As soon as I became an adult, I began to move from city to city, excited and stimulated and revived by every move.... I had read somewhere along the way that artists love to move, because suddenly they are forced to see everything anew, breaking out of the daily malaise of not noticing that dandelions are gorgeous, too... the moments one young Poet I knew, Shirley From Toledo, wrote about as The Real Moments that we fail to notice.
I found my first taste of people finding out I was alive who I thought were out of my life when I started blogging. Suddenly, an ex-girlfriend started coming in and attacking me. That stopped fairly quickly, because I was not going to get into a pissing match with her. She had every reason to be mad at me, in a way. What happened was this -- we connected, she was this ex-cheerleader, very comely. I was seeing another woman as well, and to be honest... that was just more exciting. She is a wonderful woman and all that. I was in a phase, I guess. I missed a student loan payment, and had to take six months of paying on time off from school before they would pay for more, so I was Taking a few months off school smoking pot. Before diving back in for another five...
She had a high school age daughter, and I wanted to spend the days getting drunk and stoned and going to see bands. We ended up watching movies and having pizza and drinking wine with her roomate and daughter. I was just not ready for the scene and it grew boring. So, I was going out with other women to just have fun and get drunk and screw.... When she told me that she had spent two hours on the phone with a psychic.... that was too much for a guy like me. I had to call it off. I mean, I knew those things were scams before I was five. The other woman at this time would have laughed at this, too... both of us wishy washy agnostics who certainly wanted to believe in God but really had no idea what that meant, other than a vague allegiance to justice.
Anyways, a few years later, I was in a very different place. In fact, I saw her when I went to Indiana just to say hello and see how she was doing and give her a play that she was considering for a theater she ran (a play I am going to do for the radio show at least about a treeman who keeps pulling squirrels out of his ass). She looked great. She told me about her new boyfriend and I was all happy for her. We talked on the phone on and off and a year or two later, she was single and i was single and we had phone sex a few times... or something like that, flirting more... no actual genitals were involved, that I know of. Anyways, so she tells me she is coming to Chicago and we say we will go out.
She comes to my door, and she has gained about 100 pounds. I mean, I am not at all one of those guys who expect women to look perfect, and this one does when she is slim which is why she gets a lot of acting jobs -- that as well as being very talented, of course. I wish I could say that I just stopped being Shallow Hal. I might have, had she told me before hand and I was prepared and all that. I know this makes me seem like a pig. I come from a culture that has a certain view of beauty and I have been brainwashed in a way... and I myself was a fat teenager. I got over this through working out for twenty some years, and sometimes dieting, and just being a single student who did not eat three times a day, usually. Regardless of all my excuses...
the point is that I was not attracted to her.
She had also come right when I was in a very heavy writing period, when I was almost done with One War, which other than her showing up, I would have not quit working on for any reason at all.
We went out to dinner... She could tell when I did not invite her in for the night how I felt. She called the next day... I could not bring myself to tell her the truth. I was wrong. But, how do you tell someone... "You are no longer attractive to me." That equates to YOU ARE UGLY. I have some kind rule about never telling a woman she is ugly. That is about like hitting them, emotionally. I would never tell anyone that about themselves. I am too diplomatic.
It did not hep that the other woman I was sleeping with worked out and dieted all the time, and was looking very fine at that very time.. My lust. Maybe Lust is one of those Heart Memories. No matter what we do to try to out-think ourselves, some things are going to attract us... and some will not. If people had a choice in this matter, I firmly believe everyone would be hetero, with a schedule ten minutes of sex every thursday. Or people would just get rid of their sex drive altogether at some point. Socrates asked Aristotle, the old man, how life was now that he no longer desired sex? Aristotle replied that he felt like 'a chattering monkey' had been removed from his shoulder. I sometimes think that this 'chattering monkey' idea is at the root of a lot of celibacy in western cultures? Problem is, that monkey lives and dies on its own, and does not listen to logic.
Now... I control my heart. Thank God, I love my best friend. The person I prefer to spend my time with is my girlfriend. She is the coolest, funniest, most honest person I know. The perfect companion in any situation, unlike me... I have to watch what I do, personally, so I do not 'embarrass' her at work. I told the dishwasher at her work that I used to do his job, in high school, then made the joke/truth that we used to smoke pot. He laughed, and laughed. M. was furious at me. I actually feel, for the first time, that I do not want my life to change very much. I feel like, hey, if this is how my life ends up.... cool. I did what I set out to do. Did what I dreamt about when I was kid, stayed true to myself, went to school with the idea of becoming an artist -- not a scholar, not a teacher, not a social worker... I saw everyone falling away from the writers life into professions, and wanted nothing to do with one. I found cab driving the artists dream. I could take off whenever I wanted to paint or write or cram for exams. Or so this is what I tell myself. Did I make the right decisions? Only sometimes. So much Chaos ended me up here that I can't exactly take pride in my life... my life is a group effort, like everyone's -- whether they notice or not. I was lucky to have this prof. early on who filled my head with the idea that a degree did not make someone an expert. Period. He made fun of them all the time. He drove it into our heads that we better beware experts bearing degrees. And you could see it in how some prof's just totally sucked, could not teach, got nothing new across.. were actually, compared to the smart students, kind of stupid.
Right now we hear that the tea party folk are now mostly middle age or older, educated, right wing whites. Proving again, and again, and again, that going to school and learning to take tests and write papers that use the presently accepted norms, does not bring you wisdom. Smarts don't bring you wisdom either. There is a guy who sits down on the corner, on a blanket, crutches by his side, and his half-leg exposed to the passing folk. He wears headphones and uses various colored markers to highlight passages in the huge, old black bible he always has on his lap. Mr. Mcbean. He lives in the Atrium, an old folks home across the street that everyone tells me barely feeds them, and then gives them unedible crap. So, you see them around the neighborhood trying to get up enough change to buy more food. Pretty sad, huh? Mr. Mcbean has a bed and a room down the street. They take his social security and give him 30 bucks. That goes quick in this city. He keeps a jar out that people toss change into, but he never asks. He says hello and everyone has gotten to know him. He is so kind hearted that everyone just sort of tries to take care of him. This neighborhood rarely has people out begging. Very rare. Downtown, you might get hit up all the time, up north where I live in Chicago, it is more residential. I carry his bag for him when I see him trekking back and forth. Talk to him whenever I head to the corner store, which is almost everyday. I shop for a few days here and there, so I am endlessly running out of something. And I get my smokes there. I don't know how they do it, in a city where smokes are nine bucks, but they sell something like strawberry cigarettes, called cigars, for two bucks. They are very good, nothing like a cigar at all. Taste like Natural Spirit actually. Societies safety net has screwed Mr. Mcbean. Punished him for being too sick to stay in the race. He accepts his fate better than anyone I know. Always happy, ensconced in that religious dream of his. Life is very uncomplicated to Mr. McBean. The bible is complex to him. Sitting there, he tells me all kinds of people stop and preach to him about the bible. He is afraid of the Jehova Witnesses telling him the world is going to end. For him, God is gentle, peaceful, loving.
For me... everything is complex and getting more complex everyday. The older I get the more I realize that being a student is the only way to live; being open, ready, and willing to be wrong... because that brings you closer to the truth, and that is the goal, right? Not just believing what you have been told. That doesn't work because mostly you hear lies. Unintentionally told.
Unintentional lies/ unintentionally told
by most
where is the intent
I wonder all the time
the intent of your lie is what, sir?
Is there a metaphor beneath your tale?
There is... though you missed it
the crack of the ass of your argument is showing
Do you even know who started whispering in your game of telephone?
As a truth passed from person to person and changed into another tale altogether
Sometimes I think even the simplest of truths go unlearned
the implications lost
in this landscape of lies
texas rednecks decide to rewrite history into a neo-con dream
indoctrinate the children
make a majority out of their minority opinions
I guess I want to rewrite history, too, in my way... we all do in our minds as we order our memories. As we place ourselves in the position of the author of our future, we are bound by the tale we wrote in the past... some. I believe in redemption, hope, soldiering through no matter what... all those genetic codes tell me to try to stay up with the tribe, where it is safest.
I guess amends are due from me in a way to the entire world. I tried to do something that would change the world in a way that would stop the death march I saw us on... the path to total war was evident to me, Bush was going to lead us into total war with the middle east. He had already stolen two elections to advance their plan. I felt it was time for a cultural revolution, to aright what has been wronged since that actor Reagen was propped up by the elite, and told to fight a horror show war throughout south america, and make lots of money for the military industrial complex. Give those welfare queens a kick in the ass. Loving america became a sign of stupidity. When Michele Obama said for the first time in her lifetime, she felt safe to love America... most of us understood what she meant. We all want to love America. You live here, you love something or somebody here, you understand the sense of place, etc... Good people are everywhere, but in America, vast proportions of the population have basically not been listened to. The two party system left the politics in the hands of lobbyists; even the idealists forced to play the game to get the millions needed to get into office.. The scam -- unless we will give you the millions to run, you can't... and they got lots and lots of provisions about who they are going to let up that ladder. I know, they slapped my ass down... the higher I climb, the further that fall is going to be. Jesus tried to climb on the throne. A usurper. They say they killed him for it.
Buy the ticket, take the ride.... Hunter S. Thompson
So, facebook... I realize I have grown way too weird for some, and not weird enough for others. Once again I am surfing on wild waves of opinion, trying to keep my balance in this flood, ride out the tsunami of information flowing into my eyes.... finding some balance, between my commitments and myself... to remember that I am something more than this creature that exists in these words. A being that no matter what I say, I am lying about. I write at the top of this blog, that this is GONZO. I play fast and loose with the truth once in awhile. Less than you would think. The violence is the jokey part. That is almost never true. Thank God, my days of being in a situation where I am physically attacked are long over. I hope. No more childhood bullies, no more gang bangers in jail, no more cab driving... I am so confident in my ability to fight even a few guys at once that the atmosphere of my neighborhood makes me fearless, actually. Plus there are cops and cameras everywhere. Chicago has more cameras than any city in the states. They certainly stopped the gang bangers from hanging out in public selling and shit. Our el station used to be kind of scary to some people, until the cameras.
I saw the surveilled world coming in my military intelligence classes. No big surprise to me. This is why I keep saying we better get the laws fair now, or soon... the government will have people watched enough that anyone who even smokes weed is going to jail. We hardly have the jails for that, or the political will, thank god.... but ... and we all say, yea, who went and left you in charge, Scott? You would be surprised... you would be very, very surprised. I tell the uninitiated what I do and they think I am lying, so I leave the topic alone...
.
There is beneath mine
and I see yours
'sup homes.
ReplyDeletei need to get stoned and re read all that, good stuff.
bob