The Weather

I raised my head. The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed somber under an overcast sky--seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness

-- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

The weekend ended, and the clouds wrapped the city back up into its pocket of darkness. Sometime in the middle of the night the rain began to fall. I didn't notice though, because I was asleep. A deep sleep in a strange place. I awoke, and shortly after found myself smoking on a street that I had never been on before. Standing under the cafe awning with the rain pummelling its green vinyl stripes, the odd raindrop, only the heaviest ones, would slide off the edge of the awning and splash onto my forehead. The street was busy with the comings and goings of a working society, and the rain had brought with it the melancholy that had been absent for the past few days.

Chapter 9

What seemed like an endless day finally ended. I was on the bus, coming home from work, traveling over the bridge that I so often reference here. The sun was setting, the windows were open, and a fresh spring breeze was blowing in through the open windows. The bus was full, so I had to stand in the side door exit stairwell. Seated in front of me was a well dressed man reading a copy of Jack Kerouac's, On the Road. The book was open on his lap and I could clearly read the beginning of the ninth chapter, where Kerouac describes the way a figure looks in a rear window as you drive away from it. The way a person sinks on the horizon until they finally wash out amongst the background as they get farther and farther from reach. I looked up from the book and out the front window of the bus, towards a city that was getting larger and larger as we approached its concrete comforts. I thought about the last year, and in that moment realized that it had all been summed up in that little collection of phrases sitting on a well dressed man's lap.

Rave On

Well rave on
Rave on and tell me
Tell me
Not to be lonely
Tell me
You love me only
Rave on to me

-- Rave On, written by Sonny West, Bill Tilghman and Norman Petty

Remington just got a new job as assistant to a clothing designer who's studio is two blocks from where I live. So I am excited about all the happy hour revelling that will be happening at the bar downstairs in the weeks to come. Madiana has just been accepted for a masters degree at the university by the ocean, so she thankfully won't be moving anywhere. Leroy's interview in one of the city weeklies came out a few days ago. Nymphalidae doesn't have cancer after all, and Florence is sporting a smashing new hair style! Myself? I am just happy that they are my friends. And they all thought it was the half bottle of Canadian Club that was causing me to dance in front of everyone last night on Madiana's living room floor. Silly kids.

Earlier in Chinatown, at our practice space amongst the crack heads and skinny whores, Leroy showed up with records for everyone in the band. Such a sweet gesture. I got a copy of The Ventures - Greatest Hits, with a sultry bombshell in a white bikini on the cover. And Madiana got a copy of various Buddy Holly hits, which we listened to at Florence and Madiana's house after the party that was after our practice. Leroy and I frantically pointed out the nuances behind the driving rhythms of the whole album while we made predictions as to what Buddy would have done if he had lived longer than he did. Whiskey is a great thing. Then Madiana made me some lovely lentil soup, she usually makes me something to eat when I am over, and I finished off the evening curled up on Florence's bed while we smoked joints and watched Arrested Development reruns on her computer.

This is my family now. That's what I was thinking sometime around 4:30 in the morning as I walked home over one of the many bridges in the hometown, towards my grey warehouse set amongst the cityscape. There was an impressive cluster of high rises on the other side of the bridge. It created a constellation on the horizon, made up of well lit elevator lobbies, empty board rooms, and living rooms with the TV on. Some lights on, some lights off, dependent on who was awake and who was sleeping, who was alive, and who was dead.

My friends and I are most certainly alive, and I feel like good things are in store for us all. Summer is coming, and I think Buddy Holly will definitely have to be on heavy rotation.

I Don't Want To Hear...A Love Song

Sorry I left you all for such a long time, but I've been dancing all week.

As I type this, it is late, and I am leaning over my laptop placed upon the concrete island in my kitchen. I love the open space concept. My stove is beside me, and Cut Copy is blasting on the sub-woofer tucked underneath the couch. Earlier in the evening, Palombo had mentioned Cut Copy over dinner, when the topic of New Order and its lovely spring sound sprouted up over the table. It's true what they say about the gay fellas, Palombo's skin is perfect, and his fashion impeccable. It must be frustrating for women, hetero men are all so sloppy. I am an exception to this of course. Palombo has friends, lots of friends, beautiful female friends! Palombo thinks I am a riot, and has promised me I will meet them all.

Such a difference from a year ago at this time. When I used to drink myself into oblivion at the quiet bar, and then venture out by myself. Full of liquid courage, I would stand in crowded rooms alone and stumble around with a drink in my hand. I fancied myself a flaneur, but really I was just a fucking loser. It is because of that period in my life though, that I know everyone's name, what they do, who they wake up beside in the morning, all the good stuff.

But tonight was different. Tonight I had two lovely ladies to accompany me into the gallery, one on each arm!

My entrance was grand!

No wait, we had a smoke outside first. So we could have a moment to rip apart various hair styles and bad fashion choices. How shallow and vapid, how entertaining! And rip we did. Myself, Nymphalidae, and Frannie. My knowledge of the incestuous art crowd in the small/big down came in handy at this point as I shared anecdotes about the folks going in. You should also know that I had my best shoes on.

That bitch Zelma was inside, who stood with me 3.25 years ago, in front of 1.5 years of painting, giving me a lecture about how I need to loosen up. And maybe take a shit. Well here I am, in my $250.00 shoes, and two ladies in tow. Do I have something to show you now? No, no I do not.

I can't tell you about the artwork there because I didn't look at it. I was more interested in the cheap drinks and high heels. I am sure it was all very good, and I hope I never ever have an opening. Because they are evil places with evil people who judge your hair, and talk behind your back about your excessive cocaine use.

I love it.

Anyway another great song just came on, and I have a few moments before sleep.

Time to dance.

California Closet

Our purpose is to simplify home and life...

I am walking up Voyageur Street, in the home town where my elementary school still sits. It is dark, and the pumpkin man is waiting for me. I am at the tail end of an epic dream that has seemingly been going on all night. So when I see the pumpkin man standing calmly at the front door of my old school, underneath a dim solitary light close to the front entrance, I am fed up with this cat and mouse game that has been going on all night. The pumpkin man is wearing a cheap blue suit, and a fresh pumpkin on his head with no eyes or mouth cut into it. I yell to the figure, that I see him, and he turns slowly towards me, and I quicken my pace towards him, until we are finally both running towards each other. We eventually crash into one another in the empty parking lot where all my teachers used to park. I rip the pumpkin off his head to reveal a plastic mask with a cone like nose and bowler hat. The mask beneath the pumpkin is the old kind held onto the face with a single white string at the back. I rip at the plastic mask, busting it open, only to reveal another just like it. One after the other, the crack of thick painted plastic only reveals another mask below it. Eventually I get down to another kind of mask. It's much more abstract than the plastic one, or the pumpkin. Indescribable, but frightening all the same. I rip and tear through the paper not even bothering to remove it completely, but instead just ripping it until the next layer underneath is exposed. The phantom, the pumpkin man, is long gone. I finally pull the whole mess of plastic and paper above my head stretching it out as far as I can reach, but it is endless. There is no end in sight, and the whole thing is empty and lifeless as I throw it to the pavement of the empty parking lot.

Then I woke up.

There seems to be no end to the drama of this life that I live. I missed another day of work yesterday, and I think they are getting fed up with the crises that I am involved with on an all too regular basis, and really, so am I. If I am not in the hospital on morphine for some freak bout of stomach pain, in court testifying in an attempted murder case, smashing up moving vans, or suffering some other freak incident of illness or misfortune. Well then, I guess I can consider it a good day. But I assure you gentle reader, those are far and few between.

So I have spent a lot of time in bed lately for my latest bout with freakish illness, and there is plenty of time, too much time, to think and dream terrible dreams. I awake between naps and look out at my home from my bed. This place has never seemed like a home, even though I have been here a year. The things that are most precious to me drift further and further from reach, carried away on a current of bad choices and mistrust. The worst has yet to come, this I know.

Yesterday, when I should have been at work, I walked home from the doctors office with the busy downtown lunch crowd in full force all around me. I walked through the crowded avenues like a ghost. I felt as if no one could see me. The beggars didn't even ask me for change.

I did get an affectionate call from Katie though, and I ran through everything that had happened over the past 24hrs. She said that these experiences will eventually allow me to organize my life like a California Closet. She explained that each drama/trauma that I suffer through will eventually resolve itself, and be put away in its own special place. "Just like a California Closet," she said.

I didn't understand what she was talking about until I went to the California Closet website. I found a representation of reality similar to that of the unattainable lifestyle propagated by IKEA. Images of perfection, pristine efficiency, and supreme organization, that a capitalist economy often bates us with, but can never deliver. I couldn't help it though I bought into the whole thing, knowing whole heartily a California Closet will never be possible. Not in this mind anyway. But Katie meant well, and she was right. Currently my closet is a mess, and it needs to be cleaned out, but everything will eventually find its rightful place. And in time it will come to be full of treasures from the past, and hope for the future.

109

She pushed him away and walking up to the box-office put down her money. Philip had threepence in his pocket. He could not follow. He turned away and walked slowly down Oxford Street.

"I can't do anything more," he said to himself.

That was the end. He did not see her again.

Your Time Is Gonna Come, Soon

It took me two days to get home.

I woke up Thursday in the South. In a strange apartment. The sound of the city bellowing up through the tall open windows. My body feels like it is finally pushing back from the shit that I have been putting it through the last year. What took it so long? I feel like I could drop dead at any moment.

I did smile though, the evening beforehand. When I noticed a guy eating dinner alone at the end of the bar looking over at me in curious wonder. I had two gorgeous women sitting on each side of me. On the left, a jewellery artist, and on the right, the owner of her own catering business.

I could understand the loners envy. Watching the ladies touch my shoulder to emphasize a point, or push me in jest at my bad jokes. It must have been annoying to have to sit and watch. No wonder he didn't stay long.

Smile as I might though, with women here, and women there, I still feel lost and empty. All I want is to fall in love, and watch TV. I dream of a day when I can order cable because I have found someone to lie with on the couch wrapped in the happiness that comfort can bring. Without the use of intoxicants, without an excuse to escape in the morning.

Franny will be here in an hour. I will meet her in the bar downstairs, and I will try with all my might, to get what I want.

The Belated Partier

I just got home and danced for ten or twenty minutes, it felt good. I am back.

The hometown is littered with film crews. It seems you can't turn a corner without some idiot wearing a safety vest holding a walkie-talkie directing you around some mess of cords and trailers. That's why I was surprised it took until now to hob-knob with someone in the film industry

Tonight I had dinner with Franny, who I would run into now and again here and there, but I certainly never fathomed the two of us sitting down to dinner together. I hadn't seen her in quite some time, but she is working on a Disney production to be released around christmas, and we have been swapping music and links over iChat all week. She suggested that we have dinner, I was surprised.

I arrived early at the izakaya style restaurant so I could get a head start on the saki. Even though I saw her approach the restaurant through the front window, I buried my face in the menu until she was at a very particular distance from the table. It's all about timing. She wore a smart black over coat, a black skirt with chanel inspired pinstriping, and boots that acknowledged this with emphasized seams that ran up the inside of her leg.

I got up and greeted her with an embrace, and poured her some saki with a shaky hand. Despite my quivering demeanor, this is where I am in my element. Able to ramble on endlessly, never allowing the conversation to lull, I had her laughing the entire time. How long though will we be able to hold on to the ambiguity of why we are sitting and having dinner together on a Tuesday night, before feelings are exposed? I want to live in the first date, and never leave it. It is desire, and the power that it wields that I am unable to cope with. But I am a perpetual charmer, and would have liked to lean my head on her shoulder if only for a moment. The restaurant was loud and I found myself edging closer and closer to her as the evening wore on.

We paid the bill and went to a bar around the corner, where we met up with Wallington, the editor of a local magazine, and after some introductions we had drinks together. Wallington and Franny swapped celebrity stories, and I shared my West Village sighting of Dr, Ruth Westheimer, which was pretty lame compared to Franny lunching with A-list actors on a regular basis.

It was getting late and the time to say goodbye was fast approaching, so I offered to walk Franny to her car. A 68 Camaro, red. I was amazed. She offered me a ride home but I declined, sitting outside my apartment in her car would have been too much. We hugged, and I gave her a kiss, it was not something I had at all intended on doing, and I hope she didn't feel the roughness of my skin against her soft cheek. I lit up a smoke and watched the Camaro pull away, appreciating the sound of dual exhaust, and Detroit muscle.

Then I went home and danced, alone.