: Fuck, I don't know... You wanna go play golf?
DAD: Sure.
SON: Not so hot in the evening.
DAD: I should probably put some pants on I guess.
SON: Might be a good idea.
They start out.
SON: Only so many days left to play before the world blows up.
They exit.
The Stage is empty.
Fade to black.
4th of July
I live near the underpass
Where I crashed
my car. The hill
hurled me down through the rain
into the concrete wall.
It didn’t cause me any pain.
I walked away.
I didn’t change.
I slept that night.
I lived.
I still live.
I drive.
I live
nearby
Where I nearly
Died,
the hill
that tried to kill
Me. Isn’t it wonderful
To feel nothing at all?
The sky is blue everywhere,
empty
Ready to be filled
with fire. Tonight
explosions will hatch
over the underpass
in the sky,
And here below too.
Where I crashed
my car. The hill
hurled me down through the rain
into the concrete wall.
It didn’t cause me any pain.
I walked away.
I didn’t change.
I slept that night.
I lived.
I still live.
I drive.
I live
nearby
Where I nearly
Died,
the hill
that tried to kill
Me. Isn’t it wonderful
To feel nothing at all?
The sky is blue everywhere,
empty
Ready to be filled
with fire. Tonight
explosions will hatch
over the underpass
in the sky,
And here below too.
03 July 2010
Happy America Everybody
This is how I explain fireworks: When you're little they're cool cause you haven't seen that many explosions, but when you get older, you realize explosions are only cool if they destroy something. SO, if they exploded airplanes with fireworks, they'd be cool to watch again.
-Overheard at Red, White and Boom
-Overheard at Red, White and Boom
30 June 2010
For No One
The air is made of you today,
All your songs and smoke rings.
The empty throne
of a flower is waiting.
How many love poems
for no one
will I have to write
before you appear?
All your songs and smoke rings.
The empty throne
of a flower is waiting.
How many love poems
for no one
will I have to write
before you appear?
24 June 2010
You're a good friend, but you're an asshole
A Large White Man and a Small Indian Man, both in their late-20s, are playing tennis in the rain. Night is coming on. There are no lights for the courts.
After a fervent volley, the Large White Man hits a shot that lands on or near the line. It goes past the Small Indian Man.
Small Indian Man: Out.
Large White Man: FUCK YOU!
Small Indian Man: What happened?
Large White Man: (walking toward the net, pointing his racquet in a threatening manner at the Small Indian Man) You are an asshole, Raj. You're a good friend, but you're an asshole.
Small Indian Man: What happened? I didn't see.
The Large White Man breaths aggressively. He walks back to the line.
The Small Indian Man serves. They play. The Small Indian Man hits it out of bounds.
Large White Man: YES.
It begins to rain harder. They continue playing as it gets dark.
After a fervent volley, the Large White Man hits a shot that lands on or near the line. It goes past the Small Indian Man.
Small Indian Man: Out.
Large White Man: FUCK YOU!
Small Indian Man: What happened?
Large White Man: (walking toward the net, pointing his racquet in a threatening manner at the Small Indian Man) You are an asshole, Raj. You're a good friend, but you're an asshole.
Small Indian Man: What happened? I didn't see.
The Large White Man breaths aggressively. He walks back to the line.
The Small Indian Man serves. They play. The Small Indian Man hits it out of bounds.
Large White Man: YES.
It begins to rain harder. They continue playing as it gets dark.
23 June 2010
Make It Right
Yorke and Matt in the kitchen. Afternoon. June.
Yorke: And-- I think that’s the way these priests are.
Pause.
Yorke: They’re nuts!
Matt: They are. They’re (mumbles)…
Yorke: They can’t find the bottom because they feel obligated to agree that they believe, but they really really don’t. (pause) You know what I mean?... And it becomes more than just a façade after awhile. It becomes like this dual personality…
Matt: Right.
Yorke: All the sudden…
Matt: Dr. Jekkyl and Mr. Hyde.
Yorke: Yeah. All of these guys, not just… one or two. Like it—if, if you took a cross section of, of a hundred people at random and you’d find like 2 or 3 pervs in there…but in the priesthood it seems like they’re more like 50 or 60 percent! And it ain’t because of the” left-wing news” that I think that. You know what I mean?... And they’re willing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars--
Matt: To cover it up.
Yorke: To, to “make it right.”
Matt laughs.
Yorke: And Confess. That’s also a very—And Repent. And then you can go to Heaven with the rest of us, but you have to ride in the back. The whole idea, you know, the whole thing is such an obvious construction of a human mind, not a, and not a, uhh, sup- You know what I mean? It’s not a- even inspired. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a—The first part of the Bible is like a, uhh…an instruction book of how to take over and dominate and, and--
Matt: Right.
Yorke: Have your- It’s like you had no no fucking chance of of thinking that maybe we shouldn’t have a “chosen people.” Maybe we should all just try to “get along,” you know, like somebody said on TV or… something (pause).That ain’t what they’ve got in mind. That’s why this so called “peace process” has been going on since 1948 (pause). That’s been going on since the first day they fuckin’-
Matt: Well yeah…
Yorke: ...took over. Since Truman…
Matt: Meaning, by peace, meaning suppressing the…
Yorke: It’s means, like, when you sue a big company because they totally fucked you over and instead of saying “You’re wrong” they just keep…
Matt: Giving you money.
Yorke: ”Justice delayed is justice denied.” Have you ever heard that? That says a lot in four words. That’s almost- I, I wonder what that is in Latin. It probably sounds really cool…It’s it’s true. And it’s their- it’s what they do. They know that—Like, for example, in this Exxon Valdez situation, 20 percent of the people who sued them are now dead, and they still haven’t gotten a fucking dime.
Yorke: And-- I think that’s the way these priests are.
Pause.
Yorke: They’re nuts!
Matt: They are. They’re (mumbles)…
Yorke: They can’t find the bottom because they feel obligated to agree that they believe, but they really really don’t. (pause) You know what I mean?... And it becomes more than just a façade after awhile. It becomes like this dual personality…
Matt: Right.
Yorke: All the sudden…
Matt: Dr. Jekkyl and Mr. Hyde.
Yorke: Yeah. All of these guys, not just… one or two. Like it—if, if you took a cross section of, of a hundred people at random and you’d find like 2 or 3 pervs in there…but in the priesthood it seems like they’re more like 50 or 60 percent! And it ain’t because of the” left-wing news” that I think that. You know what I mean?... And they’re willing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars--
Matt: To cover it up.
Yorke: To, to “make it right.”
Matt laughs.
Yorke: And Confess. That’s also a very—And Repent. And then you can go to Heaven with the rest of us, but you have to ride in the back. The whole idea, you know, the whole thing is such an obvious construction of a human mind, not a, and not a, uhh, sup- You know what I mean? It’s not a- even inspired. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a—The first part of the Bible is like a, uhh…an instruction book of how to take over and dominate and, and--
Matt: Right.
Yorke: Have your- It’s like you had no no fucking chance of of thinking that maybe we shouldn’t have a “chosen people.” Maybe we should all just try to “get along,” you know, like somebody said on TV or… something (pause).That ain’t what they’ve got in mind. That’s why this so called “peace process” has been going on since 1948 (pause). That’s been going on since the first day they fuckin’-
Matt: Well yeah…
Yorke: ...took over. Since Truman…
Matt: Meaning, by peace, meaning suppressing the…
Yorke: It’s means, like, when you sue a big company because they totally fucked you over and instead of saying “You’re wrong” they just keep…
Matt: Giving you money.
Yorke: ”Justice delayed is justice denied.” Have you ever heard that? That says a lot in four words. That’s almost- I, I wonder what that is in Latin. It probably sounds really cool…It’s it’s true. And it’s their- it’s what they do. They know that—Like, for example, in this Exxon Valdez situation, 20 percent of the people who sued them are now dead, and they still haven’t gotten a fucking dime.
15 June 2010
The Financial Crisis
I read "The Curse of the Starving Class" by Sam Shepard last night, an amazing play, and late in the play the character of Weston, the archetypical alcoholic Shepard patriarch, gives a speech that I thought articulated a lot of what I and possibly many others have been thinking about this whole financial crisis we're in, credit, "the cloud", etc. Here it is:
WESTON: (after pause) I remember now. I was in hock. I was in hock up to my elbows. See, I always figured on the future. I banked on it. I was banking on it getting better. It couldn't get any worse, so I figured it'd just get better. I figured that's why everyone wants you to buy things. Buy refrigerators. Buy cars, houses, lots, invest. They wouldn't be so generous if they didn't figure you had it comin' in. At some point it had to be comin' in. So I went along with it. Why not borrow if you know it's coming in. Why not make a touch here and there. They all want you to borrow anyhow. Banks, car lots, investors. The whole things geared to invisible money. You never hear the sound of change anymore. It's all plastic shuffling back and forth. It's all in everybody's heads. So I figured if that's the case, why not take advantage of it? Why not go in debt for a few grand if all it is is numbers? If it's all an idea and nothing's really there, why not take advantage? So I just went along with it, that's all. I just played ball.
WESTON: (after pause) I remember now. I was in hock. I was in hock up to my elbows. See, I always figured on the future. I banked on it. I was banking on it getting better. It couldn't get any worse, so I figured it'd just get better. I figured that's why everyone wants you to buy things. Buy refrigerators. Buy cars, houses, lots, invest. They wouldn't be so generous if they didn't figure you had it comin' in. At some point it had to be comin' in. So I went along with it. Why not borrow if you know it's coming in. Why not make a touch here and there. They all want you to borrow anyhow. Banks, car lots, investors. The whole things geared to invisible money. You never hear the sound of change anymore. It's all plastic shuffling back and forth. It's all in everybody's heads. So I figured if that's the case, why not take advantage of it? Why not go in debt for a few grand if all it is is numbers? If it's all an idea and nothing's really there, why not take advantage? So I just went along with it, that's all. I just played ball.
12 June 2010
A Short Play About Los Angeles
Two middle aged men waiting for their plane to board. A, in baseball cap, hoodie, cargo pants. B, larger, orange and white hair, goatee, lazy eye, all dressed in black.
B:
It introduces jealousy, it introduces sympathy, trust...
A:
Mmm.
B:
They're perfect for-- They're a perfect match, but--
A:
But they--
B:
They need to have this test. They need to see what--
A:
It's like all of those people you date--
B:
Exactly.
A:
You need to go through them, to prepare you. So you'll know.
B:
Yes. The audience knows they belong together. We see that.
A:
In the beginning.
B:
Right, but still--
A:
We still have to--
B:
The journey.
A:
Plus it's a test.
B:
It's a big fucking test.
A:
Cause what if, what if, they meet someone...
B:
And that's--
A:
What if they meet someone they can't resist. Could meet all kinda people.
B:
And that's where all these issues of, fidelity, uhh, you know--
A:
Right right right.
B:
Right. Sex. Lotta dimensions. Lotta "Ifs".
A:
They see what it's like, "It's a Wonderful Life" kinda thing.
B:
But modern. And that's how we can pitch it.
A:
I thought--
B:
Well, yes.
A:
I thought you had the meeting already.
B:
We did.
A:
Yeah?
B:
I mean, you know how these things are.
A:
They passed?
B:
No no no. Not-- They're very interested. They said-- Marty, he's a friend, but he's, he can be, shortsighted. I mean, that's his job, guys like him.
A:
Yeah.
B:
They see concepts and concepts and concepts and hear pitch pitch pitch...
A:
Sure.
B:
If it doesn't--
A:
If it doesn't--
B:
Exactly. Right off if it doesn't-- DING DING DING. They're gatekeepers. If they don't see dollar signs, if Brad's not attached, if you don't have a goddamn name--
A:
That's the business.
B:
And I know that. If you don't go in there with the whole goddamn--
A:
You gotta have the poster, you gotta have stars, you gotta--
B:
And we did that. Poster, tagline, notecarded the scenes, picked out the fucking caterers for chrissakes... I don't know. It's just so, to take something abstract and make it bankable, make it real to these people...
A:
It ain't that hard, John. Will Smith. That's all you need. That's what makes it real. Cruise....Well, maybe not Cruise.
B:
We've got Tucci.
A:
Tucci is not a name.
B:
Well...For a certain, you know, Big Night...Tucci is not nobody. He's not nobody. Tucci is very interested. He's on board. Julia and Julia, he's not nobody. Audiences are very familiar with him.
A:
Well, John, it's not like he's--
B:
Of course.
A:
It could be sexy is all I'm saying.
B:
And, okay, if this was Titanic, sure, but we're thinking a date night-babysitter kind of thing.
A:
And Tucci means something to those people.
B:
Yes.
A:
In all fairness, though, it is very conceptual.
B:
Well, sure--
A:
Which is good. High concept, easy to market.
B:
Listen, I just wanna tell a goddamn story.
A:
And you can do that, all I'm saying is you might want to consider thinking about a younger, as much as I hate the word, demographic. You've got this great idea. It'd be great-- put a couple of people you wanna fuck in there. Not Stanley fucking Tucci.
B:
Hey, if I could get fucking, you know, Jake Gyllenhaal, shit, if I could get The Jonas Brothers, I'd be a pig in shit. It's not about that.
A:
Naturally.
B:
And it could go either way. The script is not age specific. It could be anybody. Could be a Notebook thing. Could last eighty fucking years.
A:
Now that is interesting. The whole spectrum.
B:
Yes.
A:
Tucci, or whoever, could be the guy when he's old.
B:
Get a young guy to play him when--
A:
Right. Old, young.
B:
This is good. This is a very good way to go.
A:
It could be eighty years they're apart.
B:
The longer the better. Undying love kind of thing.
A:
Then they finally wind up together, and they both croak.
B:
One of them dies, then the other.
A:
They can't live without each other.
B:
Yes. Yes Yes. But they get to spend the last few years together.
A:
Right. Then they go to Heaven or wherever together. Eternity.
B:
Fuck yes. I think I've cracked it. This is a whole new approach. This is gonna crack the whole thing open.
A:
Hey, we cracked it together.
B:
You certainly helped me talk it out.
A:
Glad I could help.
B:
I'm excited to get on the plane to work on it.
B:
It introduces jealousy, it introduces sympathy, trust...
A:
Mmm.
B:
They're perfect for-- They're a perfect match, but--
A:
But they--
B:
They need to have this test. They need to see what--
A:
It's like all of those people you date--
B:
Exactly.
A:
You need to go through them, to prepare you. So you'll know.
B:
Yes. The audience knows they belong together. We see that.
A:
In the beginning.
B:
Right, but still--
A:
We still have to--
B:
The journey.
A:
Plus it's a test.
B:
It's a big fucking test.
A:
Cause what if, what if, they meet someone...
B:
And that's--
A:
What if they meet someone they can't resist. Could meet all kinda people.
B:
And that's where all these issues of, fidelity, uhh, you know--
A:
Right right right.
B:
Right. Sex. Lotta dimensions. Lotta "Ifs".
A:
They see what it's like, "It's a Wonderful Life" kinda thing.
B:
But modern. And that's how we can pitch it.
A:
I thought--
B:
Well, yes.
A:
I thought you had the meeting already.
B:
We did.
A:
Yeah?
B:
I mean, you know how these things are.
A:
They passed?
B:
No no no. Not-- They're very interested. They said-- Marty, he's a friend, but he's, he can be, shortsighted. I mean, that's his job, guys like him.
A:
Yeah.
B:
They see concepts and concepts and concepts and hear pitch pitch pitch...
A:
Sure.
B:
If it doesn't--
A:
If it doesn't--
B:
Exactly. Right off if it doesn't-- DING DING DING. They're gatekeepers. If they don't see dollar signs, if Brad's not attached, if you don't have a goddamn name--
A:
That's the business.
B:
And I know that. If you don't go in there with the whole goddamn--
A:
You gotta have the poster, you gotta have stars, you gotta--
B:
And we did that. Poster, tagline, notecarded the scenes, picked out the fucking caterers for chrissakes... I don't know. It's just so, to take something abstract and make it bankable, make it real to these people...
A:
It ain't that hard, John. Will Smith. That's all you need. That's what makes it real. Cruise....Well, maybe not Cruise.
B:
We've got Tucci.
A:
Tucci is not a name.
B:
Well...For a certain, you know, Big Night...Tucci is not nobody. He's not nobody. Tucci is very interested. He's on board. Julia and Julia, he's not nobody. Audiences are very familiar with him.
A:
Well, John, it's not like he's--
B:
Of course.
A:
It could be sexy is all I'm saying.
B:
And, okay, if this was Titanic, sure, but we're thinking a date night-babysitter kind of thing.
A:
And Tucci means something to those people.
B:
Yes.
A:
In all fairness, though, it is very conceptual.
B:
Well, sure--
A:
Which is good. High concept, easy to market.
B:
Listen, I just wanna tell a goddamn story.
A:
And you can do that, all I'm saying is you might want to consider thinking about a younger, as much as I hate the word, demographic. You've got this great idea. It'd be great-- put a couple of people you wanna fuck in there. Not Stanley fucking Tucci.
B:
Hey, if I could get fucking, you know, Jake Gyllenhaal, shit, if I could get The Jonas Brothers, I'd be a pig in shit. It's not about that.
A:
Naturally.
B:
And it could go either way. The script is not age specific. It could be anybody. Could be a Notebook thing. Could last eighty fucking years.
A:
Now that is interesting. The whole spectrum.
B:
Yes.
A:
Tucci, or whoever, could be the guy when he's old.
B:
Get a young guy to play him when--
A:
Right. Old, young.
B:
This is good. This is a very good way to go.
A:
It could be eighty years they're apart.
B:
The longer the better. Undying love kind of thing.
A:
Then they finally wind up together, and they both croak.
B:
One of them dies, then the other.
A:
They can't live without each other.
B:
Yes. Yes Yes. But they get to spend the last few years together.
A:
Right. Then they go to Heaven or wherever together. Eternity.
B:
Fuck yes. I think I've cracked it. This is a whole new approach. This is gonna crack the whole thing open.
A:
Hey, we cracked it together.
B:
You certainly helped me talk it out.
A:
Glad I could help.
B:
I'm excited to get on the plane to work on it.
02 June 2010
Song of the Open Road - Extracts
Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune— I myself am good fortune;
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Strong and content, I travel the open road.
The earth—that is sufficient;
I do not want the constellations any nearer;
I know they are very well where they are;
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.
(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens;
I carry them, men and women— I carry them with me wherever I go;
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them;
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)
-Walt Whitman
Song of the Open Road
Humans are not made to sit at computer terminals or travel by aeroplane; destiny intended something different for us. For too long now we have been estranged from the essential, which is the nomadic life: traveling on foot. A distinction must be made between hiking and traveling on foot. In today's society - though it would be ridiculous to advocate traveling on foot for everyone to every possible destination - I personally would rather do the existentially essential things in my life on foot. If you live in England and your girlfriend is in Sicily, and it is clear that you want to marry her, then you should walk to Sicily to propose. For these things travel by car or aeroplane is not the right thing. The volume and depth and intensity of the world is something that only those on foot will ever experience. I have never been a tourist, for a tourist destroys cultures...Cultures around the world visited by tourists are having their basic dignity and identity stripped away.
The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot
Tourism is sin, and travel on foot virtue.
-Werner Herzog
"Why think about that when all the golden land's ahead of you and all kinds of unforeseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you're alive to see?"
-On the Road
The Road is better than the Inn
-Old Spanish Proverb
I hopped off the plane at LAX
with a dream and my cardigan
welcome to the land of fame excess, (woah)
am I gonna fit in?
-Miley Cyrus
Party in the USA
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune— I myself am good fortune;
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Strong and content, I travel the open road.
The earth—that is sufficient;
I do not want the constellations any nearer;
I know they are very well where they are;
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.
(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens;
I carry them, men and women— I carry them with me wherever I go;
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them;
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)
-Walt Whitman
Song of the Open Road
Humans are not made to sit at computer terminals or travel by aeroplane; destiny intended something different for us. For too long now we have been estranged from the essential, which is the nomadic life: traveling on foot. A distinction must be made between hiking and traveling on foot. In today's society - though it would be ridiculous to advocate traveling on foot for everyone to every possible destination - I personally would rather do the existentially essential things in my life on foot. If you live in England and your girlfriend is in Sicily, and it is clear that you want to marry her, then you should walk to Sicily to propose. For these things travel by car or aeroplane is not the right thing. The volume and depth and intensity of the world is something that only those on foot will ever experience. I have never been a tourist, for a tourist destroys cultures...Cultures around the world visited by tourists are having their basic dignity and identity stripped away.
The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot
Tourism is sin, and travel on foot virtue.
-Werner Herzog
"Why think about that when all the golden land's ahead of you and all kinds of unforeseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you're alive to see?"
-On the Road
The Road is better than the Inn
-Old Spanish Proverb
I hopped off the plane at LAX
with a dream and my cardigan
welcome to the land of fame excess, (woah)
am I gonna fit in?
-Miley Cyrus
Party in the USA
13 May 2010
The Fish
I catch her ankle.
I catch a fish.
She kicks. She
snaps. I wish
I could swallow
her ankle. I wish
that ankle could be me.
I wish I could eat
That fish forever
as it dies in my hands.
The stream slivers
underneath, silver.
The ankle blooming
on it’s own.
I feel the dome
of the bone
like a mountain
on a toy globe.
She didn’t sculpt it
and there it is!
My favorite sculpture!
A part of her!
A letter in her
language.
I hold it
gentle and firm
like a fish,
like a prayer.
I reel her in.
I kiss
the fish.
I release her
into the stream.
She swims away.
I’m left here,
holding the sky.
I catch a fish.
She kicks. She
snaps. I wish
I could swallow
her ankle. I wish
that ankle could be me.
I wish I could eat
That fish forever
as it dies in my hands.
The stream slivers
underneath, silver.
The ankle blooming
on it’s own.
I feel the dome
of the bone
like a mountain
on a toy globe.
She didn’t sculpt it
and there it is!
My favorite sculpture!
A part of her!
A letter in her
language.
I hold it
gentle and firm
like a fish,
like a prayer.
I reel her in.
I kiss
the fish.
I release her
into the stream.
She swims away.
I’m left here,
holding the sky.
06 May 2010
Frog Legs
A scrap. I'd probably reverse that metaphor about logs and fires though. It's nice to have things in my own handwriting.
I Am Trying to Remember Her Eyes
I am trying to remember her eyes.
I am trying to explain to you her eyes.
What they looked like.
What I saw them look like.
They were brown. That's indisputable.
But what was held in them,
the rays streaming through
the stained glass,
how to describe that.
Unscarred. Like she’d never
been thrashed. Eager. Not
unintelligent. Dog paddling eyes,
unaware how they're not that far above water.
Certainly not pensive, not hiding
any thought. Almost never manipulative
and unskilled when trying to be.
Orioles.
Convex eyes.
Her sorrow was amusing,
the tears, the pout,
the sorrow of a girl who’d dropped
both scoops of her ice cream cone.
I remember her eyes.
I am trying to describe them
to you. I am trying to describe them
to myself. I remember her eyes.
I want to keep remembering them.
I am trying to explain to you her eyes.
What they looked like.
What I saw them look like.
They were brown. That's indisputable.
But what was held in them,
the rays streaming through
the stained glass,
how to describe that.
Unscarred. Like she’d never
been thrashed. Eager. Not
unintelligent. Dog paddling eyes,
unaware how they're not that far above water.
Certainly not pensive, not hiding
any thought. Almost never manipulative
and unskilled when trying to be.
Orioles.
Convex eyes.
Her sorrow was amusing,
the tears, the pout,
the sorrow of a girl who’d dropped
both scoops of her ice cream cone.
I remember her eyes.
I am trying to describe them
to you. I am trying to describe them
to myself. I remember her eyes.
I want to keep remembering them.
Alcatraz
I see you in the park.
I want to look at you.
You want to look at me.
Our eyes ricochet
off each other.
I can't catch you
looking at me.
I can’t even give
a smile to you.
You’re Alcatraz and
I’m swimming to your rocks
and when I get there
you'd rather stay in jail,
kissing the walls.
There is no you. There are a thousand yous.
I know no you. I see 30 yous an hour.
Where are you?
Are you out there?
You’ve got to stay away. You get too close
and you crumble,
or I crumble. Gravity sends
two lives shaking into screws, identities
unable to hold.
But I could know how fragile you are.
How you sit on an iron bench and open
your long, dark lens
to the ultraviolet April blooms.
Shamble into my arms.
I won’t laugh. I promise I won’t laugh.
I’ll break your fall.
It’s my mistake to think
that you’re fragile, that
you’re a flower.
You are a flower, but
flowers are only
advertisements
for the tree.
Flowers fall away early
leaving only the wide, armored waist.
It isn’t you that will crumble.
It’s only me.
I want to look at you.
You want to look at me.
Our eyes ricochet
off each other.
I can't catch you
looking at me.
I can’t even give
a smile to you.
You’re Alcatraz and
I’m swimming to your rocks
and when I get there
you'd rather stay in jail,
kissing the walls.
There is no you. There are a thousand yous.
I know no you. I see 30 yous an hour.
Where are you?
Are you out there?
You’ve got to stay away. You get too close
and you crumble,
or I crumble. Gravity sends
two lives shaking into screws, identities
unable to hold.
But I could know how fragile you are.
How you sit on an iron bench and open
your long, dark lens
to the ultraviolet April blooms.
Shamble into my arms.
I won’t laugh. I promise I won’t laugh.
I’ll break your fall.
It’s my mistake to think
that you’re fragile, that
you’re a flower.
You are a flower, but
flowers are only
advertisements
for the tree.
Flowers fall away early
leaving only the wide, armored waist.
It isn’t you that will crumble.
It’s only me.
26 April 2010
Pac-Man
15 years later the same four fucking people
doing the same shit, I say,
What does that say about us?
My brother says it means
that we know what we like.
The ghosts are chasing Pac-Man
through the maze on one
of his arcade machines.
Pac-Man never escapes that screen.
Everywhere he goes
the little dots shove
themselves down his throat.
Remember when we swam
in the laundry room? John-Ryan says.
Jake tokes up and plays
us a song he recorded, alone,
an orchestra of himself.
We want him to turn it off
but we see the dreams bleeding
from his eyes
so the song keeps looping.
Circumstance made us friends,
our mothers having
moved into the same apartment complex,
but now it seems this is our choice.
In this room we are
the truest versions of ourselves
that we've yet created.
The ghosts flash blue
and Pac-Man turns in pursuit.
I have been waiting all my life
to become myself.
doing the same shit, I say,
What does that say about us?
My brother says it means
that we know what we like.
The ghosts are chasing Pac-Man
through the maze on one
of his arcade machines.
Pac-Man never escapes that screen.
Everywhere he goes
the little dots shove
themselves down his throat.
Remember when we swam
in the laundry room? John-Ryan says.
Jake tokes up and plays
us a song he recorded, alone,
an orchestra of himself.
We want him to turn it off
but we see the dreams bleeding
from his eyes
so the song keeps looping.
Circumstance made us friends,
our mothers having
moved into the same apartment complex,
but now it seems this is our choice.
In this room we are
the truest versions of ourselves
that we've yet created.
The ghosts flash blue
and Pac-Man turns in pursuit.
I have been waiting all my life
to become myself.
16 April 2010
Cameo
I felt that surge when
I saw God on Waverly,
that surge you might get
if you saw Brangelina or McDreamy
suddenly appear on the same streets
as the rest of us.
I thought Is that
really Him?
It can't be.
He’s much smaller than I thought He’d be.
Be cool. Pretend
you don’t notice Him.
It’s just God.
Should I say something?
I’ll regret it if I don’t say something.
He probably gets pestered
all the time. And what if He’s
an asshole? I could never
look at Him the same way.
It’d ruin all His stuff for me.
Fuck it. I deserve two minutes
of His time. I've seen all His
stuff. Least He can do is talk to me.
Men fluttered before Him, aiming
their cameras, flashes shining.
His face was impervious, blank behind
His great beard
of clouds (it's just like you'd expect)
and mirrored
sunglasses. His bodyguards
kept everyone away as He disappeared
into a big, black SUV, resealed
into a life normal people can only speculate
about, a life of anti-wrinkle creams,
champagne wishes and caviar dreams,
private jets, spas, Beyonce.
I told my friends
and they asked me what
He was like and what I said
and did I get a picture
or an autograph? I said He looked
like He didn’t want to be bothered,
that I couldn’t imagine
what His life was like,
having no one to relate to,
all that pressure,
all those people knowing who you are
and you don't know who they are.
Must be lonely to be God.
He deserves
His privacy
like everybody else.
I saw God on Waverly,
that surge you might get
if you saw Brangelina or McDreamy
suddenly appear on the same streets
as the rest of us.
I thought Is that
really Him?
It can't be.
He’s much smaller than I thought He’d be.
Be cool. Pretend
you don’t notice Him.
It’s just God.
Should I say something?
I’ll regret it if I don’t say something.
He probably gets pestered
all the time. And what if He’s
an asshole? I could never
look at Him the same way.
It’d ruin all His stuff for me.
Fuck it. I deserve two minutes
of His time. I've seen all His
stuff. Least He can do is talk to me.
Men fluttered before Him, aiming
their cameras, flashes shining.
His face was impervious, blank behind
His great beard
of clouds (it's just like you'd expect)
and mirrored
sunglasses. His bodyguards
kept everyone away as He disappeared
into a big, black SUV, resealed
into a life normal people can only speculate
about, a life of anti-wrinkle creams,
champagne wishes and caviar dreams,
private jets, spas, Beyonce.
I told my friends
and they asked me what
He was like and what I said
and did I get a picture
or an autograph? I said He looked
like He didn’t want to be bothered,
that I couldn’t imagine
what His life was like,
having no one to relate to,
all that pressure,
all those people knowing who you are
and you don't know who they are.
Must be lonely to be God.
He deserves
His privacy
like everybody else.
04 April 2010
REASONS FOR LIVING: April 4th 2010
LAKEBOAT - Written by David Mamet, Directed by Joe Mantegna
A hilarious, beautiful movie about a vanishing way of life (or maybe one that's already disappeared), Mamet based the play (and subsequent film) on experiences he had on a boat as a youth one Summer on Lake Michigan. The excellent cast includes Peter Falk, Denis Leary, George Wendt, Andy Garcia, the great Charles Durning, Mamet's brother Tony, and Chicago theatre legends (and guys who should be famous) J.J. Johnston and Jack Wallace. Robert Forster gives a tender, gorgeous performance as Joe Litko, a brooding lifer not quite sure how the hell he became himself. Mantegna gives the subject a wonderful dignity, capturing the crisp, autumnal nature of working on a freighter. He elicits stellar performances all around, but screws up by inserting flashback footage over some of the monologues, which are delivered with such mastery that they don't require the over the top reenactments. I love this movie so goddamn much.
GLENGARRY GLENROSS - Written by David Mamet, Directed by James Foley
Watching this movie has become a nightly, post-bar ritual (well, we don't go to the bar every night, but when we do, the movie invariably follows). A once-in-a-lifetime cast, the movie gets better with every viewing. The script, I think, is much better than the play. We get more Moss, get to see Levine in action on a sit, AND we get Alec Baldwin as the yuppie from Hell. A modern classic.
A WHORE'S PROFESSION - Essays by David Mamet
A compilation of Mamet's essay collections "The Cabin," "Writing in Restaurants," "Some Freaks," and "On Directing Film," I picked this up a few years ago at Half Price Books and it is one of the five books or so I hope is always with me. Mamet's essays are endlessly readable. His life has been extraordinary, his opinions are always welcome, and I've learned more about theatre from him than anyone. I would advise, however, taking everything in "On Directing Film" with a grain of salt, as I think he is a much better writer than a director. I don't agree with much of anything he says about filmmaking, and, although many great films have been made from his scripts, I think his material is usually handled better by others. Also recommended is "Make-Belive Town," a later collection of essays. I was a drama major in College, but I found myself consistently at odds with what they were teaching me, with what everyone else was doing, what they expected me to do, and Mamet seemed like the only one on my side. His books have been my real education.
RHAPSODY - Frank O'Hara
(The final stanza)
I have always wanted to be near it
though the day is long (and I don't mean Madison Avenue)
lying in a hammock on St. Mark's Place sorting my poems
in the rancid nourishment of this mountainous island
they are coming and we holy ones must go
is Tibet historically a part of China? as I historically
belong to the enormous bliss of American death
Bound in a Nutshell
I was at my Dad's house today for Easter and I found a bag of my old notebooks, one of which featured this comic I drew two years ago. It's about a film version of Hamlet made a few years ago in which I played Guildenstern...
09 March 2010
A poem from Sam Shepard
Stay
and watch the next set of possibilities
arise
and fall away
What have you got to lose
but everything
piece by piece
everything
day by day
-Sam Shepard
and watch the next set of possibilities
arise
and fall away
What have you got to lose
but everything
piece by piece
everything
day by day
-Sam Shepard
02 March 2010
The Work
It is the work
of all her days
the lily’s construction
of the tower
of herself.
Birthed from burial
into the sun’s
life-giving gaze,
the air and water and earth
gather into her veins.
Not knowing what she's
surviving into,
she hopes towards
her apex,
and arrives at days
of glory and love.
She beds raindrops
on her petals,
and takes dances
with bees.
Face fully blush, shadowless,
she strives to a sun
she will never reach,
but on highest, longest days
blesses her with his gaze,
before abandoning
his fragile guests
to a merciless gray.
They hold so
desperately to a life
they never asked for,
a life of never going anywhere
or doing anything but
gathering and growing,
of knowing no direction
but up and down,
as they shrivel and fall
in the great choreography
of the season
of death.
The wind goes looting,
ripping the candy and color
from the flesh of the once
brilliant things,
burying it under one great
tarp of white.
The Lily, rather than watch
her own leaves drip black,
throws her petals and pollen dust
to the earth
for next year’s orphans,
and bows back
to the dirt,
with grace,
terrible
grace.
Her work accomplished.
of all her days
the lily’s construction
of the tower
of herself.
Birthed from burial
into the sun’s
life-giving gaze,
the air and water and earth
gather into her veins.
Not knowing what she's
surviving into,
she hopes towards
her apex,
and arrives at days
of glory and love.
She beds raindrops
on her petals,
and takes dances
with bees.
Face fully blush, shadowless,
she strives to a sun
she will never reach,
but on highest, longest days
blesses her with his gaze,
before abandoning
his fragile guests
to a merciless gray.
They hold so
desperately to a life
they never asked for,
a life of never going anywhere
or doing anything but
gathering and growing,
of knowing no direction
but up and down,
as they shrivel and fall
in the great choreography
of the season
of death.
The wind goes looting,
ripping the candy and color
from the flesh of the once
brilliant things,
burying it under one great
tarp of white.
The Lily, rather than watch
her own leaves drip black,
throws her petals and pollen dust
to the earth
for next year’s orphans,
and bows back
to the dirt,
with grace,
terrible
grace.
Her work accomplished.
11 February 2010
Numbers
Every number has a face, a personality, a body, a soul. Some are more famous than others.
1. 1 is beautiful, solitary, pure. Not nothing. We can all understand 1. Upright. Nearly invisible. Powerful. Unified. Phallic. Adam.
2 is balance, harmony, love. Twins. Parallels. II. Eerie. Peaceful. Eve has joined.
3 is where things get complicated, where choices have to be made, where someone's feelings are going to get hurt. A direction is chosen. I> Cain and Abel. Love triangles.
4 is the beginning of war, democracy, servitude. Greater possibilities arise.
These numbers all have consequences, ancient powers they carry around with them. This 7 is a descendant of all the 7s that have ever existed. It pumps the same blood. 49 is 7s ancestor. 14, 21, these are 7s grandchildren. They are haunted by the ghost of 7, have traces of the same features. Everyone possesses their own 7. 7 is made of my history of it and the shared history of all of our 7s.
8 is a sculpture, a piece of art, an individual. We can visualize it. :::: We can conceptualize all of them till 10. Then they group too large. So do their shapes. A 9-sided shape is almost too much. A neuftet makes too much sound. They have to group into orchestras after a certain mass. They have to cooperate. The individuals get lost in the shuffle.
The greater the number, the more diluted. Is 639 familiar to you? Is it an old friend? A celebrity? It's too complicated to identify. It is a stranger. A vague, complex face in the crowd. I feel sorry for the higher numbers. They are lost in the flood, nearly meaningless. Only meaningful in specific instances, often rounded, forsaken. Discovered accidentally, not anyone's destination. 27,888 probably means something to somebody. A lottery winner. A salary. Too abstract to visualize. Too scattered.
As the years have stacked, so have our possible sums. Billions, trillions have moved within our grasp. Soon we'll have to invent new numbers. Split up the ones we already have before they're split for us. Go beyond the horizon. We'll reach google. We already have.
Decimals are crumbs falling past our concern for them. We need special calculations, tools, to tweeze them out.
0 is the most profound idea. The origin, like God, like that of all life, born out of nothing, from a concept we can't explain, define, we know not where from. Divide any number in half as many times as you'd like, you will never discover 0. A place only comprehended against something, by not knowing. You just have to trust it exists. We've all felt it, but we can't show it to anybody else. You can't see 0, but all numbers end up there. It's a circle around emptiness, lassoing the invisible. 0 is where we came from and where we will end up. It is a hole in the body, in the ground. It is a cup, or maybe a funnel, a sieve. 0. Starts with one of the unlikeliest letters. "Z". 0 is too big to hug, to hold in your hand, and yet you always do. 0 resets the groups, stacks them. 10, 100, 1000, those 0s in their bodies are like water and air, nothing, life giving.
Infinity. Infinity is just the end of 0s stride. Will we ever touch the end of the spectrum? Will we ever live till the end of time? We spend our lives divying up the infinite, making boundaries. What else is there to do?
1. 1 is beautiful, solitary, pure. Not nothing. We can all understand 1. Upright. Nearly invisible. Powerful. Unified. Phallic. Adam.
2 is balance, harmony, love. Twins. Parallels. II. Eerie. Peaceful. Eve has joined.
3 is where things get complicated, where choices have to be made, where someone's feelings are going to get hurt. A direction is chosen. I> Cain and Abel. Love triangles.
4 is the beginning of war, democracy, servitude. Greater possibilities arise.
These numbers all have consequences, ancient powers they carry around with them. This 7 is a descendant of all the 7s that have ever existed. It pumps the same blood. 49 is 7s ancestor. 14, 21, these are 7s grandchildren. They are haunted by the ghost of 7, have traces of the same features. Everyone possesses their own 7. 7 is made of my history of it and the shared history of all of our 7s.
8 is a sculpture, a piece of art, an individual. We can visualize it. :::: We can conceptualize all of them till 10. Then they group too large. So do their shapes. A 9-sided shape is almost too much. A neuftet makes too much sound. They have to group into orchestras after a certain mass. They have to cooperate. The individuals get lost in the shuffle.
The greater the number, the more diluted. Is 639 familiar to you? Is it an old friend? A celebrity? It's too complicated to identify. It is a stranger. A vague, complex face in the crowd. I feel sorry for the higher numbers. They are lost in the flood, nearly meaningless. Only meaningful in specific instances, often rounded, forsaken. Discovered accidentally, not anyone's destination. 27,888 probably means something to somebody. A lottery winner. A salary. Too abstract to visualize. Too scattered.
As the years have stacked, so have our possible sums. Billions, trillions have moved within our grasp. Soon we'll have to invent new numbers. Split up the ones we already have before they're split for us. Go beyond the horizon. We'll reach google. We already have.
Decimals are crumbs falling past our concern for them. We need special calculations, tools, to tweeze them out.
0 is the most profound idea. The origin, like God, like that of all life, born out of nothing, from a concept we can't explain, define, we know not where from. Divide any number in half as many times as you'd like, you will never discover 0. A place only comprehended against something, by not knowing. You just have to trust it exists. We've all felt it, but we can't show it to anybody else. You can't see 0, but all numbers end up there. It's a circle around emptiness, lassoing the invisible. 0 is where we came from and where we will end up. It is a hole in the body, in the ground. It is a cup, or maybe a funnel, a sieve. 0. Starts with one of the unlikeliest letters. "Z". 0 is too big to hug, to hold in your hand, and yet you always do. 0 resets the groups, stacks them. 10, 100, 1000, those 0s in their bodies are like water and air, nothing, life giving.
Infinity. Infinity is just the end of 0s stride. Will we ever touch the end of the spectrum? Will we ever live till the end of time? We spend our lives divying up the infinite, making boundaries. What else is there to do?
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
Some people have Saturday night
and some people have Sunday Morning
and some people have Sunday Morning
03 February 2010
The Little Blue Globe (a song)
Up in my parent’s attic
Sifting through the remnants of the things that I did
I found the little blue globe
That used to glow in my room as a kid
Dusted it off
Plugged it back in
Wouldn’t you know?
It started to glow again
There’s a little viewfinder
if you look into it you can see the world.
Over time the pictures have been
burnt out and blurred
There’s a red cape flaunted by a Man in gold
There’s an Eskimo fishing out in the cold
There's beautiful women with jewels in their faces
Lands so far they’re only fantasy places
The years have passed,
and I’ve gotten older
Circumstance
hasn’t brought them closer.
But the globe still glows
And the globe still spins
Still carries the dreams
Of all of it’s men.
Still carries the burden
Of all of their sins.
I’m so glad it’s
On my shelf again.
Sifting through the remnants of the things that I did
I found the little blue globe
That used to glow in my room as a kid
Dusted it off
Plugged it back in
Wouldn’t you know?
It started to glow again
There’s a little viewfinder
if you look into it you can see the world.
Over time the pictures have been
burnt out and blurred
There’s a red cape flaunted by a Man in gold
There’s an Eskimo fishing out in the cold
There's beautiful women with jewels in their faces
Lands so far they’re only fantasy places
The years have passed,
and I’ve gotten older
Circumstance
hasn’t brought them closer.
But the globe still glows
And the globe still spins
Still carries the dreams
Of all of it’s men.
Still carries the burden
Of all of their sins.
I’m so glad it’s
On my shelf again.
20 January 2010
Our pockets will be emptied
Our pockets will be emptied
and it will not be terrible
It will lighten us for flight
and it will not be terrible
It will lighten us for flight
12 January 2010
Lola (She's Putting on Her Eyeliner)
She’s got black wine bangs and rainstorm eyes
And a bouquet blooming from her breast
If you see her in the window she’ll turn off the light
Just to rob you of her silhouette
She holds hands with her shadow when the sun is out
Says that it’s her only friend
She doesn’t trust the candles in the jack-o-lantern's mouths
But she dances in their blazing grins
She’s putting on her eyeliner
I’m watching in the mirror
From the edge of her bathtub
Her cheeks are black and smeared
BRIDGE
I remember her walking
Nearly 20 blocks when
She went home sulking
In the snow
Lola
She tapped me on the shoulder
Lola
She kissed me on the cheek
Lola
We had an understanding
Lola
That this was meant to be
She tells me she doesn’t know how to live
Never learned to push and shove
She takes all the pity that I’ve got to give
But she won’t let me pawn off my love
BRIDGE
Lola
She’s putting on her eyeliner
Lola
She’s looking at herself
Lola
In the bathroom mirror
Lola
And nobody else
She told me that she don’t remember how to cry
Or the last time that she wanted kissed
She told me she’s too beautiful for suicide
Then let me trace her burning wrists
Lola
She’s putting on her eyeliner
Lola
I’m watching in the mirror
Lola
She needs a congregation
Lola
I guess that's why I'm here
And a bouquet blooming from her breast
If you see her in the window she’ll turn off the light
Just to rob you of her silhouette
She holds hands with her shadow when the sun is out
Says that it’s her only friend
She doesn’t trust the candles in the jack-o-lantern's mouths
But she dances in their blazing grins
She’s putting on her eyeliner
I’m watching in the mirror
From the edge of her bathtub
Her cheeks are black and smeared
BRIDGE
I remember her walking
Nearly 20 blocks when
She went home sulking
In the snow
Lola
She tapped me on the shoulder
Lola
She kissed me on the cheek
Lola
We had an understanding
Lola
That this was meant to be
She tells me she doesn’t know how to live
Never learned to push and shove
She takes all the pity that I’ve got to give
But she won’t let me pawn off my love
BRIDGE
Lola
She’s putting on her eyeliner
Lola
She’s looking at herself
Lola
In the bathroom mirror
Lola
And nobody else
She told me that she don’t remember how to cry
Or the last time that she wanted kissed
She told me she’s too beautiful for suicide
Then let me trace her burning wrists
Lola
She’s putting on her eyeliner
Lola
I’m watching in the mirror
Lola
She needs a congregation
Lola
I guess that's why I'm here
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