he wanted his map plastered all over the place. people to know of him. his likeness on billboards like those real estate agents buidling relationships with smiling square depictions of their strong jawlines. his name broadcast on the radio for all the radio-wave-capable universe to hear. his hand shaking the president's. his arm outstretched above his head and his index finger extended in a #1 sign on WCVB as the 6 o'clock news fades out to commercial...like Larry after hitting playoff three or something. people to enjoy his written word to a certain extent. his portrait across the evening sky. no really, "project my smiling face from a satellite onto the atmosphere above the northern hemisphere for one year after I pass." he told NASA over the phone.
no that would never happen, the phone call. he was from boston. so. he lived in this self-imposed middle. this range of geniune comfort. it was unacceptable to exit this range. one could lose friends and suffer utter alienation the instant one exhibited an emotion or excitement one iota outside - save of course at the TV during a Sox, C's, or B's game. what one did instead, when meeting up with one's boys for example, was like make one's eyelids a bit lazy and bring one's head back slowly to a slightly raised position ending with a brief jerk of the chin. and make fun of something someone is wearing right away. the first guy to not be wearing all white sneakers, say.
do not shake hands with one's boys. do not talk seriously about anything with them. be emotionless. be malleable. don't take a stand on anything. ensure that someone else likes something prior to you liking it. don't have dreams. or if you do, don't you dare express them. and exhibit the exact same indifferrence in the following three scenarios 1. dream acheived, 2. dream still oustanding, 3. dream fallen short of. enter a room and be present at certain events but go unnoticed. disappear to the corner of the room but appear intelligent by being reserved and carrying a concentrated look. generally, be a coward but pound the bridge of the nose and soft eye-socket bones of the first guy that points out that you are such. punch with your pinky finger not fully engaged in the fist, like rich executives drink their diet cokes, because it looks cooler in the mirror when you practice at home. call "the family" if you ever run into trouble above one's head. do well in school but play it off. love the story of will hunting. go and see about a girl.
he was a quiet and reserved boy with the humility of christ. in fact his friends called him that, jesus. but they also were from Boston and resided in the same mediocrity. so. they placed no emphasis on either syllable. a monotone...je-sus. lovers of the middle, so to speak. these men are loyal men and are men that will raise families of equally loyal boys and foul-mouthed but beautiful boston girls. but these men, like he, leave no non-genetic legacy, sadly, of themselves to be remembered.
27 May 2010
25 May 2010
who's driving?
and so but now he had this thing where he shut his eyes while driving. each time longer and longer - 'just to the next telephone pole' and then 'for the next two telephone poles' and then 'just to the next mile marker'. but always on the highway, so with fewer turns and no intersections.
this nerve in his brachial plexus had been ravaged by an office chair. the dull pain in his armpit and shoulder dampened his mood a bit.
what did he do? what did he do? what did he do next? and so then he walked around his house. aimless. in a stifling heat. he sat there with his shirt off - his torso skin is fucking nasty, for the record, and he is starting to get chest hair, not the manly kind but more the one-here-one-here-a-little-patch-over-there kind - and he sat at his computer desk (three pieces of particle board held together by hidden screws from ikea) with the skin of his, not fat or overweight but, extra-massed stomach physically sitting on the edge of the desk (you know, with chair pulled in really and almost too close to the desk) and punched away at his laptop, experimenting with commas and details and one-word sentences.
his left eyelid acquired a twitch recently. a rapid movement that absolutely could not be voluntary. it happened mostly when he discussed serious things and made decisions. he knows when it's coming and can feel it happen, of course, but he wonders if others can see it. is it dramatic enough for someone else to observe - that's a whole nothah question. tough to tell if from stress or not, the twitching.
he longed for a simple life of frankly just survival. he owned all these things...all these fucking things. and all these fucking clothes and he really just wanted to wear this grey sweater over a blue button down shirt and olive green pants everyday...he'll probably wear a suit tomorrow. sometimes it's not so funny to see all your dreams as reality.
he drove like a GD douchebag. the eyelid was twitching and the extra stomach mass was greasing up the desk. he felt it was a waste of time, the driving, so he tried as hard as possible to get to the desination as fast as possible. this caused problems for his passengers, if any, and for basically every other car on the road.
so fragile, really. and delicate. he was beginning to notice this. all these things he observed of himself, and probably nearly everything else, held together by these feeble ties...like, barely actually connected and more just 'next to each other' in flight and plummeting to the earth. sprinting at breakneck speed in the absolute black and actually doing okay and not tripping or being destroyed or destroying anyone else and really actually making it for a while but being able to disunite and recognize that it can't possibly last for that much longer, can it?
this nerve in his brachial plexus had been ravaged by an office chair. the dull pain in his armpit and shoulder dampened his mood a bit.
what did he do? what did he do? what did he do next? and so then he walked around his house. aimless. in a stifling heat. he sat there with his shirt off - his torso skin is fucking nasty, for the record, and he is starting to get chest hair, not the manly kind but more the one-here-one-here-a-little-patch-over-there kind - and he sat at his computer desk (three pieces of particle board held together by hidden screws from ikea) with the skin of his, not fat or overweight but, extra-massed stomach physically sitting on the edge of the desk (you know, with chair pulled in really and almost too close to the desk) and punched away at his laptop, experimenting with commas and details and one-word sentences.
his left eyelid acquired a twitch recently. a rapid movement that absolutely could not be voluntary. it happened mostly when he discussed serious things and made decisions. he knows when it's coming and can feel it happen, of course, but he wonders if others can see it. is it dramatic enough for someone else to observe - that's a whole nothah question. tough to tell if from stress or not, the twitching.
he longed for a simple life of frankly just survival. he owned all these things...all these fucking things. and all these fucking clothes and he really just wanted to wear this grey sweater over a blue button down shirt and olive green pants everyday...he'll probably wear a suit tomorrow. sometimes it's not so funny to see all your dreams as reality.
he drove like a GD douchebag. the eyelid was twitching and the extra stomach mass was greasing up the desk. he felt it was a waste of time, the driving, so he tried as hard as possible to get to the desination as fast as possible. this caused problems for his passengers, if any, and for basically every other car on the road.
so fragile, really. and delicate. he was beginning to notice this. all these things he observed of himself, and probably nearly everything else, held together by these feeble ties...like, barely actually connected and more just 'next to each other' in flight and plummeting to the earth. sprinting at breakneck speed in the absolute black and actually doing okay and not tripping or being destroyed or destroying anyone else and really actually making it for a while but being able to disunite and recognize that it can't possibly last for that much longer, can it?
20 May 2010
?
drank himself silly last night as we sat motionless, heads cocked and eyes quizzical - watching. "shee-zuss" as he drilled down a plastic bottle of vodka that his dad had been using to de-rust the lawn mower blades. ended up at the tattoo parlor run by the biker girl with that pearl jam lyric I NEVER SUCKED SATAN'S DICK tatooed on the back of her neck not because she knew PJ or the song but because she had sucked it and loved the irony. he ended up with a chest full of a bearded russian farmer wearing a rubber apron performing a caesarean section on a bovine birthing a calf...a nice piece.
"come on!" you screamed helplessly, looking over at your other friends. and he would just quote that Melon lyric he used when he wanted you to butt out..."...and I only wanted to be sixteen and free..."
"..."
"...hey william, is that the last time i'm going to look at you?"
"come on!" you screamed helplessly, looking over at your other friends. and he would just quote that Melon lyric he used when he wanted you to butt out..."...and I only wanted to be sixteen and free..."
"..."
"...hey william, is that the last time i'm going to look at you?"
17 May 2010
m. chills
We were going to do High Violet.
Something had changed in the air. We were done hybernating in a sense; winter depression had passed and our neomammalian brains had taken back control. Amazed at how blood did not rush from our heads to leave us faint with the immediacy of our ascent from supine misery to upright victory. We had literally morphed from a state of utter disrepair to smiling balloonheads. As if our dopamine had itself snorted cocaine prior to release into the synaptic cleft. We were in the garden staring at the sun extended inhales and open-mouthed-eyes-closed exhales - fuck the city, we said - raising arms like goalposts and making our bodies X's arching backs heads back the sun boiling our milky-white maps into full smiles...life! We bipolar manics.
'And I can't fall asleep without a little help. It takes awhile to settle down my ship of hopes.'
He was a merciless intellectual. A total prick grammarian - searching and attacking. 'Who' vs. 'whom', any absence of 'ly' in adverbs, the supplant of 'me and you' for 'you and I', and other such imperfections. "Goddamn, I'm tired of being correct." He spent 70% of his time correcting others. A verbal accountant. He cared more than anyone I know who and how many would be at his funeral. It's amazing what insecurity will drive us to.
'I don't have the drugs to sort it out, sort it out. Little voices swallowing my soul, soul, soul'
We rarely talked world events - the reds running amok in Thailand just two years after the yellows shut down the airport and such, new revelations about France and Spain strong-arming Germany into this socialist Euro project to save the laggards - and how Greece singlehandedly proved the Germans' point, and the conservatives shitting themselves over our President, his evil ways, and his latest nomination of a woman without many womanly features to the high court - we always thought that if the news big enough then we would find out sooner or later.
'Lemonworld' is the kind of song you listen to three, four times in repeated sequence to bathe in the impact. Wash yourself in this song. Get emotional about it. Make the lyrics mean something personal to you. Say "fuck" and mean it. Tell your brother about it and try out some new adjectives. Keep it for yourself. Hum the melody when you're laying with your wife. Cry when you see them play it live. Listen to it in your car, in traffic, on the way to work. Lipsync to the mercedes to your right. Think about driving into the guardrail or a tree...Some bands get it just right, don't they?
Something had changed in the air. We were done hybernating in a sense; winter depression had passed and our neomammalian brains had taken back control. Amazed at how blood did not rush from our heads to leave us faint with the immediacy of our ascent from supine misery to upright victory. We had literally morphed from a state of utter disrepair to smiling balloonheads. As if our dopamine had itself snorted cocaine prior to release into the synaptic cleft. We were in the garden staring at the sun extended inhales and open-mouthed-eyes-closed exhales - fuck the city, we said - raising arms like goalposts and making our bodies X's arching backs heads back the sun boiling our milky-white maps into full smiles...life! We bipolar manics.
'And I can't fall asleep without a little help. It takes awhile to settle down my ship of hopes.'
He was a merciless intellectual. A total prick grammarian - searching and attacking. 'Who' vs. 'whom', any absence of 'ly' in adverbs, the supplant of 'me and you' for 'you and I', and other such imperfections. "Goddamn, I'm tired of being correct." He spent 70% of his time correcting others. A verbal accountant. He cared more than anyone I know who and how many would be at his funeral. It's amazing what insecurity will drive us to.
'I don't have the drugs to sort it out, sort it out. Little voices swallowing my soul, soul, soul'
We rarely talked world events - the reds running amok in Thailand just two years after the yellows shut down the airport and such, new revelations about France and Spain strong-arming Germany into this socialist Euro project to save the laggards - and how Greece singlehandedly proved the Germans' point, and the conservatives shitting themselves over our President, his evil ways, and his latest nomination of a woman without many womanly features to the high court - we always thought that if the news big enough then we would find out sooner or later.
'Lemonworld' is the kind of song you listen to three, four times in repeated sequence to bathe in the impact. Wash yourself in this song. Get emotional about it. Make the lyrics mean something personal to you. Say "fuck" and mean it. Tell your brother about it and try out some new adjectives. Keep it for yourself. Hum the melody when you're laying with your wife. Cry when you see them play it live. Listen to it in your car, in traffic, on the way to work. Lipsync to the mercedes to your right. Think about driving into the guardrail or a tree...Some bands get it just right, don't they?
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