ill communication

Transformed by love, Chaney, in the Ace of Hearts

I'm That Kid In The Corner
All Fucked Up And I Wanna So I'm Gonna
Take A Piece Of The Pie, Why Not, I'm Not Quitting
Think I'm Gonna Change Up My Style Just To Fit In
I Keep My Underwear Up With A Piece Of Elastic
I Use A Bullshit Mic That's Made Out Of Plastic
To Send My Rhymes Out To All Nations
Like Ma Bell, I've Got The Ill Communications

Sure Shot, The Beastie Boys

My eyes have just opened upon a Saturday morning that saw The Ace of Hearts the night before. No new calls, I was hoping that something came through unnoticed in the middle of the night.

I can't seem to get along with anyone lately. I have regressed three months in 36 hours. My mind fluttering through emotions so fast that my body can't keep up. My face, my eyes, my voice, my hands, transmitting neuroses, and bitterness that I am unaware of because the mind moved on, long ago. The people I care for most, they are the ones that must deal with this mixed bag of misfiring synapses, but they seem tired of it, and I don't blame them. I just want to grab onto something, and hang on tight, stop this circus swirl of hot and cold, but everything has blended itself into a smooth indeterminable wall of colour. Something that looks like a road, seen through a small hole in the floor of a car moving a hundred miles an hour. If I tried to touch something now it would only rip flesh, and grind bone, back, all the way to my wrists, and then I wouldn't be able to hold anyone, or anything, ever again.

It's up to you

The Empire Diner in Chelsea...

Sitting in the bar last night, a decision was made. Leave town, leave as soon as possible, leave now, and go to New York, and never come back. The time had come to face it, that if I was to go anywhere, it would have to be alone. I am getting used to alone, I like alone, he's easy to get along with, if not a little too quiet at times.

So I will arrive in New York, shortly, well not until the 18th really, it was the earliest discount fare I could get. I have it all planned. I will drink, heavily, on the plane, and check into my hotel. Then I will stumble up the couple blocks to the Empire State Building, just to make sure it really does exist, not just in movies and pictures, but that it's an actual thing that inhabits real space. Then I plan on having a late night dinner at Blue Ribbon because it's open till four am. I have a single seat, at Yankee stadium, in the bronx, box 342, Row E, for a Friday night game against the Angels. So I will venture into the Bronx early, and have dinner at Dominick's, which apparently has communal seating. But most of my time will be spent walking the streets, listening to the local radio on my headphones, and reading the post. Drinking, smoking, watching.

I lay out this light itinerary, because when I come back, it will be nothing like what I have discussed above. Who knows what I will experience there, and the effect it will have on me to have walked amongst the birthplace of pop culture. To be in the city that was used as a back drop in all the comics I read as a kid, where all the super heroes live, where a guy named Louie DePalma ran a taxi garage, and a guy named Roger Thornhill was mistaken for someone else and abducted. I could go on forever, but you get the idea. To walk in an environment so overlapped with history, fiction, and fantasy will be sensory overload, and with overload comes release, and rebuilding.

I have dedicated much of this website to the residual effects of low culture on the day to day life of one very ordinary person, the dichotomy of something produced for the masses, and how it trickles down to the experience of the singular. So the week that I will be in New York will be dedicated to living in the realm of the low. The sidewalk John Lennon died on, the apartment Stienbeck lived in for a year, and the central park path that Dustin Hoffman's character would jog every morning in The Marathon Man. It will all be there, and so will I, finally.

Three Card Monte

You've been dealt a romance card, Sagittarius, and tonight could be the perfect time to play it. Head out with some friends and be on the lookout for that special someone. What seems dull on any other day may be full of excitement today.
Free Daily Horoscopes

I am waiting, lying here on my vinyl couch, no cable tv, sweating. Waiting for the dullness of this seemingly ordinary moment to be transformed into the bliss that was described in my horoscope earlier today. Only 2 hours left, and nothing, at least not yet.

Where is the card, and what game are we playing?
Asshole, botifarra, spite and malice, or maybe it's hearts? But I'm thinking more along the lines of three card monte.

Whatever the case, I think I should fold, never mind the last hour, I know the outcome, who wins, who loses, besides, I am tired of playing. Suffering from little sleep the night before, tossing and turning with anger, embarrassment, and shame. Oh, but wait, what was that strange feeling? My mind repeatedly drifting off over dinner earlier this evening. Yes, there it is.

Hit me.

Product Placement

Is it the drinking and drugging? Oh, no, I did see I, Robot the other day. Whatever, I am fascinated by my fan. Nightly, this week, my most contemplative moments have been the few minutes that come before sleep. Lying in bed, watching my fan, listening to my fan. It's on level three right now. Why bother with levels? This thing has been on full blast since it came out of the box. What an existence, your head on a pedestal, rotating, too and fro, fighting an endless, pointless battle to keep cool.
I rode a bike tonight, on the west coast. You have never experienced a city until you have pedaled through its streets at 3am. After a six pack of kokanee from a tough hotel, a bottle of cachaca straight from brazil, and a joint with a friend that had just returned from Paris, I was ready for my first bike ride in ages. Must be at least three years, maybe four, but as I ripped through the train station, and jumped off the curb in front of the security guard, I remembered. So many times, epiphanies, coming to me while I push cranks in the summer night.
Once, when I was 13, too young to drive, and too old to be comforted by a TV.
I stuck small speakers into my army jacket pockets. I glided through industrial neighborhoods blasting The Battle of Evermore to the crickets.
Another time, weaving through the multi national flags at the local chevy dealership at 430 in the morning with my brother. Looking up I saw my mom and dad staring at me through the windshield of our family grocery store delivery van, and I felt completely free.
Then there was peter, with the horrific story of doing a jump on his BMX at the the local bowl. Flying uncontrollably through the air, he backed off his seat and landed on his rear brake, ripping his scrotum wide open. Apparently had it stitched up by a hot nurse.
Even more vivid though, was the memory of the last time I rode the bike that I drove home tonight. A different time, a different city, it was along a river, people were jogging, and I was photographing hydro boxes. Busy, riding around aimlessly, waiting, with the selfish thoughts of what I should be doing at this pivotal moment. Which was raising a pint to grandfathers, and exploring the last moments of the present.
So what of the present then? It's hot, my fan is trying to cool me, and I stare at it. Its dull sound a steady distraction that make the sirens seem slightly less audible. I am beginning to enjoy this sweltering heat, and its thickness. The body adjusts, and the slight film of salt that has formed over my skin, sharp to the taste, and only attractive in the most primal frame of mind, persists.

here...

Rotisserie Moments

Keep on Truckin'

I don't know what it is about girls driving pickup trucks, must be something about the mixture of feminine and masculine. When I was offered a ride from the gay bar, to the straight bar in a 69 Chevy Custom last night, I gotta say, it was the highlight of my evening. Nothing like a little cold gin, on a hot summer night. I rolled down the window, hung my elbow on the side of the door, looked out over the broad hood, and thought of the past.

Winnipeg, the warmth of early spring had begun to melt the 3 feet of snow that had fallen the night before. My best friend at that time, so long ago now, Peter, had just picked me up in his Chevy half ton, and was laughing while he gunned it through 4 foot snow banks that had just been freshly rendered by the snow plow. I gripped the door handle every time the snow came flying up over the hood while the engine labored through the force of the impact. It used to be his fathers truck, but his father died of asbestos poisoning, so Peter got the truck. He was wild, good looking, and very cool. The first time we ever hung out, he was in my math class in high school, and invited me at lunch to visit some girls at the catholic private school across town. Peter was driving a 78 Honda Civic that crisp fall day, he was wearing 12 hole Doctor Martins, and long strands of bleach blonde hair hung in his eyes despite his shaved undercut that started at the base of his skull and stopped at the crown of his head. His hands always had a slight shake to them. I noticed this when he was opening his Black Sabbath Master's of Reality tape, and as I heard the opening riffs of Sweet Leaf for the first time, I knew it was the beginning of a great friendship.

After I cabbed it from the straight bar, to my front door, I lay in bed last night, staring at the fan across the room, its motor rotating the head of the fan, back and forth, endlessly, until it's either unplugged, or the motor burns itself out. I have not spoken with Peter in almost three years, no one knows where he is, lost to a world of hard drugs and gossip. It's been so hot here lately, its almost unbearable, but it can never take away the coldness of Winnipeg, and the sense of euphoria I get when I see the hood of a truck from the view of the passenger seat.

Whatever...

There are problems in the world, none as pressing as this. I have been growing my hair for the past 6 months. It was long, a little unruly, looking tough, oh yeah. I book an appointment with my stylist, that's right, my stylist. She had some serious hair to work with, and I was expecting greatness. This is what I was thinking, and this is what I got, the same bloody haircut I always get. It doesn't matter who I go to, some barber that can barely lift his arms above his head, or some hot rod stylist blasting metallica and stinking of Drakkar Noir, it always winds up the same result, boring. So it's time to start over, it will take 6 months, I'll get back to you.

Epidemic

Last year it was the trucker hat...now its the military cap.

This has gone unmentioned for far too long, been meaning to tell you this, but got wound up in the history of horror films the past while, I must tell you now, before it's too late. Whatever brought you onto the city streets today, work, school, an appointment with your councilor, or maybe to buy concert tickets, possibly even on your way to get a massage, I bet you saw someone wearing a military ball cap. They are everywhere. You may have even thought it was nice, and are planning on getting one just like it. Well don't.


Go see XIU XIU for me, I'll be at home, crying.

Nightmare

Lon Chaney in London After Midnight, it's forever lost.

Take back the gift, and cancel the reservation, you're not invited. Smile, and hope for a future.

I woke up from a nightmare this morning. Funny how dreams and reality seem indistinguishable lately. I know it will come true, soon.

The Wild One

This entry is dedicated to Marlon Brando, and his brand of wildness.

I always wanted one, a troubled, brilliant mind. The characters in movies that I admired, the biographies of actors, artists, and musicians that I was interested in, they all had one thing in common, strife. Hardship, stress, longing, addiction, all traits that to me seemed like essential ingredients for success. A confused, and youthful interpretation of affection, for the bad things in life. Well I seem to have it lately, trouble. Where's the brilliance?

I woke up the other morning, fresh from a night of my usual petty drama and pathetic antics. I am getting a reputation for pulling disappearing acts, and Friday night was no different. After I paid my bill for the double gin and tonics I had been drinking, I decided to just continue on, right out the door, without saying good-bye. Instead I went on a 45 minute walk through the downtown core, blasting neurosis on my mp3 player.

I had been treating someone unfairly lately, and it was time to take care of some unpleasant business. So the morning started with a phone call, an apology, and then an arrangement to meet for breakfast. I was shaky, sketchy, nervous, and unshaven in three days, my hair was wet, and I quickly put on the same clothes that I was wearing the night before. I looked awful, and felt the same way.

I had to hurry, I was running late, so I jumped in the cab and told the driver to take me to chinatown. I was fumbling with my cigarettes, lighter, and cash when the driver pulled over to let me out in the middle of the street. Everything happened so quickly, I don't really know what really transpired, but this is how I remember it. I paid the driver, handing me my change, he dropped a twoonie on the floor. I bent over to pick it up, and as I did so, I opened the door of the cab and it sprung open. All at the same time I heard the driver yell, "watch the door!" a racing engine, the sound of a horn, and the dull thud of metal hitting metal. Before I knew it, the door to the cab was gone, and skidding down the street, where it came to rest in front of the black prelude that had just ripped it from its yellow hinges. Amongst the crowd that had assembled around the two cars, I exchanged my particulars with everyone involved and carried on, into the restaurant.

I ordered plain congee, and chinese donut, but breakfast was anything but plain. I tried to explain my behavior over the past month to my guest, but I don't think I made any sense, there was a lot of quiet discomfort. I couldn't eat anything, despite the fact that I hadn't put anything into my body, besides gin, in 48 hours, and after we paid the bill I was driven home. I felt like a lunatic, and wished for some normalcy, some weekly sit-coms and potato chips, maybe some barbecue salmon, with capers, but these things seem foreign and unattainable.

Except for the please and thank-you exchanged between customer and employee when I buy something, I have not spoken with anyone in two days. I feel removed from society. When I walk through the streets the music I play in my ears displaces me even further from the comings and goings of the civic community, making their activities seem filled with more emotion than what reality governs. Families on their way to the park, and homeless people sleeping under makeshift cardboard tents, I walk amongst them like I am invisible.

The one thing I have learned over this weekend, getting thrown out of clubs by muscular bouncers in cheap shirts, causing car accidents even though I don't drive anymore, and upsetting people that care about me by drunken tom foolery, is that its much easier to fantasize about other peoples discontent, than to live it yourself. It's not cool, and I would like some calm, because really, I am not into this. But as they say, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it, and certainly not as you imagined.

Dirty Laundry

There are two crumpled little socks lying on my concrete floor, lavender stripes with red cherries, ground with school yard dirt that will never wash out. I can't seem to take them away from their resting place, where they were haphazardly dropped almost a week ago now. I look at them often.

I had dinner last night in a fuschia suede booth. I ate a calamari sandwich, served with a side of spicy green beans. At the table next to us were two women sitting with two older men, no one in the group seemed to know each other very well. Every time the men would leave the table to smoke, or use the washroom, which was often, the women would lean over, towards my guest and I, and inquire about our meal. The brunette, she had the spicy beans too, and an open paneled black dress with crisscross spaghetti straps that exposed her back. Her name was Rose. My guest and I drank 7$ gin fizzes, we drank a lot of fizz. I found myself staring across the table at Rose more often than I should have, but she didn't seem to mind. As the dinner progressed through its courses, I achieved a level of intoxication that made the prospect of Rose and I falling in love possible. So when I heard her discussing the club that they were going to be heading off to after dinner, I couldn't help myself when I announced, across our table, that we too would be attending the same bar.

Despite Rose's warning of a busy club, and the assurance that if we waited until they were ready to leave she would get us past the door staff, my friend and I, for some reason, left the restaurant early. We put the top down on our convertible roadster and tore through the summer night, the long and wide Burrard Street bridge feeding us into the lights of the city skyline like a gray star ship being pulled into the tracking beam of the death star. We parked, and waited, in line.

There were three line ups, each associated with its own level of night time stature. The first, wasn't really a line at all, instead it was a moment for pause, where the door man could look you over, and decide whether or not you were worthy enough to cross the red velvet barrier he so effortlessly maneuvered, back and forth, from its post. The second, was without doubt a line, but a more important port of entry, generally it was where people were sent if they didn't meet the bouncer's expectations. And lastly, was the third lineup, where we resided, it was as low as one could get in this superficial hierarchy. Here we stood, there were no women in this line, only men, poorly dressed, or alone and creepy looking. I felt comfortable with this designation, and enjoyed the show of desperation in peoples faces as they approached the head doorman with a party of friends, subject to the intimidation of possibly having to be delegated to our sorry location.

It was then that I noticed a black Land Rover pulling up to the front of the club, and before I could get a look at who was inside, I saw a flash of leg and brunette hair bound effortlessly past the gold plated cap stands of the velvet barrier, and into the club. It was Rose, and before I knew what I was doing I quickly slipped through the back door, past the bouncer, that was busy being chatted up by some drip of a blonde, "So, how often do you work out?"

Rose was about 10 feet away, checking her coat, and I was about to approach her with her original promise of getting my friend and I into the club, when I felt a hand grab me by the shoulder. It was the bouncer, who by the way works out four days a week, "Hey, I am just going to say hello to my friend there," I explained. It seemed to be no big deal to me, he thought otherwise.

"No your not, your gonna stand in line. You can talk to her when and if you ever get in."

Rose was within arm's reach, and for some reason I thought that if I could just get her attention a scene reminiscent of so many movies would unfold, when someone of petty authority instantly finds out you are much more important than they are.

"I am so sorry sir, please, go right on in," I imagined him saying as Rose and I embraced, her date for the evening stepping aside, in the name of true love.

This however was not the case. I pushed the denim sleeved, tree stump arms of the doorman as hard as I could and yelled, "Rose! Rose!" but the pounding bass of the club swallowed my plea. As Rose walked up the steps towards the dance floor, the bouncer proceeded to bounce. He grabbed me by the neck and slammed me against the wall, as he yelled for back up into the microphone pinned to his shirt collar. Before I knew it I was being thrown by two large men, clear of the sidewalk, and into the street, landing in front of a bright yellow cab, its blue chevy emblem on the grill staring me in the face. I quickly got up and promptly walked away briskly from the crowd that was beginning to form around the cab. My friend caught up with me, he didn't ask any questions, he's seen it all happen before. We walked to the next block and into another bar, no line up here, just a small crowd, a stage, and a karaoke machine.

After a couple more gin and tonics, I informed the MC, that I would be performing the Rod Stewart classic, Hot Legs. I had worked this number in various karaoke bars and parties, and had by now perfected my act, transforming the infamous ode to female anatomy into an aggressive, borderline, punk rock performance, complete with antics reserved only for the largest arena crowds. I swung the microphone from its cord, catching it when I dropped to one knee. I thrust my fist into the small audience that looked more like a bingo crowd than a gathering of late night revelers. I screamed bloody murder, "Hot legs! I love ya honey" and kicked my black leather shoe into the air, high above my head, nearly splitting my pants, and then finally, I turned around, and shook my ass, in all its glory, to my adoring fans. When the song had finished I dropped the mic, its thud resonating through the speakers at full volume, and walked of the stage. A small applause greeted me as I made my way back to the brown vinyl of my bar stool. I leaned over to my friend and said, "that was for Rose."

Upon my arrival home, I noticed under the bright, harsh lighting of my apartments communal hallway, that my pants were stained with oil from the spicy beans that we had ordered earlier. I took them off and threw them towards the window, where the little socks with the red cherries were still sitting, knowing full well that I would be picking everything up, and washing it in the morning.

The Jackal

Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away.
-- Charles Dickens, The Jackal

I was reading my cerilian blue dickens novel again, this time in a lukewarm bath, my cheek resting on the enamel edge. Must keep it dry, it's not mine. I had just finished vomiting everything I ate since breakfast, it was now just past dinner, my guests would be arriving in an hour. Yeah, a party, despite my horoscope saying specificly that it's not an ideal time to bring guests into the home. I can't remember the evening, or I don't want to. Whichever it is, too much thinking will only bring about paranoia and self doubt, so it's best we move on.

I bought a DVD player and took it to an opening at an artist run center tonight. I walked around the gallery with it under my arm, the Future Shop logo acting as a banner on the side of the bag. It was performance art, the title: I don't care. I got home, the DVD player would not connect to my TV, it's too old. Tomorrow I will buy a new TV.