A Note and a Warning

This here post is an exercise.

I want to be a writer. I mean - A Writer. There's a difference.

See, anyone can write. Every monkey and his cousin has a blog or a tumblr or fancies their Facebook status update as concise, social decelerations. There is Twitter which is for those that are trigger happy with quickly constructed, oblique aphorisms, whilst hundreds of literary journal take submissions from those who take the time edit and re-edit. People all over the world, in all languages, write every day and they all do it for different reasons.

My reason? As I said, I want to be A Writer.

Laundry

“If all I had left was ten dollars, I’d spend it all on a service laundry.”



Some of my most intimate memories involve Laundry. In fact, many of them do. This sounds like an odd declaration – even in the context of other declarations made on this blog – so let me explain a little:

To you, the word 'intimate' may suggest moments shared between people. Moments of closeness experienced, understood and remembered only by them. To me, in this instance, 'intimate' means private, alone, quiet and personal. Laundry means all of this in my memories.

Of Rain

I miss the rain. I know it rained today, but that wasn't what I wanted - what I miss.

It was heavy for a while out there. I stood inside a street-level, glass-wrapped lobby off Union Square and watched it. Yeah it was heavy and it was hard. For a while, it scared away the oversized, primary-coloured golf umbrellas. You know you're dealing with something above a patter when the rain is too much for even those over-protected folk to withstand. I felt secure, like a hedge-funder with a full bank acccount in a shrinking cash economy. I felt above and safe and beyond the deluge. And not only because I was dry and inside, but because I was dry and inside a cinema. Not any cinema, but one I have used before, last time I'd lived here. One with many screens over two levels and a stairway connecting them that you can climb or descend unsupervised and flow on for free from movie to movie. You can keep that Movie Marathon going from morning to midnight if you know how to read the program right. And I can read that shit better than Bukowski could read a formguide down at the track.

Of Spray Paint, Cake and Change

So, there is this wall down on Fairfax. It runs along the side of a vacant lot. It is covered in various, unrelated, spray-painted images and letterings, that make up one whole body of work. The list of folk responsible for these individual pieces, reads like a who's who of local and international Street Artists.

The other day 'they' partially buffed that wall. There is a whole story to who 'they' are and what 'they' did and what may now happen to 'they'. It's actually quite interesting. But that's not the story I wanna tell today. So I won't. It's really just an introduction to the one I do wanna tell.

Sushi and Rain

Why aren't there more Blues songs about Sushi and Rain?

In fact, I don't know of any at all. Not even one. But there should be. Several. There should be several songs about Sushi and Rain. There are Blues songs about The Rain. Plenty. Either Rain on it's own or in combination with other items or things. But not with Sushi. And there should be songs about Sushi and Rain.

Drink?

I wanna drink more alcohol.

I do. Lots more.

I wanna grab at whole bottles of Sailor Jerry and drain em straight down my throat. I wanna wake up with the taste of last night's bourbon, which I then wash it away with a fresh, ice cold beer. I wanna order two gin and tonics for appetizer and take a cloudy, sweet cider as my dessert. I wanna do shots of tequila with you behind the service bar. I wanna sneak swigs of wine at the back of the classroom. I wanna impress you with Amaro and Lillet Blanc and then depress you with warm, supermarket brand vodka and cooking port. I wanna drink more alcohol.

When I Was King For A Day

Playground space was always at a premium in my younger days. The private school I went to was not one of those affluent, serene, tie and blazer scenes laid out over a sweeping campus grounds. Ours was more so a small, grungy, religious collective school, set around an open, crumbling ash-felt rectangle. A high, cyclone fence separated the couple of less-than-regulation size basketball courts on one side from a nondescript square on the other that would be used for outdoor school assemblies and epic cricket matches. At the bottom of this, was a raised square, which was laid with tan-bark and comparable in size to a 7 spot carpark. Sitting in the middle of this was a wooden jungle gym, complete with a swing, two slides, monkey bars and a swinging, wood slat bridge.

For the several years prior to adolescence, whilst we were not senior enough to fight off our elders for the use of the basketball courts, this was the recess area we made ours. And there was just one game we played on it, at both morning and afternoon recess, everyday – King.

Took. Take. Tired.

At times, I've heard and over-heard people talk about how hard it is for them to 'get' certain artists. Modernism did that. Still does. Sure, before Modernism there was art that made you stop and scratch at you head, but it was Modernism that really went at this ethos hard.

Life can sometimes be hard to get. Most of the time sometimes. Even when it does make sense, the next day you can awake confused by that which was so crystal yesterday. Or you can come home from your jog, aware of that which you didn't 'get', when you left the house in the early morning. 'Getting' anything on this planet is relative – relative to when and if you are 'getting' it or not. Somewhere around the beginning of the 1900's, artists began to feel the need to transcribe and retell this relativity.

For Bukowski, Waits and Bogey

on these here streets

once walked

once stumbled drunk

those whom i now turn to

on these here streets

in tousled bed sheets

they wrote of what they believed in

of what did not believe in them

and i believe in what was left as i hide

in tousled bed sheets

black and white density

spoken in deep tone and true

repeated so oft it is now purest lore

and i whisper them to myself in this

black and white density

the blues from back east

faded to the music of my now

which tastes stronger because of shared proximity

however still haunts and hangs the smell of

the blues from back east

in this here city of sun

that shone firm upon 

rendering many golden through the ages

yet still lonely dawn is so damn cold

in this here city of sun

Leave Room For The Gaps

So, I went to The Met to say Good-Bye;
Not the Final Good-Bye, but to begin a sort of 'Long Good-Bye';

I am leaving.

Soon.

I think.

I hope.

And I must pay tribute to the tribute I will leave behind;

I will return.

Soon.

I think.

I hope.

You, who's eyes look away as much as they look towards;

You, who rolled carpet;

You, who will not follow, for fear of leading;

and

They, who owe me for what they no longer have;

Will come with me for "as if it was a purse" it is ready for travel;

And I;

As I do;

Live with the over-the-shoulder-flicked: "No Good-Byes!".

But

That which is unchanging - if not for mood of light;

That which enters from the 'six inches in front of your face';

And stays visual  not animate;

That, we say Good-Bye to.

If I choose;

And I do.

Look, the bottom line is, that the Dribble above probably wont make that much sense. To you. It does to me, cause I know The Key to unlocking it's meaning. I will read it back knowing that it is Fiction simply spiced with Reality. You, who does not make sense of it, will ignore the Fiction, attach your procedure of Logic to the Reality part - because it is familiar to you - and will not be able to see the forest for the trees.

Too bad.

For if you could understand it like I, you would see it for the Dribble it is.....

All therapy lies in the process - the complete process - so the Subway ride uptown is where it begins for me. Underground trains and I have had a fractious relationship over the years, but they have always brought me upon another story and this forgives all their misdeeds. One pops back above-ground few blocks east of The Park and must walk past toy stores, street vendors, the elderly in Parisian Brown fur and the hotel job I never did take. This utility of traverse is perhaps best endowed with purpose and if one uses the time it consumes to select the appropriate album on the iPod to soundtrack the visit itself, such purpose will be achieved. Cross 5th and gallop up those off-grey steps, suggest your own 'Suggested Admission' and in you go.

Time/Place

There's a time and a place for everything.

Conversely, everything has it's own time and place.

This is what I believe. I'm not saying that these above statements are The Gospel to be taken in and under as such by one and all. No, I am not. These statements have, over the course of time, become the faith of my days and of the ones that are to follow. Occasionally, this faith will run up and against those of differing faiths and it is always, at the very least, a discord of unease that will ensue. Those such opponents may be friends living in studios or strangers hiding in iPods on trains or ex's at the beer taps or leaders written in print or lovers who disclose via street-art or hopelessly inefficient servers at a bagel shop (just because your lifelong dream of finding happiness in the warm satisfaction of a growing career with The Sanitation Department has failed, there's no need to stunt the flow of my morning by taking umbrage with the fact that people in a bagel shop just want their fucking bagels quickly and efficiently. The bagel shop IS the time and the place for bagels....).

In certain circumstances, I am not at ease with this unease - however it chooses to manifest. Mostly, I couldn't give two shits about the wider public's consciousness and expressions, but there are certain people, who, for varied reasons, have a place in my heart and their 'upset' makes this here boy 'upset'. It is a difficult quandary to be in - caring generally is -  for, though I can become even desperate at times to placate and restabilise a loved one's 'upset', I simply cannot concede any ground whatsoever in the faith I began this piece with.

There is a time and a place for everything.

Bit of Turf

It's just easier for me to associate people with places. Not easier in the way that Memory Association Triggers work. More so, I find it easier to use the simple tag of a city or a country or a place, to wrap up and concisely state the emotional compartment of my heart and mind, that I may reside a particular individual in, or express the initial first judgment I made of their strength of character, or romanticise the wistful, longing, yet forgotten or lost connection I have or had with and for them, or even just describe the way they appear in their physical presentation to me.

Sorrow is Pleasure When You Want It Instead

Do you know what Sorrow is? Not pain, not depression, not misery, not sadness; not that feeling of not getting that job you really wanted; not the doubt that creeps in when you turn back from that corner you've forced yourself into, only to find that the room has cleared out completely and its just you left alone to face your aloneness; not the compression felt when happenstance runs against your best intentions and the ensuing weight of which pushes down on your tanned, but brittle shoulders; not the stranded emptiness left behind when the show you've been putting on, is shown to be just a show; not the cat running away; not your guitar-picking-fingers torn apart by a still full, shattered beer glass; not the rain, not the wind, not a storm, not the searing heat and definitely not just the clouds above.

Bring Me Release

In strange moments and at totally uncalled for circumstance and time, random memories of my youth, will dance across my consciousness. I'm not one of those that mentally suppresses a childhood passed. In the memories my younger days, lie quite the fair share of pain, shame and remorse, that I choose to not share with many - if any - but I never hide from myself. My younger days are mine and I hold onto them as proudly (and arrogantly) as I hold onto the man I am today. They are the truth and are therefore never avoided. However, considering how far beyond that fat little kid I've moved, I am understandably surprised when lessons learnt back then, finally, and for the first time at all, have application, considering the so very different context I find myself.

Breakfast of Champions

First let me start with this:


I never knew what this blog was supposed to be. I did, however, know what I didn't want it to be. I never wanted it to become a lyrical, yet accurate journal - a sort of document that documented my traverse across distance and space. Sure, there are stories from my days -my days of traverse- that make it up onto here, but my life and the dramas that pull me into it, need not be recorded. I live them and they pass. My life and my writing, whilst at times interwoven, are very much separate whirlpools and I wish to keep them that way.


This being said, there are times when one of these whirlpools spins out, over and upon the other. The past few weeks have been such a time. In fact, if I am true and honest (something  I very much like to avoid on this here page), the past few months have seen a steady increase of said swirling and distracting mass of water - the one that is Real Life. I would like to say that I am out the other end of this particular episode but, what I like and what is actual is not necessarily in perfect alignment here.


What I am trying to say, is that if my life outside this page, has unconsciously slipped onto it (and it has - not in the words and paragraphs you are thinking of now nor would be obvious to you, but it has still stained it nonetheless), I am sorry. I am. I am not so insecure that I am unable to raise my hand and admit to culpability. It may very well happen again, for I know not why I make so many of the same mistakes over and over again and when this does happen, once again, I will raise my hand in admission.


I want you to like the blog. I want you to read it. I want you to return to it. I want you to demand (as some of you have) that I return to it. And I know what I don't want it to be.




Ok, now on with the business of the day.