Confessions of a Fuck-Up Artist!

Tonight is Yom Kippur, and though I’m not Jewish, I cannot help but find my reflections cast across this Day of Atonement. I’m fascinated by this idea of God as an omnipotent, yet somehow still struggling, author. One inscribing furiously in his notebook of life, rough drafts of blessings and tragedies for all the hapless characters trapped within the pages of his self-published Novel of Life. Until, on Rosh Hashanah, the start of a new year, he begins to ‘seal’ the narrative. Tweaking, adjusting and polishing up certain plot lines as he sees fit for the final edit. But prior to that judgment, during the Days of Awe, the characters are somehow allowed to petition the author for a chance at, if not a happy ending, then perhaps at least a happier one.

Which is odd, because I can’t help but ask what secret sin Tom Sawyer might whisper to Mark Twain for forgiveness? What argument would Sherlock Holmes plead with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for another few books worth of life? What grand soliloquy might Juliet petition the Bard with if she could but sense his pen dipped in blood as it wrote out her love’s fate across the world’s page?

But during these last few Days of Awe I’ve found myself oddly doing just that. Seeking atonement with a father, my own, as he laid helplessly at my feet at times, or sat slumped in his wheeled throne, or even smiled benovolently down upon me from the gilded heaven whose heights sit erected across the scaffolding by childhood memories of distant times together... all as the day of the surgery that would decide his fate ticked closer.

And now..., now my father lays sleeping, or at least trying to, a few blocks away up at the hospital. He’s looking good, better than I did after my hernia operation, and fully conscious. Shell-shocked, weeping still, but with gratitude instead of fear. The surgical procedure that saved his life was performed for the first time in this country yesterday. Just hours before it was used on my father. If this tumor had reached the same point it was at before the excision, as scant a distance back as last year, if his job back in Orlando hadn’t had fired him in 2009 and put him in a city with one of the finest oncology departments in the world, I most likely wouldn’t have a father right now.

So, I’m sitting here, writing this, my own clumsy little Blog of Life, whose only character is the author and who is not excused from his judgment. But I’m writing this because for the first time in months I feel as if the weight of a great dread has been lifted from the core of my being and I want to be able to remember how it felt later on. How the world seems suddenly much bigger and the souls who inhabit it, myself included, seem to have grown along with it. How I find myself able to concentrate all of a sudden, to wrap my attention around people without being snatched back into black thoughts of my father’s impending doom. How I feel as if not only has he been given a second chance, by agency of probability or fate I leave up to you, but for whatever reason that I have as well. Because, I no longer want to live my life without self-respect and I need a place to come back to, because I might forget that.

I don’t know if Neitzche’s right and God is dead. I don’t know if Roland Barthes is right when he says the same of the author. But I do know, that this author at least, is also his own character and I will write the chapters leading to my happy ending, starting with the words on this page and not stop until their inscribed across the words of thought that spell out our actions.

And if I can’t write a happy ending… then fuck it a happier one will do.

I recall reading somewhere about how there are two terrible fates which can befall a man; to be denied his wish or even worse to be granted it.



As of this writing, knock on wood, I have submitted my final draft for the perusal of my editor and publisher. The scenes shifted. Bullets counted. Moth hole inconsistencies stitched up. Fat trimmed. Grammar checked. Tenses streamlined. Brain fried. Eyes strained. Nerves frayed. Excuses shattered.



Because beforehand, when I self-published, I had plenty of excuses. I told myself my lack of sales were due to my poor grasp of grammar or the text I used or my lack of marketing skills or that it was just my first book, and as everyone told me when I started, first books just don’t get published.



But now, in a few short weeks, (knock again on wood), High Midnight will be launched and I will have achieved my promise to my 21 year old self all those years ago after getting kicked out of the Navy: That I would become a published novelist.



And then if it bombs, if it doesn’t sell, if it goes ignored… it won’t be the grammar or the marketing or the text font or the first-novelitis that sunk it. It will be because of me and the story I told.



So, I sit here in my ghetto exile, watching my friends vanish one by one and waiting to see if my big gamble on my little story will pay off.



Scared. Nervous. Stage fright, but drawn out into a constant buzzing under the heart that lasts for days and threatens to never end. Trying to think of anything but what will happen next.



I remember why it was called ‘Unity’ – the autobiography buried in fictional work. Unity was one of those words bandied about back in the late 80’s punk scene of SoFL. “Punks + Skins = United” and all that. The concept sounded great in say a 7 Seconds song or as bellowed by a Minor Threat. In real life, Unity to my eyes, amounted to a collection of those who weren’t so much as refused by society (as most of them would have had you believe) but rather populated by those who showed little to no interest in signing on for the Social Contract. Preferring instead a soft revolt dictated by a belligerent apathy. Recollect, all those nowhere people milling around the stage all anxious moments before the show - sneaking drinks, talking shit or looking to start some drama. Everyone around me drunk, stoned and wasted. Everyone ready to scrap, slam, fuck or forget. A micro-society hidden inside the suburban wasteland of my teenage years, one with its own unique rules enforced by an unspoken hierarchy of inebriated mayors and self-appointed sheriffs, a world of reluctant heroes and charming villains, of doomed loves and new romances.



I was just a shadow back then. There but not really. I lacked the mass I pack now and was easily trampled aside in the pit. I lacked any basic social skills or the looks to make up for the deficit with, so hooking up was beyond my reach. But I had nowhere else to go. Here at least I didn't stand out as a freak, but rather was just considered a shade too vanilla for anyone to notice. So that was that – I would make my way to the Pink Lincolns or Uniform Choice show. Wait for the music. Go berserk. Ricochet harmlessly off the old schoolers. Take my blows. Bide my time. Do my best. Eventually I lucked out. I made friends despite myself. I got an in to the after parties. Sat there bruised and silent and listened to tales of scene glory.



Listened. Learned. Took notes.



Knew that my silence was just an incubation. My inability to make small talk was because the words I needed weren’t big enough yet. Worked on that and in doing so wrote terribly. Which is the only way to really learn how to write that I know of - to be willing to do all the bad work it takes to get to the good. So I stuck at it. Until one day a small town on the edge of the American Dream appeared to me a thousand lifetimes after those shows, nestled in a geography of absurd monsters and fantastic myths. A place where people went when they were tired of trying to be anything but the rejects they knew themselves to be.

And I knew just where to start...


Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Besides the hour grows late. I need to start dinner for the woman soon. See about getting on with the rest of my life one tomorrow at a time. Big changes coming soon, some I can control and some I can’t. Either way best to start preparing for them

So I'm spending my birthday alone. Originally the plan was for me to go out drinking with some friends at the Shelter tonight and get royally trashed. Recent events being what they are though, I decided to stay in with the little lady for company, after all there's nothing more detestable than the boorishness of a 'Crying Drunk' and I know that's what would've happened if I went out for a few with the gang. Unfortunately with the storms having rolled in as hard as they have, Vee was unable to make it over (she, like me, is at the mercy of MARTA.)

So, nothing much else to do I suppose. Wait it out until sleep comes. Read. Think. That sort of thing. There was a lull in the rain right after midnight and I stepped out to the balcony. I stood out there for a few minutes soaking in the night air, feeling the wind on my face, listening to the thunder rumble through the empty streets while the cats snuggled around my legs, a glass of six dollar a bottle Merlot in my hand and savoring a slice of chocolate cake from the Publix Bakery.

Not the most glamorous of celebrations I suppose. But, goddess willing, there'll be another birthday next year and it'll be a blast. For now at least I know I had the chance. I didn't have to be here on my own. That's what counts in the end. Having your friends and family to love, everything else is... well just icing on the cake.

So let's see what the next year brings and until then I'll focus on doing whatever I can do to make the most of it and hoping for the best in the moments in between.

“Then I knew
She was a dream: and questioned her

Joan, what kind of knowledge have
The dead ? can you still love
Your mortal acquaintances ?
What do you remember of us?”

~ Allen Ginsberg, Dream Record: June 8th, 1955


I didn’t know her.

Though if pressed, sure, we must’ve crossed paths over a dozen times. Scene shadows to one another across a backdrop of a dozen clubs. Familiar faces in the crowd. Vague flickers of recognition from snapshot and cropped avatars. Friend of a friend ad infinitum.

So why does it register so hard? Why does it fuck with me so much?

Because the word is it was suicide and the shell-shocked reactions I read online from those I actually do know, some well and some not so much, hit me with an almost palpable grief that’s left me unable to think about anything else.

This was all on Facebook, where the Social Network has effectively replaced the Social Contract. At first the “Scroll-versation” flow of links, posts and status updates started intermittently showing only sad faced emoticons. It wouldn’t be for another hour or so before anyone who knew what had happened were able to articulate their grief beyond donning what has become the 21st Century version of the classic theater Mask of Tragedy-- ":(". Later terse reports of an unspecified tragedy, brief reflections of stunned anguish… soundbite text messages arriving from a private Ground Zero. Eventually someone gave name to her. An old photo was posted. Songs posted with video links dedicated to her memory. Each of these gestures grounding the shock of the incident back into reality, the first flickers of a terrible acceptance.

Finally I talk to a friend on the phone and she tells me the word that is a key to him: Suicide.

And I remember getting a call from Wendy (no code names for anyone tonight) at the office all those years ago. Whether nine or eight I cannot remember. She didn’t say hello. She didn’t break it gentle. She simply spoke three little words that changed not only my life, but many of those I know and love – “Bud killed himself.”

There was no hesitation on my part, no stammer or movie scene worthy gasp… I simply snorted and told her she was wrong. Straight up bullshit cast out to fill in a slow Rumor Day. I just started blathering on about how I heard all this before two years ago and it turned out he just ran out of minutes on his cell phone… and finally Wendy told me to just shut up.

And the way she did… I knew it was true.

Nevertheless she repeated the new. She laid down the Cause of Death as Suicide. She told me it happened that morning.

In the movies the camera zooms in or out on the face that’s heard such news. In the poems and purple prose a gallery of similes is summoned to describe the mood, words such as ‘emptiness’ and ‘soul’ are frequently invoked.

But for me everything just felt… detached. A tether was released between me and what was around me. There was no tears or moan or curse… just this sense that the flavor of what I saw around me had gone flat and then everything inside simply clicked to autopilot.

I told Wendy I’d call her back. I hung up the phone, walked over and told my assistant manager what had happened and that I’d be back after I had a cigarette.

Later I would sit silently huffing on a bowl, while Jason and Dani wept huddled next to me. Still I couldn’t cry. Later Liza showed up, cradled my head to her breasts in a hug… and still nothing. Even at his impromptu wake a week later, held naturally enough first at the Highlander followed by the Claremont Lounge, a dozen drinks deep feeling acutely the collective charge of anguish permeating the room. Even when I saw ‘him’ in crowd before his doppelganger betrayed some slight imperfection, some minor detail.

It wasn’t until years later… thinking about nothing at all really, when his name briefly crossed my thoughts and it finally came.

What I hate is that even now, I can remember exactly what he looked like… his ghost can just jump before my eyes and I’ll watch him pace around the room in a fury orjust stand there watching me sadly. Yet I can never remember exactly how he sounded. Only sometimes, out of the blue, something he said will replay itself… but being a writer, instead of a decent fucking human being, I immediately try to ‘record’ it down but it just evaporates off the keys and when I try to play it back in my head it sounds… off, wrong, someone pretending to be him reading a bad script of his thoughts.

When what I should have done was cherished the gift of his voice coming to me from whatever depth it may have crossed…

I read somewhere once that every time you remember something you change it just a little bit. That each memory is reedited whether we mean to or not, that the details shift, morph and distort with each act of recollection. So that the more we remember those we lost the more they inevitably become someone else.

Their reflection reduced to characters penned in our secret narratives.

Maybe that’s why no one ever really sees a ghost, but rather a shadow or a blur, maybe they’ve been ‘remembered’ too much until nothing is left but the residual energy of their absence.

But for now I can still see ‘him’ at least. A lot of folks said he looked like Henry Rollins. Which isn’t incorrect, especially if you had nothing more than a passing glance to go on. Yet if you looked longer or closer you’d really see him. His little boy smile with eyes glowing mischievously from the heart of a puppy dog stare. The snub of his nose, as if it had been bitten off from poking it into places he was warned not to. The chisel of his chin sculpted by sucker punches and boot checks. The lanky frame coiled with the fury of ten men and often openly displayed as his shirt would be shrugged off from the internal Speed heat.

But it never lasts for long and inevitably I know I must let him return to wherever it may be he was summoned.

Ah, but outside this bubble of narcissistic introspection, a scattered community gathers to mourn a friend A love. A mother. A life that did not pass unnoticed. There will be tears, drinks, songs, anecdotes, curses and for an unlucky few….a silence that roars louder than pain.

For now though, it feels as though inevitably, if you boiled down every song, every poem, every story or work of art you’d get the same simple message:

Hold on.

And it is to my shame and eternal regret that I squandered the chance to tell you that, Man.

Check it out, my first short story to be accepted into an anthology.



Surreal Smut: Tales of Bizarre Erotica
edited by Jennifer Hollie Bowles

An amazing collection of erotic stories filled with unforgettable plots, surreal landcapes, and ripe language. From mysterious castles, orgies, and anthropomorphism to historic characters and lucid dream lovers, these tales traverse a cornucopia of sexual experience, and these authors—Frances, Terence Kuch, Catherine Leary, Archer Hamilton, Peter Baltensperger, Craig Wallwork, Misti-Rainwater Lites, Robert Mosca, and Sean Ulman—are masters of breaking convention while activating the hidden desires of your erogenous mind.

Bill gets hit in the chest with a belch of flame off the exhaust vent of the household heater. I'm in the bathroom when it goes down, hearing an infernal sounding 'voom' as a bright white flare engulfed the hallway. A baffled moment later and Bill comes staggering past the bathroom doorway clutching his chest.

I bolt out with my collapsible toothbrush clenched between my scowl. The whole place reeks of eye-watering burnt oil. Glance over to my right and Bill is hunched over in pain but giving me a reassuring thumb's up. I look over to my left and there's the repairman scratching the back of his head with a monkey wrench looking at the two of us with open fascination. This is the same repairman who told us three hours ago that he would be back in ten minutes with the part he forgot.

"The fuck, man?" I gorilla growl, throwing my arms out wide with coffee enhanced reflexes.

The repairman stares me up and down while continuing to give his scalp a good scratch, a little guy who never quite grew all the way into his omnipresent baseball hat. Finally he responds, but when he speaks it's with a soft mumble more akin to the chanting of small furry mammals before their primitive gods than any known human language.

When he's finished he glares at me with a beady eyed stare of knowing wisdom, a great lesson had been imparted from Durok - Fire Shaman of the Jacksonvillians, one that must be followed with a long silence so it's importance could probably soak in.

"What!?!" I finally roar and Bill, still clutching his chest as if recovering from a grand mal, grabs me and pulls me back. Bill then proceeds to calmly explain to the repairman that yes, he's fine and now if it wouldn't be too much trouble, would he mind please, for the love of god, just finish installing the part so we could drop off the truckload of boxes we've had packed and ready to go since nine in the fucking morning. Meanwhile, to drive the point home, I eye ball fuck the dude Klingon style from over m'man's shoulder.

The diminutive repairman mutter-grumbles his consent, bobbing his head along enthusiastically as he goes to lift the vent up again to peep in face first indifferent of whether another burst of flame is waiting or not.

Later, much later, Bill's wife patiently explained to us that the repairman was in fact brain damaged. It happened years ago in a car accident. He told her all about it when he came by yesterday to check out the heater. Apparently that was how he lost his license to do ventilation repair work professionally.

So that was how my day began... waiting for three very cold hours on a brain damaged repairman to get the show rolling by almost setting my friend on fire.

If I had to sum up Jacksonville in one episode that would be it.

***

I've been off making that money for my Lady, lest her pimp-hand comes down strong to deliver great blows to this tender profile of mine, and as such haven't been around to update the 'Life Unreadable' of late.

Work again tomorrow, so just a quick note before zoning out into the 'Venture Brothers' as I wrap up this long Sunday.

So... good news for a change! I've gotten one of my short stories accepted for publication in a magazine. The April 2011 issue of Dark Gothic Resurrection Magazine to be precise. It doesn't pay anything but at least it's a start and one I'm more than thankful to receive; a small sign perhaps that being proactive with the submitting of short stories can pay off.

Alright, more tomorrow.

The Internet's been on and off the last few days here in Exile. A Com*Cast repair man came by and a few hours later it was resolved that the problem was on their end. They'd try to do something about in three-to-five business days. It sucks, but what're you gonna do?

So, with the net briefly active, I hop on, log on and crack open the window to smoke a cigarette. A few minutes pass before something blurs under my eye and lands on my hand. A big ass preying mantis. Jumped back and screamed. I have a 'thing' about insects. In short they freak me out big time. The mantis takes off in flight and starts buzzing around the room. The mantis' flight catches Firecracker the Cat's attention. Firecracker, being Vee's loyal familiar and the house's resident 'monster catcher'), wastes no time in chasing the 'little guy' around the room. Me, I'm doing my best to not panic. Slow breaths. Clear the mind. Don't react on panic. Don't kill something just because it startled you and you have an irrational phobia of insects. Breathe.

But while I'm breathing, Firecracker is an orange fireball of pounce and leap, bounding off the mattress, catching the mantis across the wing and felling it to the floor. The fireball slows down back into cat form and Firecracker hovers over the creature as it struggles to get back on its legs.

Inches away from being 'bonus protein' in Firecracker's belly, I snatch her up and away from the mantis. With the goddamn quickness, I swivel on the window and yank it all the way open keeping a struggling cat cradled under the arm.

"You don't understand!" Firecracker hisses and squirms, "Must kill! Intruder! Kill before escapes!"

"Yes, honey, I know..."

"Release me! Now! Before too late!"

"No, honey."

"Hate you!"

"I know, honey..." and the mantis limps into flight from the hardwood floor, buzzes around drunkenly and sputters towards a zig-zag landing across the chair. At least it's blended in against the surface and isn't but a yard's glide to relative freedom.

Distracted, Firecracker escapes and hits the floor in one of her cat-ninjitsu killing stances. From this position she can launch or sling forward, depending on whether the monster is an elusive UFO (a red laser pointer) or a glitter snake (Christmas tinsel). I give nature a few minutes to work out the obvious - the open window of freedom before the wounded mantis, the murderous kitten of death below. The mantis says 'fuck fight or flight' and decides it's gonna stay right where it is.

Figuring then to speed up things a bit, I retrieve from the kitchen a clear plastic tupperware bowl and try to scoop the mantis up with it. Almost get the bastard too but it ricocheted out of there in a panic, made straight for my face and then Firecracker was back in the game leaping up off the bed to swat it in mid air.

More wild kingdom shenanigans ensue.

Hectic dance of hunter and prey. Firecracker pogo hopping around at the fluttering mantis that dodges both the cat and my clumsy efforts to clap it into the bowl. Finally the thing manages to dodge us long enough to take cover behind a row of our shoes and boots.

Minutes pass with Firecracker keeping vigil.

"Should've killed it, earlier!" she glances over at me and stares coldly, "Stupid, Ape-Thing!"

I finally calm down enough to log these words down. At the moment Firecracker has grown bored with the hunt and is instead fixated on the trespass of a moth that has traveled into our room during my efforts to shepherd a preying mantis.

Aren't preying mantis' supposed to be good luck. I mean, y'know, not to stereotype mantis'...

Alright, back to our regular scheduled blog...

A series of wrong turns off Whitechapel took me deep into unfamiliar territory within the city's southend. This was yesterday, late afternoon. I was navigating by camera, letting the shots call 'true north' and doing my best to keep up with them as they vanished under the shifting light or fading from the momentary accident of perspective.

Of course the best shots were the ones I couldn't take:

- The old midget with a James Brown pompadour (wig?), laboring uphill over the tracks. He wore all black, from a pot-bellied parted vest to heat defying long slacks. He had on cowboy boots that matched perfectly his pugilist's snarl. His body marinated in a sheen of sweat that glowed a dull gold in the last hour of the sun. I considered catching his picture but as if having heard the thought he turned to me and shook his head 'no'.

- Not five minutes from the CNN Center, over by an abandoned brick building I was shooting, two guys burst out of some brush by the chainlink fence and came at me in a dead run. Both were afroed in matching khaki outfits and were barbarian screaming in their charge. I figured, in a split-second, that they were either coming for me or somebody bigger was coming for them. It didn't matter because with a speed that even surprised me I was remounted on my ride and half-way up the hill before risking a glance to see their charge had sputtered out with both men falling back to laugh and holler at my retreat.

- Mechanicsville. Residential area. I'm corner perched answering a text and refueling with swigs off my water bottle. Across the street a heavy set man blasts leaves off his lawn with a backpack mounted air-blower. You can tell by the thickness of the arms through the flab and the broad chest hoisted over a huge gut that he was once a 'big man'. Suddenly, the street reverbetates under an unremitting bass drum. Next thing you know this lime green mean machine of a car pulls up into the man's driveway. The top's down and a young man with wrap around shades, a tight mohawk and an elaborate pattern shaved into the side of his head is behind the wheel. Young man kills the volume. Old man kills the blower. Young man taps three off the horn. In return a door opens on the old man's home. Young lady in a skin-tight red one piece that vanishes mid thigh. Sharp heels, hair done and make-up glow. Young man nods appreciatively.

Old man hollers - "Aw hell no!"

Young lady - "Daddy!"

Old man shrugs himself out of the air-blower, letting drop to well manicured grass of his lawn and marches over to his daughter. The two begin a heated exchange. Young man says nothing. Even when the dad gestures violently towards him.

This goes on for a minute before another car slows down... a kid, couldn't have been more than ten or twelve, hops out of this gray bullet looking Dodge or whatever... runs up to the air-blower while dad and daughter are arguing, nabs it before running back to the car. He hops in with the blower and the car screeches off.

Dad catches the tail-end of the theft go down. He shouts uselessly. Tries running after them but only catches them rounding the next corner in a screech of brakes. Dad starts screaming obscenities while the daughter shrieks and...

... the young man behind wheel of that lime green mean machine pulls his ride out of the drive way like a sword from a sheath and backs up to the Dad's left in one fluid motion.

Dad wastes neither time nor the opportunity. He hops shotgun and the two take off in pursuit, bass roll resuming to create an impromptu chase-scene soundtrack.

I'm fucking stunned, me.

I look back over at the house for some sign of proof that this didn't all just happen in my head. The daughter stands on the edge of the curb watching her 'beau' and 'old man' take off and disappear. The she notices me watching her, her home, her life - "What're looking at?"

What could I say besides the obvious.

Taking a guess as to which way led home, I took off in the opposite direction as the chase, our stories untwining from each other with each second pedaled forward.

This weekend Ritual is celebrating its one year anniversary by throwing a party for the End of the World... and you're invited! But before you go out looting for that special outfit and attacking oil-tankers with all your best droogs as a warm-up to the festivities, there are a few things you'll need to know about the event.

When:

This Saturday, June 19th from 10pm - 3am.

Where:

The Spot @ 502 Amsterdam Avenue NE, Terminus (aka Atlanta) GA

How much:

10 dollars - sorry but Ritual cannot accept siphoned gasoline, irradiated mutant slaves, canned food rations or Giger Counters as payment until after the apocalypse settles!

DJS:

Jennocide & 313 will be laying down Ragnarok-Rhythms to get you dancing like there's no tomorrow... because frankly there isn't!

Also don't forget the Spot has been remodeled so the DJ booth is now closer to the dance floor - making it easier to request that special song:



Age:

21 + - sorry boomerang wielding feral children of the wasteland - this one's for the grown ups! But come back and see us when society collapses and no one cares about IDs anymore.

Parking:

Free - but remember to have two screaming victims strapped to the front of your bumper to ensure you get the best spot.

Your Hostess:

None other than the Ayatollah of Rockn'rolla herself... the one and only, animeoni!

What happens if you don't make it:

Well... surely it won't come to that now will it?

The actual honest-to-goddess flyer:


Here's to another year of Ritual-goodness!

"I've got to get up to get down and start all over again
Head on down to the basement and shout
Kick those white mice and black dogs out
Kick those white mice and baboons out
Kick those baboons and other motherfuckers out
And get it on, get it on" ~ Grinderman, Get It On

About to make my way on down to finish up some work in the basement. This is what... my third flood in the last 365 days? As bad as it is down there, nothing beats that three day, twelve hour marathon last September, when I was up till dawn with a mop at Bill's (now) old place desperately trying to hold back a torrent of muddied water that kept flowing from underneath the walls. Still, I'd do it all over again, seven days in a row, if it meant Bill and his family would move back up to Terminus.

But he's not coming back and that's that I'm afraid, so best to focus on the situation at hand.

Well good news first. Most of the books are salvagable. Granted they've taken some water damage around the edges, but this seems to add a weathered aesthetic to my humble library. Lending my conspiracy tomes and second hand grimorires the look of rare tomes recently unburied from a shattered temple. Or at least that's how I'm spinning it.

A lot of my old notebooks, from back in the ancient days of the late 80's/early 90's, where I wrote Kafkaesque poetry by hand, are completely scragged. All those painfully earnest love poems to women who never read them have been reduced to blue blurs. Sketches of my friend's faces (I used to be quite the artist when I was younger, actually) now little more than ominous stains with hazy remnants of eyes that stare back at me. Old stories scribbled in pen rendered into a lexicon of indecipherable waves. Though I rarely looked at these pages without wincing at my god-awful pose of prose... I nevertheless feel as though I'm burying a group of old friends. Some of these journals had odd butterfly wings, polaroid snapshots and crumbled flowers glued to their pages. Now liberated by the rain water they flutter into the muddied puddles of the cellar before being stuffed into black garbage bags.

My futon is trashed. Not just the mattress it would appear, but the frame as well. It seems that in its being jostled and moved and humped back and forth over the last year, earlier gravity induced damages to the frame have been compounded. The ghosts of lovers past are written all over this abandoned life raft, their names carved in fire across the sordid stains. Tonight I will whisper them all as an act of saying goodbye.

There is an entire closet's worth of outfits that now reek with mold and are soggy with rain water. I guess I could give them a few washes to try to save them... but really why bother? Most of them I can't even fit into anymore. Still, here's the red bathrobe I wore with nothing else the first time I dropped a roll and spent a frantic night of MDMA induced love making to Violet. The wool jackets dad gave me when he couldn't fit into them anymore and that I wore to the first job interview I had in Georgia. Stray bras, old panties, mismatched stockings that would probably make a dumpster diver think I was some kind of trannie. Actually they were just abandoned articles left behind by ex-girlfriends. For some reason I never had the heart to throw them out until now. Then there's the black silk Chinese pajamas J-Sin gave to me ten years ago, back when we were the closest of friends. He gave them to me with instructions to wear them during his wedding to the Princess. That never happened and instead I wore them for Chinese New Year themed fetish parties at the old Chamber. All those old club outfits I stopped wearing when I stopped DJing - metallic crimson shirts, raver wide pants, dangling bondage straps, skull buttons, Coop style emblazoned devils, tiny hot-rod flames stitched into the collars - I wonder what people saw when I wore them? Not much probably. Truth be told DJ Jack Babalon, though capable of packing a floor, wasn't much to look at compared to the scene he was involved in. Still there were times, not many I admit, where I shined. Somehow, by some grace of some drunken charm stumbled upon, I was blessed with the chance to strip out of those outfits to lovers both willing and anxious.

I guess what's really doing a number on my head though is the fact that it was almost exactly a year ago last weekend that I had to move my shit out of the Witch House to move in with Vee for financial reasons. Everything had to get parred down then, superfulous possessions were weeded out and left to the curb as a sacrifice to the gods of stochastic fortune. Then in October, when Bill moved down to Florida, and I could no longer store my shit in his shed, I had to go through a lot of my property and trash it because there would be precious little room for me in the basement. Lost a whole series of bookshelves, an armoir, old CDs and even reduced my comic collection by a third.

Now with this latest flood I find myself being reduced again of my dwindled property. I mean just how much of my life do I have to shit can?

Who knows... maybe the universe is trying to tell me something. I mean it all feels so very 'Fight Club' really. I am not my book collection. I am not my comics or action figures or record collection. I am not my furniture, my clothes or my old poems.

What remains is the writer of stories, the dancer of songs, the guy who tries so hard to make you laugh. What is left that cannot be reduced at the moment is only the ear that listens, the eye that sees beauty in the ruined buildings, the strength summoned to help a friend move, the odd ideas fired off in random directions, the heart that loves... the smirk that casually defies the worst of odds.

Time then to 'cowboy up' as Bill would say and head back down into the basement.

I have a whole life to rebuild and who knows, maybe this time I'll get it right.