Oh, dear LiveJournal, we so seldom see each other anymore, so seldom talk. I’m not saying it’s you, but I’m not saying it’s me, either. I’m not bright enough to figure out the code when I wish to, and in the past you have just eaten my words without so much as a satisfied burp. I don’t like cross-posting, but then you incorporated with the godforsaken nightmare of journaling, Twitter – which is the equal in my eyes to text speak. Wht th FK is rong with u? It’s discusting, an insult.
Still, I am worried – my new lover, Tribe.net, seems a bit shaky at the time and if all that is lost – well, then all of it will be lost – and I think I want to try to come back.
As an offering I give you what I have given that, but it must be read upside down – or if that is difficult for you, from bottom to top. Let me know if you want me to stick around…
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
dreams…
“Just jump – you’ll be fine.”
I was perhaps eleven when I first heard those words, though I can’t recall if it was me or someone else saying them. Probably both.
I grew up in the Ocean, some of my first memories swimming, body-boarding, then eventually surfing. I learned respect for her at a very early age, and when she threw me down and I felt like the world was ending, I eventually learned not to panic, as that usually only found me swimming in terror for that beautiful taste of air only to hit the bottom. Just roll, do your best to enjoy the ride and soon things would calm down enough for you to find the right direction to the surface. If there is another wave in the set coming at you, take a deep breath and head down again – I used to love looking from inside of her to the waves crashing over me, and many times I wished I could just stay down in the muted voice of their violence and power – I remember in church practicing holding my breath after I earned the money to buy my forst digital watch…
but I always have been terrified of rocks, the power she had to hide them, and at times, push me into them. Growing up on sandy beaches, that almost never happened.
“Just jump, you’ll be fine.”
I was at The Clam in La Jolla, the secluded little rich town I grew up in. So you know, The Clam is an area of cliffs that everyone used to jump off of, before it was made illegal. www.theclam.com/Video/JumpingIndex.asp
Rocks. Some of them looked sharp. Currents I didn’t know. Looks like it’s hard to get back up – and sometimes the swells came in strong.
I have no idea how I ended up there that day, I didn’t really have anyone I would call a friend then – this may surprise you, but people thought I was kinda weird. I was “accepted” into all of the groups as someone who wouldn’t do harm, but with the popular kids I never understood the need to talk poorly about other people or gossip, and with the “unpopular” ones, all we did was play with Lego’s – or something like that. With David Bailey we practiced tricks on our BMX bikes, with David Owens it was Lego’s – other things of no consequence…
“Just jump, you’ll be fine.” It must have been me. I had nothing to prove to anyone else.
I jumped – and I was fine. Climbing back up was a bit difficult, and I kept looking over my shoulder to see when I should hold on for dear fucking life so I didn’t get skinned on the rocks – but, I was fine, and fine again. A few times off The Clam, then, loving the fall, Bear Claw, which I fell in love with. There was always just the tiniest bit of self-imposed uncertainty jumping Bear Claw, and much more fun in the drop. Much more reward… Then after a number of years, everything changed. I left La Jolla, went other places – never to jump The Clam again…
~ ~ ~
dream
I stood on the edge of the cliff, looking down, no one around. No uncertainty except of course where rocks may be, but that seemed much less important now. I timed the swells, jumped – it was a long fall, beautiful. With closed eyes and a slightly bent body (you never want to go straight down) I broke the water, and when the bubbles had cleared I looked around under the Sea – I had been fortunate, missing a couple rocks that lay just under the surface by only a few feet. My sight under the water was uncommonly clear, and I stayed down, looking for a safer place to jump. Climbed back up, did it again, a few times – then, in looking at the rocks again, noticed that the formations of them were strange. Organic, but hard to describe here without boring you to death while not doing the forms justice. They were beautiful. Fragile, deadly, beautiful.
It was in looking at them that I found that I didn’t need to breathe – or could underwater. Regardless, there was no panic, no need to go back to the surface – so I swam away from the cliff and explored underwater. I had never felt so secure, never felt so peaceful…
I continued to swim away from the cliff I jumped from, not knowing where I was going, where this world would lead me, but knowing, without question, that had I never learned to leap off of the edge, I would have none of this – perhaps not even known it existed, but even if I did, still be afraid…
The dream went on, and the rock formations began to look familiar – but this is where it gets hard to describe, swimming up to the easy shore of another land, where families were laughing, everyone was friendly and true, and – those familiar shapes turned into carnival games, all layed out randomly on a beautiful meadow slightly accentuated with small hills – but that is where I stop talking about this dream.
Leap.
Now, I need to go away again as I get consumed by the magazine, and trying to make it as good as I can. Hopefully soon, be able to survive off of it and the immense time put into its constant creation. There are a lot of things I hope for, but…
(image gratefully taken from my dear friend, Luna)
Tue, June 3, 2008 – 11:40 PM —
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regardless of how good you may be at throwing knives, don’t try to throw them into a thin, flexible wall, such as one in a strange RV that you might call home – ESPECIALLY when all of your throwers are stuck in board somewhere else, and all you have at hand are your sharpest blades.
Even when it hits perfectly, the boingy wall will throw it right back at you. Trust me. I got lu
cky this (these past seven, eight ,nine wheee!) times. Each stick perfect, each knife thrown straight back at me.
Honestly, it was somewhat amusing, I was essentially throwing my sharpest knives at myself. The marks on the wall say the throws were true, but goddamn – I never knew that my ass has the power to move me out of the bouncy blade like it did. Opened a bit of skin as I saw the deal and tried to catch them (why not?) but – maybe next time not with the sharpest blades I have.
(I’m not *that* dumb – though looking at what I just wrote, I wouldn’t have much of an argument if you chose to challenge me.)
Anyone have a whip they aren’t using? A signal, snake or even an american bull? I’m good at knives, but would love to learn whips – and I need one, can’t afford a real one right now… I know of a class that will teach me, but they have very few loaners…
must stop looking at knives in lust…
Sun, June 1, 2008 – 2:18 AM —
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I don’t pay too much attention to me, there is far too much going on outside. I live how I live, I die when I die – it’s that simple. I only try to make every second count, do what I can and that is all. I can only be all that I am, and sometimes that is hidden behind cheap bourbon. No new news, I make no excuses. I get done what needs to be done – and besides I make a great drinking partner for myself – I *always* know what I’m talking about, and never feel taken advantage of in the morning, regardless of what I do to me.
Oh, but wait – there’s a subject. Maybe I should focus on that – but in working on serious things all day, from interviewing Circus’s in Thailand to producing an event in San Francisco, not sure if I want to – and as this is what I choose to write, I’m not gonna –
Suffice it to say that I only recently realized a couple of things, and the symbolism behind them – from the color of my fingernails to the way I have decided to spell my name for the last many years.
It’s 1:30am – think I’m going to take a nap early tonight, and change a few things on the site when I wake up.
Ya know what?
I fucking love you.
I haven’t said that in far too long.
Sun, June 1, 2008 – 1:32 AM —
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Loco – Spanish for friggin’ crazy.
Motive – pertaining to action.
Put the two together and ride the friggin’ crazy train. You’ll find me in the engine car, shoveling any kind of fuel I can find (mostly my heart) into it to make it go faster, trying to keep up with this dream made reality. There are no tracks in my world, just direction. Forward, wherever that leads.
I couldn’t be more happy with what this is becoming, this thing that is so much more than I can keep up with, this perpetual broadcast of the beautiful world we live in… the Circus. I couldn’t be more exhausted, I couldn’t want more not to have created it – but that leads back to me couldn’t being happier. A strange dichotomy. If it didn’t exist, I wouldn’t need to…
Not just stepping from stone to stone, I submerge myself in this river and try to find the surface to gasp a breath. Never have been one to hold back once I found my heart – but that was 30 years in the doing, creating the me who I am, am constantly becoming. Everything or nothing, and I’ve got far too much of everything, now that nothing just doesn’t sit too well with me.
Very recently had contact with a beautiful circus in Thailand, one I not so long ago wanted to escape to who performs primarily for the refugee children there. Andrea beat me to the contact thang, I am very pleased and somewhat ashamed to say, and we’ve set up an interview for the next issue of Big Top as she’s going to be in the states. Look for it in the July issue of Big Top.
Right now, I think I’ll try to get in touch with someone you might have heard of, Tom Waits. We’ll see what happens there.
I don’t shoot low.
Sat, May 31, 2008 – 7:44 PM —
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There was once upon a time where I was a long haired (almost down to my ass), leather clad, fucking hardcore rocker. It was those times, then, waaaaaay back in the late ’80’s in NYC, the Lower East Side that somehow, someway, I became for a brief moment something indestructible, where the few fights I got into were always finished in true NYC fashion by the bouncer at the door of my favorite bar.
(though I am a skinny white boy and loathe fighting, better fucking believe I know how to and will shut you fucking down if it comes to fisticuffs – but I’ve been fortunate enough to avoid it for a long, long time, and have never had to use one of my blades – wouldn’t.)
Stan. That was his name, I remember now. Stan liked me, and Stan didn’t like anyone. (Stan had issues.) I remember once being clocked with a blind punch squarely in the jaw because I was shooting pool with a woman. (oh – that’s *your* girlfriend?) – and maybe I was flirting a bit with her. Probably. It was a great hit but I didn’t go down (it takes a lot, I’ve found) but that fuck knocked my hat off. Knowing better than to pick my hat up while someone was possibly waiting to hit me again, I asked him why he hit me ( I will always be the inquisitive fool ) and that’s where I learned that, gods forbid, I was flirting with his girlfriend. Had no idea. Fresh flesh at 22 years old, in my home bar in NYC – Skinny white boys can be fast, and saving you the details, the idiot fuck was picked up off the floor and dragged out with a broken (I think) nose by Stan.
Stan came back about 5-10 minutes later and asked if I was alright, then proudly proclaimed that he “took care of it”. I didn’t know how he did, and I have learned to ask no questions since Harvey (my Puerto Rican housemate in NYC) told me he shot a friend of his for stealing my camera when I was at someone else’s for that night…
Gods, the stories I have to tell, all true, but will most likely fade with many more lives in front of them. This was simply inspired by something I found from my heyday in NYC, part of which included dating one of the women from this band. That’s one hell of a long prelude, but it was nice to remember. Sometimes I wonder what Betty (Venus Penis Crusher) is up to…
youtube.com/watch
Sat, May 31, 2008 – 3:15 PM —
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writing used to be my only solace. I miss the adventures. I need to get The Beast running, go. go. keep going. I miss me. SOMETHING to drive, everywhere, anywhere, visions and pen in in hand. Patience is waning…
Fri, May 30, 2008 – 3:24 AM —
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Through my life I have seldom remembered my sleeping dreams. Save for the recurring nightmares I had when I had as a child (which I still remember in every distinct detail) I have almost always woken up each day with perhaps, at most, the vague feeling of a dream gone by.
Not these days.
Though there were many more, these are the ones that stood out…
The night before last, I was looking for an apartment – on a different planet. I believe I was on Venus, in a neighborhood that looked great – active, fun, and found an apartment for rent for a small amount – I wish I could I remember the exact price, but it was just over $400. At first glance the apartment looked alright, street-side, big windows, sunny, front room, then I asked to see the bedroom. The woman showing it let me to an alcove and showed me to a back area, and there was a very small room about 6’x7′, if not less. I remember thinking that it wouldn’t do, when she told me that was the closet, tapped the wall across from it which strangely opened to a beautiful bedroom, very large… I remember being concerned about where my friends lived, which planets… for anyone who has read Imagica by Clive Barker, it had that kind of feeling as far as connection with the planets/planes goes. Then I woke up.
Last night I was on a long, steep embankment of ice plant, taping two rows of pages together, page after page, with notes I needed to address for the magazine. Below me I could see the beach where all of my friends were, but I had things to do, so I climbed up and down, making notes on who I needed to contact for interviews, who I have emailed, who I still needed to, all other thi
ngs I needed to do – I could hear my friends (unseen) down at the beach laughing, playing, but couldn’t join them, I had my work to do, needed to do or everything would fall apart. There was a Seussian aspect to it, somehow – I don’t remember how.
The dreams continue – some remembered, some not, most sacrificed to the ether from which they came – these were just two prominent ones…
Thu, May 29, 2008 – 11:29 PM —
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It;s the impossibility that I seem to be fond of, finding it, reaching the supposedly unreachable dreams. Why else would they be only dreams?
I had a million as a child, a youth, silent and with few or no true friends, certainly no one I could talk to about what was on my mind – maybe even Danger Angel realized & remembers how uncomfortable I was around people, how I needed someone without any way to express it back in the days of the New Method Warehouse, and… still.
I know you, I study all of you, and often wish I could be one of you – or not anyone at all. Not anyone at all. I tried that, and the choice to be who I am was only a small part of my own, if any. I am only who I am, only who I can be – a dreamer. A Fool.
Through all the work, tears, hunger and pain, perhaps there is something that is worth it – most certainly, there is, and it was those notes I use to get when I was working with the Dresden Dolls and still infrequently do, the ones that said, in many more words, that because of me, they changed their life – and began to follow their own dreams. I know of at least two, right now, and I’ve been following them in silence, letting them find their own. I have offered what I could, perhaps becoming that old black man on a rural porch that I dreamed of being so long ago, offering pieces of riddles that would continue to answer themselves, over and over again as they grew through their lives. The old fool, that I am, who I am honored to be – for now.
Someday, I still hope to be nothing, no one, or a good example – the conquerer of dreams, leading others to theirs.
Until the ultimate silence, I don’t think I could ever be silent, as out of desperation I found writing – that was about seventh grade, no idea how old I was – I don’t know time.
I am the captain behind the curtain, the creator of my pain, the hunter of my dreams, and there is nothing else I could ever be. I have learned this through forty fucking years, perhaps more. I am only the best I can be each minute, I am only that guy that doesn;t have shit to say in conversation, but has worlds, dreams, and fountains of what he hopes could be swirling around in his mind as I try desperately to hold an inane conversation with some, just so that you might like me a little bit , to fit into these vapid surroundings – but I can’t.
I am only me, and I am everything more, nothing less. A rain dog searching for a way home. I pull the levers, turn the dials, create what people have called me in the past: an illusion, an apparition, a dream – I create myself, what I need to be to continue in a world that has lost it’s soul, to fight for a life that hinges on the beauty of each new day and the only true value I might have – to give someone else hope.
Oh, this may sound bitter, and I don’t deny that it is – but see what I’m saying through these words, and hear your own truth behind this curse. I say what I need to, try desperately to create the world I dream of, the final dream realized, and then I can go…
~ ~ ~
O brother, my cup is empty
And I haven’t got a penny
For to buy no more whiskey
I have to go home
Well I’ve been sliding down on rainbows
Well I’ve been swinging from the stars
Now this wretch in beggars clothing
Bangs his cup across the bars
Look, this cup of mine is empty!
Seems I’ve misplaced my desires
Seems I’m sweeping up the ashes
Of all my former fires
So brother, be a brother
And fill this tiny cup of mine
And please, sir, make it whiskey
For I have no head for wine
O brother, my cup is empty
And I haven’t got a penny
For to buy no more whiskey
I have to go home
I counted up my blessings
And counted only one
One tiny little blessing
And now that blessings gone
So buy me one more drink, my brother
Then I’m taking to the road
Yes, I’m taking to the rain
I’m taking to the snow
O my friend, my only brother
Do not let the party grieve
So throw a dollar onto the bar
Now kiss my ass and leave…
~ Nick Cave, excerpt from “Brother, My cup is empty.”
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