coffee is getting cold

strike!

stuck in brooklyn, cause the mta workers are sick of the shit.
yeah man. i'm with you. except it takes about 3 hours to travel 2 miles.
and unless your inclined to swim 'cross the river, you're stuck
in brooklyn for now. those wings i put on my christmas list
sure would come in handy now.

art. selling art is like selling unflavored snow cones in the middle of a blizzard
in alaska. i am not saying this out of cynicism, but from experience. it's funny,
when you love creation, you try anyway. but sometimes you just gotta take
what is, for what it is.

there's a man sitting across the way from me at the coffee shop. his graceful spider legs are draped over the table in front of his chair. they look nice, and he looks enticing with those graceful legs. but i know he's only enticing cause i don't know him. in all reality he's probably a prick, boring, sloppy, inconsiderate prick. but i can atleast dream, as i conjure up how sexy he might look naked. though in all reality, i have absolutely no desire to try to find out.

tonight i was asked "so how did you and trevor meet?" and upon churning up the memory, i realized it was one of the few memories i had of him that was really positive. the sad, the mean, the pathetic were all in greater quantities than the good. but remembering how we met forced my brain to reverse to that moment, when it was actually good. and i remembered how much i had loved him, how one hundred percent i became at the birth of that love.

which made me all the more mournful of how incredibly hateful he became. of how inadequate hands will break budding love like the irreversible concrete on the back of a chick who's fallen from his nest. we endured that fall early on, and
spent months trying to overcome a fractured body that would never be overcome. it's greatest hope was simply that it end. but we struggled in the deepest of pains before releasing our reigns tied to torn limbs and malfunctioning appendages.
i had tried to find peace and a gentle passing, but that man wanted nothing but the bitter end. he insisted upon it. there could have been flowers, and cleansing tears, goodbyes, and fare the wells, wishes for what is to come. but he insisted on the bloody end, the pistols and punches, the blood for sake of scarring, the misery for sake of something to hold on to when all else will one day be gone.

he only knew how to create sadness, madness, chaos.

so how should the end be any different than any other time?

our fatal flaw lies in this.

above all else, when all else fails, he clings to darkness
above all else, when all else fails, i cling to the very faint sliver of light just beyond

we both understood that the world is a mean place.
but i prefer to offset that general rule of thumb by not participating in the ills that abound
he only knew how to give in to them, indulge them

and so our love was consumed by all the ugly in this world

and i mourn for him more so than for the love, really
because that's no way to live
those evils will perpetuate themselves and eat him alive
unless he realizes he is still a child
and does not have to be that way

but that man thinks all that he reads becomes understood
when really words on a page, are merely shapes
until you have lived them and put the momentum into
their steps and fire in their hearts

and he will not hear of it, even by the tongues of gentle friends
who wish nothing but love
because that man still hasn't learned how to love himself
so how ever could he trust the love of someone else?

love is like a wrecking ball

it's hard to come home and be idle.
hard to sit in silence with yourself.
the walls are echoing his words
there are scraps of paper left behind
there are voice mails on the phone
there are mixed feelings
apprehension
doubt
something that is missed, but in it's current incarnation, loathed.

so i've been avoiding home. i should know better.
and i do.
but i do it anyway. cause i'm old enough to make my
own decisions, and hard-headed as a kid enough to knowingly make
the wrong ones.

shit. i've been mostly good most my life.
i figure i'm entitled to a period of fucking up.
and even my version of fucking up is pretty mild.
pretty average and docile.
not disastrous or intimidating other than
drinking too much, sleeping too late, and
finding myself in strange places in an
alice and wonderland sort of way

played a show with my friend, guitarist Gary Lucas.
i had roughly intended on going back home after
the show and writing. but the magic wand of beer
and whiskey touched my lips, and once their powers
had awoken, i felt compelled to partake in a saturday
night out in manhattan. hell... everyone is just so
young, thin, and beautiful!
aren't we supposed to go out and do things young
attractive people do? isn't that our role to play?
before we get old and die. there's a party on every
corner and in every refinished unknown basement.
a drink to be poured and a body to make the most of.

after an evening of such, lights and motion become
beautiful stimuli. you're a kid in the carnival parade,
the colors and possibilities endless, the smells are
all sweet, and the sounds are full of joy. your heads
spinning in this grand ball, and you're content as
can be watching it all pass around.





it's a pleasant enough distraction for now.

.

Evidence

Sometimes the only way I can remember I existed before right now, is by finding scraps of things I made along the way. This is the appeal of songs, sound, words, photographs I guess. It's nice to be able to observe yourself almost from an outsiders perspective when finding something from your past. It's good to remind yourself where you were, how you've changed, and that some kind of progress is being made. You haven't been as idle as you thought.

This was from about this time last year.

Dec. 21, 2004

I've decided to give up computers.... at some point. Spending the past three weeks of travel and recording documenting experience via photo and words, all saved on this box of metal and plastic. and then the devil came down. and he ate it.

I'm standing on the edge of the mountain and there's fire below, embers burning up to my face. They are dancing for me, challenging my form with their lack there of, chartering a system overhaul on all my systems. The dedicated and fearless mind is a precious asset to the soul, but it will be the breaker that holds the clenched fist deep within the gut of the muse. Here I am with more love than I could ever ask for, and yet I'm eternally sad, alone, in question. A human possessing dense amounts of love and projecting that supply freely and without expectations, to the world around him is no less than a blessing. But at some point it becomes apparent the need for a reciprocation, in equal degrees, by relation of another breathing soul. What is the experience if it cannot be shared, and understood by someone else, who could only truly understand it if giving at the same level. Perhaps this is what makes for lasting love?

I'm battling between realities that do not co-exist. Two opposite worlds, both of which I seem welcome to, yet can't decipher which is most real, which has substance and which is only a mirage. Right now, everything in me just wants to surreder to the whim of youthful ambivalence,

This all starts and ends, again and again. Repeat. This all will recycle itself eternally. You'll never sleep with the comfort of certainty. There is no such thing. There is only love, essence, the experience you can depend on. Any promise of the return and perpetuation of those things is an impossibility, atleast that's what i've concluded thus far. I'm trying to prove myself wrong.

last night i fell to rest
to feel my body melt
freely into a borrowed bed

i was not the only one

your breath, an invocation
to the introduction
of your skin

your pulse, a lifeline
shadowed insight
to your crowded quarter's den

what would be found
by finger tips against
your unknown condition

Polaroid Dreams

The beauty of a polaroid is that it provides you with the instant gratification you need, yet it cannot fully capture the detail and full depth of the image. It serves merely as a vague visual reminder of the moment, but without the extra-sharp-crystal-clear-megpaixels to give you such easy remembrance of all details. The polaroid forces you to remember all the nuances, and smells, and taste for yourself. You have to keep those colors and patterns deep in your womb, the photograph will not let you know those underground secrets when you look at it later on. A polaroid allows you to keep your memory of the belly of that moment, rather than erase it, and rely on a photography crutch to secure your favorite moments for the future. A polaroid reminds you that the glory was in the midst of those times, not the reminiscing you will do for a lifetime after. The meat is in the moment. You'll never have that same one again. And you can't fix the angle or the lighting, you can't smooth the lines in your face, or alter the red eye, or change the poor posture or pose. All of the nuances, the most beautiful and the most grotesque are there in 3.5 x 4.25 inches for you to accept, as they are, as they always will be.

The polaroid speaks truth, while allowing you to remember all the rest, without imposing it upon you.

L-R
1. Old Love
We are graced with lovers for some reason that I have yet to understand. But I do know in every other body that is intertwined with yours, you find a mirror of yourself. All the ugly habits and exceptional ones are brought up from the bowels of the solitary life, and rage through your days in all their fury. You discover how stellar the human spirit can be, and how equally horrific. There is God in two hands together, and the right man with the right woman (or man and man/woman and woman). The universe reaches it's balanced orbit, and the constant motion and noise all cease. You become one with the other, you become a "we." We is the place to be. There's no question about that. And this new state where two merge into one, likely will not last, so dig deep as long as you're there. Be there while you are there, worry about all else later. We cannot build sustainable homes unless we throw our stakes deep, and pound the hammers even harder. When the body breaks, the soul runs free. So, be it this way. What will be, will ever be.

2. Rejoining .... Rejoice!
Winter erupts in New York. The first snow fall is always the most beloved. As if it purifies the bastardly dirty grounds below, as if it erases all the contours and shapes, all the mistakes, cracks, imperfections,
and gives the whole land free reign to be something new, something much better. I was somewhat resentfully making my 20 minute march to the subway from my home. Any walk longer than 5 minutes becomes an effort, breaking sweat on one's brow and nurturing calouses on the arch of your feet in their snow-boot armor. But the little graces get the best of even the day's worst pessimist. Every stepping-crunch of the snow started to fall in place with the next and it grew into it's own rhythm, it's own heartbeat. I fell in love with that snow, and the calouses would come later, they didn't bother me now. I watched every step, eye to toe, and saw this pattern upon me. The place I was, this asymmetric pattern I was walking in, yet was not previously conscious to. My steps were far away from all the others. They were rounded, with no equation, no straight line in sight. They were just dancing around in their very own rhythm, completely oblivious to the dozens of feet that had passed before. And when those feet were full of dancing by themselves, they continued in their line-less motion and rejoined the steps of all the others. To take part, to share in the discoveries they found while dancing freely in their solitary journey. We all join back together at some point, however distant and erratic our individual sojourns may have been.

3. Old Friend
Stu and I met at years ago at the late Ichabods, Baton Rouge's hometown refuge for budding musicians and degenerates alike. A British accent comes with it's assumptions in a town that only knows the colloquial sounds of 'coon-ass,' 'trailer park trash,' or your garden variety 'southern' tongue. Stu was an exchange student from the UK and was an exotic creature in this land, with rounded inflections, a gregarious disposition, and strong inclination to employ the word "cheers" without reserve and on a regular basis. He also called the bathroom the "loo," which is a terribly endearing way to refer to the ceramic hole in which every drunk bastard's bodily expulsions would be emptied into by the end of the night. I figured any person who can make a toilet sound endearing, must be pretty special. I was a kid, merely 18. Was about to embark on my first self-routed 'tour' 'round this great country of ours, and I had yet to find someone to go with me. Was planning on brining my long-term love, but he had recently left the picture. I had my clean slate and all of the searching and idol time that the solitary soul finds when their love has suddenly flown. I was a lonely kid with big ideas, and I needed someone to come along for the ride. I had left this undetermined person to present him/her-self as appropriate. A big leap of faith, considering tour was about a week away. But synchronicity, having it's way, poured Stu and I drinks until closing time at Ichabod's that night. And if I remember correctly, by the next time I saw him I asked if he wanted to join me on the tour. He obliged, and that was that. Stu was supposed to be going back home, but re-booked his ticket, and took up the spare bedroom in my shabby two-bedroom apartment just off campus for the week before we headed out. I remember drinking pounds of tea. Between my friend Ken (who was a British South African and drank tea like a poor man drinks PBR), and Stu, I think I drank more tea in that week than I did in the 17 years previous. The habit has stuck with me to this day, always a reminder of these friends in far away places. A reminder of how we all live within each other once our paths have crossed. This is the first time I've seen Stu since that tour, over 4 years ago. He's managed to keep up with me cross-country, many addresses, and even more telephone numbers. Was as if we didn't miss a thing, picked back up where we left off. He still calls the bathroom the loo, and I'm still just as amused by it.

god bless the...

what price does a poor boy pay
for love?
i asked my mamma
she said it wasn't much
what home could a wayfaring man ever have?
only the shoes upon his feet
and bible on his back

god bless the lonely soul who sleeps alone
god bless the lonely boy who left in such a hurry
god bless the weary ones who know not what they do
but we know that its coming real soon
know that its coming
coming for you

and if patience could be gracious to us
we'll know that it's coming real soon