Confessions of a Fuck-Up Artist!

As part of the research for writing October's "Halloween Rock N Roll Burlesque Show" I've been re-immersing myself in the works of Slayer, Venom, and vintage Black Sabbath. Personally I've always been more of a Big Black and Misfits kind of guy as far as getting my bombastic audio kicks go (though I really enjoy Liturgy's 'Aesthetica' of late and it served as my soundtrack to writing the first draft of the 'Guns of Innsmouth').
Still, upon the third listening of Slayer's Reign of Blood, in an attempt to tie thrash metal mayhem with potential acts of pastie jiggling for the show, I seem to have unlocked a whole store of memories from my days as a lone punk-rocker hanging with the only other kids in my school who cut class to get stoned - the metal heads.

I remember always trying to get them into the DK's 'Bedtime for Democracy' or GBH's 'City Babies Attacked by Rats' only to have my metal buddies tell me - "They got the anger right, but where's the guitar virtuosity, where's the rock star pageantry?"

Then they'd put on the 'Crooked Cross' or 'South of Heaven' before forming a pit in the parking lot of the Circle K before the school's truant officer would pull up and we'd all make a run for it (my attempts to hide from school and law enforcement authorities while being the only teenager in suburban Fort Liquor with a mohawk taught me many a lesson in the valiant art of futile rebellion).

They were good times with good people though, and as such I really hope I can capture the 'brutal' and 'epic' majesty of the music (the audio equivalent of a Frank Frazetta painting).

If not then at least I can say it's been interesting teaching my ears to bleed again.

After getting to dance in Vampire Country with my favorite sexy satanist, after getting chased out of the Star Bar for smoking a joint with no apology, after the Cafe Perilous kicked us to the curb for drinking after hours, after a surprise NYE kiss from a tres horny red-head, after pulling my boy out of a fight at the Yacht, your humble correspondent - at long last - gets to crash with comic book gifts from the Magpie.

So now, the weakest link in a chain of super-freaks, packs his bowl, fires up the Wu-Tang (miss you Bud 24-7-365), and crashes into a world of four color action and Never-Never Land fantasies.

2014,know that I did my best and count myself amongst a whole shit load of better angels who did the same.

10-4, over and out.

Dropped down into Vampire Country, L5P for a cup of black metal coffee at the world infamous Cafe Perilous. While I was there I ran into Katana Fatale who wore the universal mask of exhaustion and enthusiasm that stage managers get when it's T-Minus two weeks until opening night. Graciously, she agreed to let me pop next door for a visit at Grief Theatre (of which as we all know, there are 7 stages) to get a peek at the universe they were building back stage for their next show.

While there I was pleasantly surprised to run into the Contact and my old drinking buddy/Collective Collaborator Jacques Cuse along with a few friendly faces from back in the day. Stepping around the boxes of time machine engine parts, sonic screwdriver schematics and the chalk drawn sigils to summon the Lord of All Dark... I got to see the murder of Weeping Angels they had penned up in the make-up room.

Of course I was warned not to touch them as doing so would send me hurtling back through the time-space continuum to a time before I was born. But they were, wow, just... wow... I could barely take my eyes off them and not just because doing so was their primary form of transportation. Haunting and beautiful as that first high school goth crush whose kisses tasted like cloves.

I could've stayed there all day asking inane questions... but by then some of the loyal staff Perilous were escorting a goat backstage and whatever was going to happen next was way above even my occult rank. Besides the angels were getting restless and my buddies had to get back to work.

Outside back in the sunlight, where a cop ignored the chubby raver girl peeing on the sidewalk even as the tourists snapped cell phone shots... I knew I had been given a brief premonition of something magical to come.

So at the gym I was asked by a young lady with a Justin Bieber haircut - "What are you looking at?" - with much hostility and folding of arms.

"Myself." I answered honestly with a shrug, "You just happen to be standing between me and the mirror."

Sorry lady, I know you wanted to speak truth to what you perceived as power, but in reality I'm just as self-absorbed as everyone else here who's trying to stave of their sense of impending mortality or hoping to look good enough not to die alone.

Rush hour down Memorial is no joke. Everybody's racing to get in front of me and those that do immediately decelerate from warp speed to leisurely cruise. Nobody's got time to signal a turn because there's no app for doing so on their phones yet. Roads pockmarked with craters or slabs of tire-puncturing steel toupees slapped over them ahead. MARTA buses lumber down the right hand lane, grazing passengers at each stop. Behind them school buses deploy screaming daredevil children in random intervals while pedestrians zombie stroll across the open lanes.

And in that moment I know why some people drink and drive. The same reason soldiers hit the flask before bolting out of the trench or into the charge. The same reason we drink before fighting someone bigger or fucking someone who's crazier than us. At some point you just have to say enough. The spectacle's out of hand and the social contract has become toilet paper for the collective masses to wipe their asses on. Next liquor store or bar - titty or otherwise - and you're going in.

I can sympathize, but a last second dodge of a yuppy tank bursting out of a gas station parking lot reminded me why that wasn't an option for me.

In fact, despite the Mad Max commute, I found that I was enjoying myself. Weaving confidently through charging herds of Mustangs and the frantic scurrying of commuter Bugs with ease. I zipped, soared, glided and flowed around the madness while adding not a drop of drama to the commute behind me. When I finally cut down US-23 towards L5P the radio blasted Cohen's "Ain't No Cure For Love". I sang along with a fresh cigarette and my left arm soaking up the sun.

Sitting here now, still soaked in sweat in some spots and forearms flecked with grass, I find it hard to believe. Somehow its only been a little over a year since abandoning my excuses, I finally learned how to enjoy something as simple as that moment.

Alright time for a swim.

Not sure which Apiary God or Goddess I've managed to piss off, but yet again I find myself stung by a yellow-jacket (or wasp or hornet). It happened once again doing yard work OTP in Doraville. This time however one of the lil' fuckers managed to score a direct hit under the left brow. Which has left me with an eye so badly swollen I can't even open it. Spent the whole MARTA ride back getting giggles or disgusted looks from the southbound commuters. Even had one woman sit down next to me, look at me, nod, and then get back up to stand as far as she could squeeze. In a lot of pain, half-blind and my muscles sore working a chainsaw, an ax, a saw and brute strength on a few fallen trees.

You know when a man's been stung by wasps more often than he's gotten laid in a two month period... he starts to really rethink his life.

The ghost of a Winter that never was stumbles across a rain soaked weekend in mid-April. Pink and white as dreams of geishas dancing, dogwood petals flow steadily down the pollen green currents of the gutter. Cold dreary rain falling on a lazy Sunday Terminus afternoon and I'm sitting in my first office meeting in over five years.

The location's a brick warehouse partitioned into three complexes retrofitted for business. It's tucked down a side street no wider than an uphill alleyway and of three doors offered it is the only one painted blue. Inside a multilevel suite with the walls gutted out so that everything resembles the jet set Mid-Century chic of a Shag painting or Johnny Quest lair come to life. Still it's the end of the weekend, so there's no one there but us. Us being myself and the two executives who summoned me here. We're seated at a long beige table in a meeting room on the lower level. The meeting room is a single cube carved out of a three dimensional Abstract Expressionist splotch. Its walls are covered in broad sheets of paper. Each thumb-tacked or taped to one another. Each filled with rows of ideas and words stacked and numbered and underlined and each cascading into one another with some frantically circled or connected to each other by serpentine arrows . Terms like "Immediate Focus" and "Intended Now" and "Maximized Contrast" glared wherever the eye should fall. A grimorie hieroglyph scrawled in every available shade of magic marker.

And it's no different really than any of the dozens of meeting-rooms I've manned over my many decades of intermittent employability in the Cube Farms of Corporate American. The one's I've interviewed in, got hired, reviewed, promoted, downsized, laid off and fired in. The ones I fugue stated into daydream escapes that involved ninjas rappelling through the windows, bears bursting through screens lit up with the soul-draining light of Power Point presentations, spontaneous orgies induced by nanobots laced in the break-room coffee pots, fireworks bursting out of the fluorescent bulbs above and what did it matter so long as I performed wholeheartedly those tasks I was monstrously underpaid to perform?

But this time it's different.

I'm there to tell a story.

They're right there. Laptops open. Pen and paper at hand. Sincerely eager to hear why we're here on a Sunday. Above us rain patters on a wide glass skylight casting a soft ripple of shadows over the room. This is it. A moment I've waited, since, fuck, I don't know, how do you time a question you've been afraid to ask?

So here's what you need to know about me in that frozen, shit your pants and smile moment before I say word one. I am not stoned. I am not drunk. I am not there with a friend to ontologically hold my hand and do my talking for me. Know that it's been a tough year, know that I've got a dozen rejections from various publishers since Winter under my belt. Know I've gotten the last one this time last week.

Know that none of it matters because for the first time in a long time, I am not scared.

In fact I am filled with exuberance, ideas and considerations.

I am a man who is exactly where he needs to be.

One who knows this is not just a 'story' behind the pitch, but the fact beyond the Jack.

So a short story piece (under a 1000 words) got accepted and posted by Write Club Atlanta's local voice's page. Yay! You can read the piece here. Check it out please and leave a comment or a like if you're inclined to see more. Thanks.

Most amazing night I've had in ages! The Sexual Side Effects was an amazing show. It was great hanging with the Magpie, great talking True Blood outside the club with trekkie lesbians and random passerbys. But when I danced with the prettiest gal in the bar and she leaned over to whisper in my ear to say how I reminded her of Spider Jerusalem I just about thought I found what you religious folks call heaven. Baby, if you can read this, know I'm on fire for you right now:)

Forgive me a brief moment of candidness,.... I promise I'll do my best to make it brief. The last few days have been rough. My first Father's Day without a father approaches. Every time I try to watch something on TV I'm bombarded with messages, images, pitches and pleas often with a theme of - "Don't forget, your dear old dad this Sunday", and quick clips of happy sons dutifully attending their father's satisfaction ensue. Not just on TV either, but even here in Internet-land I'm betrayed by pop up ads that blink desperately to remind me of last minute gift ideas for a man exactly one grave away from my life. The process has soured my vision to be honest, haunted my moods and nagged at my thoughts. I fear I do not meet the measure of his approval still, even being 40 years now into the game. What would he say to this man I've become I wonder, what words would he comfort or scold me with towards his vision of perfect-me.

And yet, tonight, well this morning really, I stand on the precipice of seeing something I've long dreamed of come true. Tomorrow - after a thousand delays, doubts and obstacles - the movie is being made. A short film, a sketch piece really, but one based on one of my short stories. My friends, one by one, have fallen into place to be there when I needed them. Princess, Magpie, Teddy Bear and so many others have pulled strings, called in favors, squeezed in time, laid down cash or sacrificed time just to come make a silly little narrative that crawled out of my mind's eye onto a page into an actual, well, thing.

Something funny, scary and sad. Something fantastically absurd and absolutely true. Something that will bring me a step closer to the place I've always wanted to be.

So that's me of late I guess. I'm giddy and guilt ridden. I'm ecstatic and tragic. I'm on the cusp of finally proving myself to a ghost.

I just wish he could see me now. Not just me but us. All of us. To see what I'm a part of and what we we're going to do tomorrow is just going to be the start of something magnificent.

Fuck it, maybe it's just the pre-tomorrow drinks I had maybe just one too many of. Maybe I'm drunk and seeking solace in the pipe's numb comfort. Alright, I said I'd be brief and really what else can I say but thank you.

Robert Charles Mosca sometimes was a quiet man, but never a timid one.

In my father's heart beat an adventurer's soul, with his earliest recollections that of arriving as a child to our country and no memory did he prize higher than his travels across the globe with my mother by his side. In his mind laid the raw imagination of a little boy. An imagination fed by a passionate awe for the world around him, one that coupled the vast depths of a scholar's wisdom to a poet's epic love of the word. But it was his smile that I remember best, for seeing it made it hard not to offer one of your own. And though I do remember his laugh, mainly I just recall my own and the gift he had for drawing it out on even the worst of days.

My father made me laugh, but he also taught me patience. I would often sit by his side as a little boy watching him perched over his desk for hours on end, steadily bringing his miniature armies to life with a meticulous eye for detail. A literal alchemy before my eyes, as with paint brush wielded with wand's grace he changed cast lead figurines into living battalions that marched boldly out of the history books he so cherished.

My father taught me patience, but also to never to squander my life in front of a TV or submerged within a hobby. He encouraged me to get out and explore, and our long walks together were some of the finest moments I ever shared with him. We would often follow the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail on those long Sunday afternoons, as it winded through Yonkers and spilled out into Van Cortlandt Park. As we traveled he would share with me the most fantastic stories, from the Siege of Khartoum to the exploits of the Legion of Super Heroes, from Napoleon's retreat from Russia to the nightmare visions of H P Lovecraft. Along the way he would pause to identify a bird singing in the canopy of trees above or suddenly bend down to point out a stone arrowhead hiding amongst the pebbles. There was too much to see and so little time to see it, he would frequently remind me and it was that attitude I carried with me as I left for the Navy.

My father taught me to explore, but also that love was the greatest journey a man could ever hope to undertake. My mother and the love they shared was the most remarkable adventure he ever experienced. In that love they grew from wild flower children into the Man and Woman I was blessed to receive as parents. In that love my father found solace, strength and courage. Even in the twilight of his life, my mother's presence delivered upon him a peace that surpassed even those final trials he suffered.

My father taught me all those things, but mainly he taught me to know when to get off the stage. So with that I will ask only that you pause to reflect for a moment, not on the loss of the man we knew... but rather to rejoice in the wit, compassion and love he shared so boldly with us.

I want to focus, at least for a few moments, on the few days I spent recently with my 'brother from another mother' down in Jacksonville, Florida.

On the 28th of November, a very rainy day here in Terminus, I braved the wino-ghouls to make my way to the Greyhound station. One broken down bus, two missed connections in Savannah and a 16 hour trip total later I arrived in downtown, Jax.

The next two days would prove well worth the trip and then some. I stayed in a swank pool house the size of my old apartment (aka 'the Witch House'), visited a 17th century French fort along St.John's River, was given a tour of the Masonic 'Hall of Justice' and best of all got some much needed quality time with the nephew.

On the trip back of course I got a call from mom telling me the bad news about dad's seizure. But this is the calm before the storm. My best friend, whom I miss very much, delivered upon me a brief visit to Arcadia that gave me the strength needed to navigate the coming weeks' perils.