Sunday, February 27, 2005
We are all Richer?
I'm drinking too much. It dulls the mind and then I can't think of a thing to write.
But lately my breath hasn't been cutting it.
Alcohol does. But it also makes me empty of ideas.
Not that its the only reason. Its this goddamn money. That's the other reason. That's the main reason.
Money kills life.
Making money kills the creativity. Why? Cuz it makes me feel too damn good about things.
Everything is ok. That's no good. I can't write when its ok. I can't leap from a flatline. I write when its all going to shit.
There's a reason that there are no rich artists. Or that when an artist becomes rich he generally turns to crap. Emily Dickenson's greatest luck was that she was never discovered until after she died. She never had her talent corrupted.
If I do have any talent, there's not much chance its being corrupted by fame. That's for sure.
Nope. Not fame. Its these goddamn stocks, and they just keep going up and up and up.
Oh well.
Saturday, February 26, 2005
The lady next door's been yelling into a phone for almost an hour now. I banged three times up against the wall, slamming my fist above the bed, and the third time she said something nasty to this tacky wood wallpaper.
And then she told me I better not do it again.
I should probably write something. You know how tough it is to find a hotel with a high speed connection in this deadshit place. Well, its not easy and now I got one and of course now I don't really have much to say.
I think its cuz I'm coming down from too much right now.
So writing doesn't help.
The only thing that gives me any peace at all is when I close my eyes and let the waters flow. Its a little scary at first but it goes and pretty soon I'm imagining strange looking women and big furry coats and basketballs rolling across the floor.
I don't know what to make of any of it but it sure is free. Feels nice for a change. Even the drinks don't let you lose like this. They numb the mind, but this is just accepting it.
Of course I can't really do any of this worth a shit with the fucking racket next door.
One more minute and I do it again.
Thursday, February 24, 2005
Trains of Insomnia
There's a train outside my window. Always a train. I can hear it from across the river. I can feel the wall shutter against my back as it goes by.
The river's moving and the trains moving and even the walls are moving.
And I am still.
There isn't a thing to eat in this house. I haven't picked up anything in a week. There's rice cakes. Half eaten rice cakes.
I put one on the floor as an offering to the mice. They used to bother me but now I think they're gods.
And I don't like rice cakes.
So the minutes tick by and I've written all this and still haven't figured out what the hell I'm going to write.
But I'm going to write something.
I'm not sleeping tonight.
Tomorrow will be hell. But tonight is a sanctuary.
Not so real
Just about everything I write starts on paper.
And it never starts with the intention of getting put here. That happens later.
Usually much later. It'll happen when I'm eating cheese or sitting in front of the tv or reading some stupid ass spiritual fluff. And then I think, you know, I should really put that one up.
For posterity.
And it is fluff. By the way.
So then I change it and make it not so real.
Cuz the truth is never real. Well, rarely. The truth is rarely real.
I'm starting to think that beauty is never though.
Real.
Except maybe for a few of them.
Though I'm not sure so sure they're real either.
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
I'm just going to post what I write and fuck it all to whoever reads it.
If I can't write then I'm not living and then its just not worth it. Stick me in a box cuz its over.
So I'm going to post.
Tonight I spent the evening drinking wine from a box in a kitchen. The one girl told us all about lesbian sex. In the car next door. Through the paper thin walls. On a train ride in Vienna.
It makes good press.
I guess.
Che Guevera was just a man. With an idea he believed in.
And I'm no revolutionary, but I know what I maybe can do and that is make something beautiful.
Just one thing maybe.
But even one is more than life.
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
The problem is that I just can't pretend now.
It all got said and you know maybe there is such a thing as too much truth.
But I don't know that. Maybe I'm just not light enough.
Cuz right now there's no more make-believe.
Just reality. Cold. Hard. Like concrete.
Now I can't pretend. You can only pretend if you believe it.
Monday, February 21, 2005
I pushed it to the edge. I pushed it and now I'm terrified that I've pushed it too far.
But I didn't have a choice.
I didn't even know what I was doing.
I know now.
I had to push it to the edge to know. To know what I really felt. To strip away all the thoughts and be left with
Feel
I had to push it to the edge to feel the pain.
Time is molasses right now.
Sunday, February 20, 2005
| 'Who is this Charles Bukowski guy?' That's what I asked her. And two weeks later I received a book of poems. Now I'll never go back. He is so good. Look what he's done to me in a night and a half. I'm sitting at the kitchen table in a stunned state of illumination, by the glow of the tv with the volume turned down. A little tipsy from an empty glass, I'm flipping through a book by Nietszche that I haven't picked up in three years but that suddenly seems so relevant. Maybe, just maybe, I'm seeing the beauty of it all. Beyond good and evil. I've been reading Bukowski's work like it was about to go rancid. My favorite so far is about a guy named Karl that Bukowski used to work with. The thing about Karl was, he didn't understand that we are perishable. Karl thought that we could do whatever we wanted and that cause and effect was something reserved for billiard balls. |  |
We are so perishable.
I maybe know a lot of Karls, which I guess is why that one is my favorite. And sometimes I know I am a Karl, which is maybe why it scares me so much.
I have to watch that.
But enough about Karl and enough about Nietzsche. This is about Charles Bukowski, who last night I read for the very first time. And now I probably won't stop till they put me down. He's that good.
Friday, February 18, 2005
I'm retreating.
I think I've been retreating my whole life.
Only now its formal.
Now I sit cross-legged with my eyes half closed, surrounded by strangers in a tiny red room that's a little too hot, and I stay real quiet and try to pretend I'm thinking about my breath and not thinking about sex.
| Back then I would just find an empty room on the 13th floor. All alone. I'd sit at a desk in the corner, stare out the window on the world, and think about God and the Devil and pretend I was them. Either one. Didn't matter much. And I used to sit there on that cold, tiled, basement floor with the waves crashing down on the wallpaper walls and I'd listen to Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen speak to me about life. Now I try to chase tantric prayers, and I don't know if they really speak to me at all. Now its got a name. Now you know when it starts and ends. Back then it would end when my feet got tired of walking or when the midnight rains would begin to fall. Or when I finally got tired of being alone. But that didn't happen much. |  |
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
| Its one thing to write something well. Its a far harder thing to write something true. To write something well just takes time. And rhythm helps. But mainly time. You just keep pecking at it, reading it over and changing it and reading it and changing it and eventually, if you have any sense of aesthetics at all, you have something that's been written well. But to write something true is an entirely different beast. You can't just keep plugging and expect to come up with something true. You could plug for your whole life and write nothing but lies. Nope. Truth doesn't come from quantity. Its way too elusive for that. And that's the way it should be. So yeah, like I'm saying, its tough You'd think on a blog, where you're writing about yourself and your life, it'd be pretty easy to come up with something true. |  |
Just because it happened doesn't mean its true.
When I go back and read all the stuff I've written on this blog, I can pick out maybe 2 or 3 that maybe, maybe, just might be true. I wrote them so its tough to know. I'm too close.
But if its 2 or 3, I'm ok with that. I mean, what's it been, like a year. And I got 2 or 3 shots that might have hit a mark. That's ok. That's better odds then most.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
If you go to the www.kitcometals.com website there is a list of headlines of metals related articles. They must pull these up from reuters and associated press by searching for key words like copper and aluminum and nickel.
Looking at today's headlines, about a third of the way down is 'Girls Gone Wild Rocks America with Nationwide Tour; Revelation Theory and Copper Headline Rock Tour -- Sponsored by Dickens Cider'
They should refine their search a bit more before they post an article.
Monday, February 14, 2005
Hello out there in TV-land
I would like to take a minute to talk about the Safeway (the local grocery chain) by my house. It's worth talking about because it probably has the highest per capita level of pajama bottom clad patrons in North America.
I live in an odd neighbourhood.
And it isn't just late at night or early in the morning that such customers abound. I mean, yeah, it would be understandable if I was doing my shopping at midnight. The odd pair of late night snack seeking flannel bottoms would be expected.
But this is at like 6 in the evening. 3pm on a Saturday. Doesn't matter when. There's always at least one person wandering around with messy hair, pajamas and maybe a ski-jacket hastily tugged on over top.
Who are these people?
At least they're benign. I have yet to see a pajama wearer get into a fist fight, scream at another customer, or recklessly deface the merchandise. They just wander around the frozen food section with dazed looks in their eyes and sometimes trip over their untied shoe laces.
In comparison to another species, the tight blue jean, three day shadow with a moustache crowd, pajama wearers are the perfect customer. Tight blue jeans, three day shadow with a moustache is a bad scene. I try to steer clear of them. On friday night for example, I walked through the main doors of the Safeway to the sight of pizza pops and frozen burritos strewn across aisle 9, many of them torn open to leave an ugly potpourri of melting tomota cheese sauce and baked bean guts mushed into foot prints on the floor.
It was gross.
I knew it had to be a tight blue jeans, three day shadow with a moustache. And it was. I got a glance at him in the backseat of the cop car as I left.
So the pajama people - they're ok. Just watch out for them when they're tripping over their shoes. But tight bluejeans, three day shadow and a moustache - you have to remember they probably just came down from their binge and are seeing the sun for the first time in 3 days. So they're a little owly. Its best to steer clear of them altogether.
Friday, February 11, 2005
PJ and I were just reflecting on how the most vivid memories from our childhood and adolescence are Simpson's episodes.
The bright side is that you can reminiscence about old times with people you've just met.
You can't make this shit up
On bubblevison today, or CNBC if you prefer, they were discussing the recent trade deficit numbers, which are, to put it bluntly, Gi-nourmous.
These dudes they had on, I can't remember what their names were and they aren't worth remembering anyways, described American consumption as being "a sacrifice," and American consumers as "bearing the brunt of world consumption," and of having an "obligation to consume."
That's priceless. Its like the 11th commandment. Thou shalt buy.
Brutal.
Thursday, February 10, 2005
| White Flags
It’s my belief that capitulation is something that can only be felt. You can't understand it. You can't predict it. You can only experience it. But what a force it has! It is so hard not to give in and just let yourself drown by the weight of your sinking belly. It challenges your resolve, makes you question your assumptions, and leaves you wondering if you don't understand anything at all. Who knows what's out there in the unknown. It makes you sick. So you capitulate. |
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You throw in the towel and start over. And with that, the feeling dissipates and you're left in some sort of lonely abyss.
Alone.
What's amazing is how quickly that feeling, which had been so terrible, just ends. Like it never was. And all you're left with is the memory of its discomfort and some spinning uncertainty of whether you did the right thing.
This goes on a few times or a thousand, until you begin to understand.
And with understanding comes the strength to look capitulation in the eye. Eventually you conjure the courage to stare it down for what it really is.
A feeling. Grasping. Fear. Extrapolating a terrible past to a hopeless future.
You realize all that. But just as importantly, you realize its true nature. It’s only a passing deliverance that fades with time.
And then the fear doesn't seem so bad. This too will pass.
And with that, its power deflates.
Next time you don't capitulate.
I look forward to these moments now. I get a little smirk on my face, and my eyes burn fire. It is the weakness of others. It is the smell of blood. It is opportunity.
I thought I had capitulation on Monday. Now I’m not so sure. It doesn’t smell right. But soon.
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Organic Poser
These apples that we Canadians get imported in winter are brutal. They are the most tasteless pieces of fruit imaginable. I think they've been genetically modified with the DNA of sawdust.
| And they don't go brown. What's with that? I've had the core sitting on my desk for like an hour, and its still as alabaster as my butt.
Are there scientists sitting around investigating ways of delaying the rigor mortis of apples? There's a worthwhile pursuit. 10 years of schooling to create the eternal apple. I'll put that one down on my gravestone under a life worth living. I will update if said apple ever does turn brown. |
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Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Twas in another lifetime...
Yeah that's me. A creature void of form. Stealing lines from Bob Dylan. Eating Big Macs and spitting out the chew. Cuz its wrong you see.
And why is it so fucking cold? Everywhere, everyone, its so fucking cold.
I was sitting in the waiting room waiting for Arlene and this couple was there next to me with this one fat lady and this other dumbass work boot buddy kissing and farting like it was their front room.
He's telling her what a good job she does and he'd smack somebody if he had to do it and she's telling him no, no, no, darling but you could do it too if you only had a bit of patience.
Then he's making cracks about spraying in her ear while she's complaining to Arlene because 'there's something about it that just isn't quite right yet.'
I've been waiting 20 minutes and all I could think of was fuck you're brutal.
Yeah, I'm trying to love.
But people are awful easy to hate.
Monday, February 07, 2005
Cars do funny things when they get old. Especially in winter. This is a list of things that happen to my car. Its a scientific marvel.
- when the temperature gets below -20degC it will start fine but if you turn it off within 5 minutes of starting it won't start up again for at least half an hour. Thus coffee 'to go' quickly becomes coffee 'to stay'.
- The exception to this rule is about 20% of the time you can get it to restart if you press the break pedal down really hard right after you stop it.
- between -10degC and 5degC the coolant fluid leaks out and you have to refill it every third day or the car will overheat.
- when the car overheats the headlights burn out.
- at really cold temperatures, like lower then -25degC, it won't go in reverse unless its been driven in a forward gear first. Thus you have to back it up into parking spots.
- at certain moon intervals the coolant fluid leaks into the heating system and fills the front seat with a thick, green, antifreeze fog.
- At 84 km/hr the car hits its resonant frequency and if you leave it at that speed it will begin to shake uncontrollably. Though I can't confirm it, I believe that if you left it at this speed for a good long period (say like a minute) the wheels would fall off.
- there is a loud squeak from the left front wheel that only occurs when you're driving where the road is sloped. Its like a warning reminder that the road isn't perfectly flat.
- The wind shield wipers work perfectly except for a 2 inch square spot where they completely miss. This spot happens to be directly at eye level when I sit down.
- If you try to wipe off that spot on the windshield by hand it only gets worse and pretty soon you'll have to drive around with the window open and your head sticking out. This is unfortunate when its below -20 as you become acutely aware of the magic of wind chill.
- the left signal light turns on when you signal right and the right signal light doesn't come on at all. However this can be prevented by turning off the headlights, which isn't such a bad thing when the car is overheating.
More to come...
Friday, February 04, 2005
The Apparant Insurmounity (if that's a word) of Designing a UFO
PJ and I were having a discussion about UFO's. We think it would be cool to design UFO's.
Anything is better then sheet-metal boxes.
So yeah, it would be cool to design a UFO. Think of the recognition, the fame. You could be the life of the party (or at least invited). But, as we were envisioning our future glory, what occured to PJ, and in turn shattered our bubble, is that the whole thing is quite impossible.
In attempting to design a UFO, you run into an insurmountable difficulty. And that is this. If you design a UFO you know you have designed it, and if everyone else knows you have designed it, well then it is no longer really very unidentified.
Thus its only a FO, which is not nearly as sexy to design as a UFO.
All this means, of course, that a true UFO was never designed by anybody. Even god.
Its all very existential you see.
So even having the good intention of designing a UFO, having done so you couldn't go around saying it, initiating reactions of awe and amazement and causing people to bow down before you, because it wouldn't be true and people would think you're a liar and a fraud and instead they'd spit on your shoes.
Just like they do now.
And of course, if you went around telling the truth, saying you designed FO's, then people would tell you to FO yourself. And that wouldn't be good either.
This is a terrible paradox. Its quite distressing to realise that my dream of designing a UFO will never be attained.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
When I get really tired, I start to feel like my mind is going to crack.
Its a strange sensation. Its like the continuity of moments break down. Does that make any sense?
If it doesn't it because my mind is cracking.
And I get very paranoid. I'm terrified of mice at this moment. I keep peering at the cupboards in fear that one will poke its head around the corner.
If a mouse does peer around the corner, I will be sleeping at the travelodge tonight.
Or not sleeping. To put it more accurately. I'm not sure where I should be not sleeping tonight.
That's the strange part. Too. I know I won't be able to fall asleep. I'm too tired. Too tired to fall asleep.
I think those evolutionary forces passed me by on that one.
And then when I won't be able fall asleep, that will make me paranoid. Paranoid that I won't ever fall asleep. And then I'll come back into the kitchen and that will make me think about the mice and so I'll get all paranoid about the mice again and the next thing you know my roommate will come home and ask why I'm sitting beside the cupboard holding a spatula in the ready position.
I really shouldn't get so overtired.
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